Digital Identity And AI Avatars: Dinis Guarda Interviews Tomer Zuker, VP Of Marketing At D-ID

In the latest episode of the Dinis Guarda YouTube Podcast, Tomer Zuker, VP Of Marketing At D-ID discusses how D-ID's AI avatars revolutionise business, digital identity, education, marketing, and accessibility while addressing ethical challenges and promoting creativity and innovation. The podcast is powered by Businessabc.net, Citiesabc.com, Wisdomia.ai, and Sportsabc.org.

Tomer Zuker is a marketing professional with over 23 years of experience in the technology industry. He serves as the Vice President of Marketing at D-ID, where he focuses on advancing Generative AI and driving digital transformation. Tomer has worked with leading global companies like Microsoft, IBM, and Amazon Web Services (AWS), as well as with innovative startups. He mentors startups, supports organisations such as Clear Giving, and promotes the use of technology for positive social impact. 

During the interview with Dinis Guarda, Tomer Zuker highlights how digital innovations enhance learning experiences, drive business efficiencies and open new opportunities for creativity and engagement:

“AI avatars can act as personal educational assistants, helping students with homework, guiding them through concepts, or even learning new languages. It’s like having a teacher who’s always available, tailored to each student’s pace and needs.

For businesses, the ability to create localised, personalised content at scale is a game-changer. Imagine addressing customers in their native language through a digital avatar that feels human and empathetic—it builds trust and engagement like nothing else.

The integration of AI into schools and businesses isn’t optional anymore—it’s essential. Countries and companies that fail to embrace these technologies risk being left behind in a world where digital fluency defines competitiveness."

D-ID: Redefining digital identity with AI Avatars

D-ID, a global leader in Generative AI, is transforming the way organisations engage with their audiences. Founded in 2017, the company specialises in creating hyper-realistic Digital Humans and interactive experiences using cutting-edge AI technology. With offices in New York, London, Singapore, and Tel Aviv, D-ID has gained worldwide recognition, including being named one of TIME’s Best Inventions of 2024. The platform has generated over 250 million videos, showcasing its growing influence in the industry.

Tomer Zuker explains the origin and innovations at D-ID:

"D-ID stands for ‘de-identification.’ The company started in 2017 as a cybersecurity firm, focusing on changing features in faces on images to stop AI tools from stealing identities.

In 2020, we shifted focus and started using the same technology to animate images. We turned still images into talking avatars, creating something completely new."

Tomer also talked about the capabilities of the avatars and advancements in video technology at D-ID:

"Our avatars can speak in 120 languages with perfect lip sync. Users can upload their own images, write scripts, clone their voices, or even create fictional avatars like superheroes.

It’s not just image-to-video anymore. We now offer video-to-video. You can train a model on a short video of yourself, and the avatar will look and sound like you, speaking exactly what you want in over 120 languages.

Video is one of the most engaging forms of content, but it’s costly and time-consuming to produce. Our technology helps businesses make high-quality videos faster and at a fraction of the cost. With our translation tool, you can take a video and convert it into 30 languages in just two minutes. This allows creators to reach global audiences without reshooting or adding subtitles.

Our video campaign tool lets businesses create personalised videos at scale. For instance, you could send a custom video to 100,000 customers in minutes, which was impossible before.

We’ve developed D-ID agents—interactive avatars that can hold real-time conversations. You can train them on specific data and embed them on websites, apps, or even devices like smart TVs or ATMs."

AI avatars for business, education, and support

Tomer Zuker discusses the transformative potential of AI avatars developed by D-ID, highlighting how they are revolutionising industries like learning and development, marketing, and customer experience:

"Generative AI is lowering the bar and helping the masses benefit from the power of AI to generate content. Video, text, image, sound, music, design, and even code can now be created with AI—it’s really endless.

We are witnessing adoption by businesses and enterprises, moving beyond the hype. It’s not just individuals but entire departments and cross-organisation use cases adopting AI for real benefits.

L&D departments create a lot of content for global workforces. They need frequent, engaging, personalised, and localised materials. Generative AI is helping them achieve this efficiently.

Marketing teams are one of the most interesting users of Generative AI. They produce videos for product promotion, internal and external communication, but cost and complexity have been barriers. Our technology addresses this gap.

Many people feel embarrassed in front of the camera, which stops them from connecting with their audience. But with hyperrealistic avatars, they feel more comfortable—it’s like it’s not them, but their digital twin communicating the message.

Imagine a support department with thousands of avatars, each trained and able to converse in the customer’s local language. AI avatars make this possible, bridging skill shortages and language barriers to deliver an immediate and personalised experience.

We’ve created avatars to help people with disabilities, like those suffering from ALS, communicate and interact with their families, friends, and colleagues. It’s one of the most inspiring things D-ID does."

Ethics and innovation for AI Avatars

Tomer Zuker discusses D-ID's efforts to balance innovation and ethics in the development and application of AI-driven avatars:

"Ethical considerations are not just part of our marketing strategy—they are at the core of how we operate. AI and synthetic media offer incredible opportunities, but they can also introduce risks, and we feel a deep responsibility to ensure this technology is used ethically.

We start with transparency in every communication. We clearly explain how our technology works and the measures we have in place to protect digital identities and user privacy.

We have partnered with leading privacy experts to develop guidelines and codes of conduct. This ensures we stay ahead of potential risks while setting a high bar for ethical AI adoption across the industry.

It’s not just the responsibility of the vendor or manufacturer; we’re calling for regulation and clear boundaries. It’s also the responsibility of users and platforms to ensure ethical use of this technology.”

Talking about the measures to prevent misuse Tomer said:

"Any avatar created on our platform includes a watermark to indicate it’s synthetic media. If users attempt to generate avatars of famous figures, they’ll be blocked unless they can prove they have rights to the image.

We’re not afraid to take radical steps. We’ve shut down accounts that violated our terms of use and even blocked attempts to generate avatars of famous people unless rights were verified.

In one case, a famous person wanted to create their own avatar but was blocked. We had to verify their identity over a Zoom call and ensure they had the right to proceed.

If you want to clone your voice, you must provide a sample. We perform cross-checks to ensure everything complies with our ethical pledge."

The future of human interaction with AI Avatars

Tomer Zuker explores the evolving relationship between humans and AI avatars:

"These are very serious questions because it's almost like philosophical questions about us as human beings, you know, and once those AI avatars become more lifelike, even today, you can train them on your personality. Think about the possibilities within one year, two years, 10 years—it’s really hard even to imagine.

Our vision is around what we call NOI—Natural User Interface. It’s like the evolution of the graphical user interface (GUI). This is about the interaction between human beings and everything digital, and it will bring up a new form of relationship between people and technology.

We want these digital people to be more empathic. Think about the possibilities—an avatar that understands sentiment analysis and can mimic emotions. It could provide comfort to people, especially those suffering from loneliness, which is a significant disease that kills people.

There are so many lonely people in the world, and some of them can find comfort in speaking with an AI avatar. Even with previous generations of AI, like Siri or Cortana, people found ways to connect. These interactions can help people feel more confident and comfortable in the world."

Talking about the benefits of AI avatars Tomer said: 

"The benefits of this type of technology are too significant to ignore. It helps us digest information, ask questions, learn new languages, and create art. It’s mind-blowing, but there’s a trade-off—we need to find a balance between the benefits and the risks."

Tomer Zuker discusses D-ID’s commitment to nurturing vibrant communities of content creators and developers, providing platforms for creativity and innovation:

"We work with and develop two main communities. One of them is content creators, and we are doing a lot of activities with them. We really appreciate the way they unleash their creativity. Just recently, we ran a nice competition of creativity among the content creator community, which was fantastic.

The other community that we have is developers because we are an API company. There are already a few hundred thousand developers across the globe using our API to develop their own solutions with our models. We are trying to nurture and support those two communities."