Genies Is Powering The Visual Layer For LLMs
Aug 12, 2025
We have taken major steps toward our long-standing vision of a future where AI, gaming, and immersive technology converge and avatars serve as the connective layer powering the next wave of digital experiences. While the biggest AI players focus on building the smartest “brains,” we've spent the past 6 years building the body and soul - the visual layer for LLMs.
Because the brain is only half the equation. What’s missing, and what we’ve built, is the interface people emotionally connect to. Not just an intelligence engine, but a presence. A digital companion that isn’t confined to a chat window or productivity tool, but one that lives alongside us: expressive, personal, persistent.
With Genies’ AI companions, AI can look, move, speak, and behave in ways that feel alive. They’re fully customizable, emotionally intelligent, and game-ready, designed to react and evolve in real time based on how users interact with them. This isn’t just another feature layer. It’s a foundational infrastructure that unlocks what we believe will be the next wave of internet-native apps, built on AI companions and creator-driven worlds.
This belief has guided every product decision we’ve made, every tool we’ve built, and every framework we’ve released. In this deep-dive, we’ll walk through how it all comes together, from the mantras that ground our stack to the technical systems that make Genies a highly advanced avatar platform. This belief has also influenced the partnerships we’ve made like our recent news with Unity.
Our Foundational Mantras Have Never Altered
Two principles guide everything we’ve created:
ANYONE CAN CREATE ANYTHING.
EVERYTHING WORKS WITH EVERYTHING.
These aren’t just aspirational. They’re architectural. They inform how our avatars are generated, how they move, how they’re trained with personalities, and how they function across environments. They allow a creator to develop an anime-style game with their favorite IP, and for that same game to function seamlessly alongside someone else’s Pixar-style Party.
Everything we’ve built, from our avatar autogeneration system to our behavioral AI to our interoperability frameworks, ladders up to these two truths. It’s what unlocks a truly thriving UGC ecosystem.
AI Companions: The Visual Identity Layer For LLMs
Today’s LLMs are powerful, but often faceless. At Genies, we’re turning those voices into presence. AI companions that are fully rigged, emotionally expressive, and dynamically animated can move through the world with users, adapt over time, and create real emotional connection.
And because they’re game-ready by default, they can be dropped into different experiences, ready to play, react, and form bonds immediately.
What we’ve built to make our AI Companions a reality:
Avatar Autogeneration: Users can generate a stylized 3D avatar of themselves in seconds from a photo.
AIGC Avatar Creation: Text-to-avatar tools let users create any bipedal character, animal, human, mythical, stylized.
AI Persona Frameworks: Train avatars with voice, tone, memory, and behavioral style to make them unique.
Behavioral AI: Real-time reactions, facial gestures, emotes, and movement using camera input or gameplay context.
READ MORE HERE
These avatars don’t just react to input. They learn. They evolve. And they’re built to be companions in the truest sense.
We’re solving presence. If you want people to fall in love with AI personas, they need to be more than smart. They need to be something you can feel, connect with, and grow alongside.
Who Uses these AI Companions?
Everyday people – Your own AI-powered digital companion: someone to talk to, laugh with, learn from, and play with across digital experiences (more on this below).
Existing IP – Celebrities, athletes, or prominent IP characters brought to life as AI avatars that can interact with fans inside branded digital experiences (like our Party platforms). Developers and creators can leverage these IP-driven AI companions to create games and assets with their IP.
New IP – Created by developers and creators, AI companions can become the main characters in original lore and gameplay. Think: a new narrative franchise powered by a character that learns from and with its players.
Parties: The Future of Interactive AI Built With and Around IP (Major Place AI Companions Can Be Used)
We believe AI companions are not just features, they’re the heart of a new product category. Parties are fully customizable, UGC-driven social apps powered by AI companions and personalized gameplay. Think of them as the next generation of social gaming experiences, where users don’t just consume content, they play with it, shape it, and co-create it.
Each Party is powered by three core elements:
AI Avatars – Personalized AI companions and IP-based characters that users can engage with and build relationships over time.
User-Generated Content – A full suite of no-code tools, animation capture, and AIGC tooling lets anyone create fashion, props, games, and experiences.
Interoperability – A native framework ensures that all content, assets, and avatars work seamlessly across different styles, formats, and Party environments.
READ MORE HERE
The Genies Stack: Powering the Ecosystem
To support AI companions and Parties, we’ve built a vertically integrated, end-to-end stack:
For AI Avatar Creation:
Auto generation to automatically generate your 3D avatar through uploaded photos
AutoRigging to convert any 3D file into a game-ready avatar.
Avatar customization tools to further edit everything from skin tone to tattoos to body shape.
AI persona creation for personality traits, memory, tone, and expression.
For UGC Creation:
AIGC tools to generate assets like clothing, props, and avatars from text or image prompts.
DIY Fashion editors to customize textures, layers, accessories, and more.
Genies Camera to animate avatars using real-world motion via smartphone or video upload.
For Game Development:
Experience SDK to launch multiplayer experiences in Parties.
Avatar SDK to bring our AI avatar technology and editor into your own gameplay
Unity Editor integration (more on this below)
For Interoperability:
Wearable refitting and asset stylization to match any aesthetic.
Prop retargeting and animation remapping so all assets work with all avatars.
Native Avatar Framework to ensure performance across engines and platforms.
Genies Login so users can have a persistent identity and inventory across different platforms and experiences.
The Unity integration: bringing Genies tech stack to the world's largest developer community
Game developers today are under pressure to move faster without sacrificing their creative edge. Integrating Genies’ AI Companions and UGC tools into Unity helps them streamline development while unlocking creativity through rich, personalized games.
Our recent partnership with Unity brings the full power of the Genies platform directly into the hands of millions of developers worldwide. Through a deep integration with the Unity Editor, creators will have have access to our Avatar Framework and UGC toolset, making it easier than ever to design, rig, and deploy fully customizable, game-ready AI avatars. This includes AI-powered characters that can think, feel, and evolve in real time, as well as expressive behaviors, memory, and player-specific personality traits.
Whether you're building a social game, immersive world, or companion experience, you can personalize gameplay like never before, right inside the world’s leading real-time engine.
For developers, this means:
More efficient workflows through rapid creation of high quality, game-ready avatars and assets
Bring AI avatar systems straight into gameplay - whether for companion-driven games, AI NPCs, or persistent avatar narratives.
Drop in-game UGC creation tools right into your build
And for users, it means a future where AI companions don’t just talk, they live beside you, play with you, and grow with you. As AI companions become part of everyone's day-to-day, people will want a deeper experience where they can do things with them, not just talk to them.
IP: From Talent to Tools to New Games & Experiences (how we work major IP in gaming entertainment, Hollywood and more)
Genies is revolutionizing the way intellectual property (IP) works in the digital era. Our platform supports three distinct forms of IP, each contributing to a broader ecosystem of interaction and creation. First, established IP allows iconic brands to bring their beloved characters to life through interactive Smart Avatars. This offers fans a chance to engage with characters they know and love in entirely new ways, from personalized conversations to immersive experiences. Second, talent IP enables celebrities and creators to launch their own avatars, providing a new channel for fan engagement. This goes beyond traditional social media interaction by allowing fans to directly interact with digital representations of their favorite personalities. As we start to announce some of our first IP partners, developers and creators will unlock access to build games and assets around these IP as well.
Finally, any user is empowered to develop completely new IP through original characters, assets, and games via our self-serve AI avatar creation and UGC tools. This opens the door for anyone to be a creator, whether a student in a dorm room building their first character or an entrepreneur launching a digital brand. Users will be able to create, grow a fanbase, and even monetize their creations, all from the palm of their hand. This democratization of creation is the future we are building towards, and it’s one where everyone has the tools to be a creator in a digital-first world.
We believe the future of digital identity isn’t just about who you follow, it’s about what you can build. A student in their dorm room can create a character, build a fanbase, and monetize it, all from their phone. That’s the future we’re building.
Why This Matters Right Now
AI is reshaping how we connect with technology, and for Gen Z and Gen Alpha, it is becoming more than just a tool. It is a social presence. Our Smart Avatars are built for that future - emotionally intelligent companions designed to entertain, support, and grow with users, much like how people casually engage with TikTok or Instagram.
This shift is already happening. A recent study from Common Sense Media found that 72 percent of U.S. teens have used AI companions, and more than half use them regularly. Many say these chats feel just as satisfying, or even more so, than talking with real-life friends. They turn to AI for emotional support, conversation practice, and even romantic interactions. The emotional connection is real and deepening.
At the same time, platforms like Grok are capitalizing on the trend. Grok introduced character-based AI companions that quickly drove a major spike across the internet.
This is the new interface. A blend of identity, intelligence, and creativity. A persistent companion who’s not just useful, but emotional, visual, and alive.
And this is the future we’ve been building toward all along. Stay tuned for updates, and if you’re a developer eager to learn more about our tools, visit our tech page or apply for our beta access community.