Originally Posted In Comcast NBCUniversal LIFT Labs
Six-week immersive program featuring eight founders concludes with a Generative AI Summit
PHILADELPHIA – JUNE 27, 2023 – Today, Comcast NBCUniversal LIFT Labs announced that each of the eight startups participating in their Generative AI Accelerator secured pilots or proofs of concepts with Comcast, NBCUniversal, and/or Sky. The startups will formally conclude the program during a Generative AI Summit held tomorrow at the Comcast Technology Center in Philadelphia.
“Given the caliber of the startups selected for the LIFT Labs Accelerator, it’s no surprise that we have identified growth opportunities for each one of them,” said Sam Schwartz, Chief Business Development Officer, Comcast. “We are excited to continue learning from these innovative startup founders to deepen our understanding of the potential of emerging technologies such as generative AI.”
During the six-week accelerator, the founders worked side-by-side with teams at Comcast, NBCUniversal, and Sky to share insights and scope out projects that demonstrate the power and relevance of their technology to large enterprises. They also met with leaders at other corporations to understand how those organizations are leveraging generative AI, pitched to a curated group of venture capitalists investing in this category, and worked with experts in media training, enterprise sales, and marketing to hone their pitches and go-to-market strategies.
“This is the most immersive enterprise accelerator program we could have ever hoped for,” said Andrei Papancea, CEO and Founder of NLX. “By week two we had already started the procurement process and by half-way through the program we had built a pilot side-by-side with the business units. Our Comcast partners have been nothing short of amazing in helping us navigate the complexities of the organization, while somehow squeezing in lots of fun networking events with the rest of the cohort companies.”
The startups are addressing a range of use cases including customer experience, video analytics, and deep fake detection. Chosen from hundreds of applicants from over twenty countries, the companies were identified for their relevance to Comcast NBCUniversal, quality of the founding team, and experience working with other major enterprises. Following the program the companies will continue working with Comcast NBCUniversal to execute their pilots and explore evolving them into long-term partnerships.
The Comcast NBCUniversal LIFT Labs Accelerator is hyper-focused on business development opportunities for startups at a variety of stages selling to enterprises. The program is led by Laura Plunkett and Luke Butler, Executive Directors of Startup Engagement at Comcast NBCUniversal, in partnership with VentureFuel – an organization that helps corporations around the world innovate through startup collaborations. Since LIFT Labs launched its first accelerator in 2018, 84% of the portfolio companies have landed a proof of concept, pilot, or commercial deal with Comcast NBCUniversal.
Meet the class of the Comcast NBCUniversal LIFT Labs Accelerator: Generative AI:
Charisma is a technology that helps creatives develop interactive narratives. It enables audiences to be cast inside experiences and speak to characters to hyper-personalize the narratives to each individual in real-time. Charisma is working with a number of different parts of the business, including Sky and Universal Destinations and Experiences, to bring characters to life through interactive experiences.
Founders: Guy Gadney & Annette Parry | Oxford, UK
Founders: Guy Gadney & Annette Parry | Oxford, UK
Coactive brings structure to organizations’ unstructured image and video data by automatically analyzing at scale to understand what’s inside the content and make it searchable. Coactive is working with Comcast to leverage its video analysis capability to create personalized content for viewers.
Founders: Cody Coleman & William A. Gaviria Rojas | San Jose, CA
Founders: Cody Coleman & William A. Gaviria Rojas | San Jose, CA
Inworld is a platform that enables developers and creators to build AI-driven virtual characters and deploy them into their immersive experiences, such as games, virtual worlds, interactive content, and training. Inworld is working with Comcast NBCUniversal, Sky, and other business units on proofs of concept that leverage their technology to create interactive, animated characters and personalized experiences for sports.
Founders: Ilya Gelfenbeyn & Michael Ermolenko | Mountain View, CA
Founders: Ilya Gelfenbeyn & Michael Ermolenko | Mountain View, CA
Monterey AI accelerates product development by synthesizing and analyzing unstructured data from multiple sources, including user feedback, support tickets, social media mentions, and call logs, enriched by business and behavioral metrics. Monterey is working with a number of teams at Comcast to bring scalable and actionable product analytics solutions company-wide.
Founders: Chun Jiang & Ben Kramer | Dublin, CA
Founders: Chun Jiang & Ben Kramer | Dublin, CA
NLX is a conversational AI platform built for enterprises enabling automated, measurable, and highly scalable customer experiences across channels. Comcast’s Customer Experience team is piloting NLX’s technology to transform interactive communications with customers across a range of platforms.
Founders: Andrei Papancea, Vlad Papancea, & Peter Szerzo | New York City, NY
Founders: Andrei Papancea, Vlad Papancea, & Peter Szerzo | New York City, NY
Reality Defender’s proprietary deepfake and AI-generated content detection help enterprises, governments, and platforms prevent associated risks across audio, video, images, and text. They are piloting their technology with NBCUniversal, including exploring solutions to secure outbound NBCUniversal content in the public space.
Founders: Ben Colman, Ali Shahriyari, & Gaurav Bharaj | New York City, NY
Founders: Ben Colman, Ali Shahriyari, & Gaurav Bharaj | New York City, NY
Rephrase.ai leverages generative AI to create lifelike digital avatars, making video creation as simple as writing text. With their personalization software, businesses can connect with customers on a one-on-one level by delivering personalized videos at scale for sales, marketing, and customer education purposes. Comcast’s Customer Experience team is collaborating with Rephrase.ai on a pilot project that utilizes their technology to create personalized customer education videos.
Founders: Ashray Malhotra, Shivam Mangla, & Nisheeth Lahoti | San Francisco, CA
Founders: Ashray Malhotra, Shivam Mangla, & Nisheeth Lahoti | San Francisco, CA
Wscripted’s goal is to expedite producers’ and studios’ discovery of diverse writers and content, thereby expanding opportunities for those writers. They are developing a technology that can quickly summarize narratives and are exploring opportunities to work with NBCUniversal to understand how a tool like this can potentially be helpful in their review of writers’ materials.
Founders: Ellie Jamen & Marine Haziza | New York City, NY
Founders: Ellie Jamen & Marine Haziza | New York City, NY
About Comcast Corporation
Comcast Corporation (Nasdaq: CMCSA) is a global media and technology company. From the connectivity and platforms we provide, to the content and experiences we create, our businesses reach hundreds of millions of customers, viewers, and guests worldwide. We deliver world-class broadband, wireless, and video through Xfinity, Comcast Business, and Sky; produce, distribute, and stream leading entertainment, sports, and news through brands including NBC, Telemundo, Universal, Peacock, and Sky; and bring incredible theme parks and attractions to life through Universal Destinations & Experiences. Visit www.comcastcorporation.com for more information.
Comcast Corporation (Nasdaq: CMCSA) is a global media and technology company. From the connectivity and platforms we provide, to the content and experiences we create, our businesses reach hundreds of millions of customers, viewers, and guests worldwide. We deliver world-class broadband, wireless, and video through Xfinity, Comcast Business, and Sky; produce, distribute, and stream leading entertainment, sports, and news through brands including NBC, Telemundo, Universal, Peacock, and Sky; and bring incredible theme parks and attractions to life through Universal Destinations & Experiences. Visit www.comcastcorporation.com for more information.