D-ID announced today its acquisition of simpleshow, a leader in AI-based video creation, adding a successful global go-to-market arm to its hyper-realistic interactive visual AI agents. The market for these “digital humans” is estimated to reach $50.26 billion in 2025, growing 48% year-over-year. Visual, interactive AI is rapidly transforming internal and external corporate communications, and the new D-ID aims to provide the new user interface or UI for the AI era.
Over the last 15 years, simpleshow has helped more than 1,500 corporate clients in 70 countries simplify complex messages with AI-based explainer videos. CEO Karsten Boehrs told me simpleshow started working with D-ID a few months ago and immediately found out that “one plus one equals three.” It was “cool to see the same culture as ours,” because “culture can eat any strategy,” observes Boehrs.
“We have the best tech out there for enterprise interactive avatars, but there’s going to be more competition,” says Gil Perry, co-founder and CEO of D-ID. “Our challenge is to reach the market fast.” The acquisition of simpleshow provides not only a global customer base but one with high customer satisfaction and retention. Boehrs reports that the top 100 clients have worked with simpleshow, on average, for more than 10 years.
D-ID and simpleshow have tested their combined solution with a sample of 20 simpleshow customers, identifying numerous use cases and corporate needs that they can successfully address. The solution is scalable, multilingual, secure, and easy to integrate into existing workflows. To start with, they will focus on employee training and on sales and marketing, specifically on generating leads. In both cases, their visual avatars cum autonomous agents are available 24/7, answering employees’ questions, even role-playing, or presenting a company’s products and services to potential customers at their convenience.
Both companies have emphasized their commitment to security and ethics, a crucial consideration for enterprise customers. Because of D-ID’s roots in privacy protection, “We understood that we could have the mission of driving this landscape towards a positive goal, to make sure this AI will be used for good,” Perry told me in a previous interview.
In addition, D-ID’s partnership with Microsoft will no doubt continue to open enterprise doors, supported by the scale and security of the Azure cloud. Microsoft itself is an example of a proven use case, with a Microsoft marketing team reporting a 21.5% increase in conversion rate on Azure.com with a custom agent designed to assist buyers.
The experience D-ID and simpleshow have gained should help them in an increasingly competitive market, attracting many startups, some from unexpected quarters. For example, AlphaFin, developer of an AI agent “helping businesses generate video and audio content, with the ability to clone users’ voice and likeness,” is based in Hangzhou, China’s emerging answer to Silicon Valley, known for its “Six Little Dragons,” an informal cohort of six leading AI-related technology companies.
The combined knowledge of the corporate mindset and expertise in guiding business executives in the use of new technologies, no doubt, will help the new D-ID in defining the new face of enterprise AI.
