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VersusGame has announced the launch of VersusLM, an AI tech that enables it to create prediction games for just about any media.
The new AI system is directly integrated with Los Angeles-based VersusGame’s flagship product, MiniGames, which will allow VersusGame customers and partners to generate contextually relevant content from any subject, topic, editorial, or media format without any additional workload, said John Vitti, CEO of VersusGame, in an interview with GamesBeat.
“When was the last time you’re watching a TV show and you’re like, ‘This is going to happen.’ And then you are rewarded for it?” Vitti said. “We’re having these conversations in our heads or with friends. So we built our thing around your habit, and we embed it into our partner sites, apps, TV shows and podcasts. We think it’s groundbreaking. And it’s easy. Different companies can leverage our AI.”
VersusGame lets users make predictions as a way of engaging with content.
The tech, for which VersusGame has applied for patent protection, will evolve the existing and popular VersusGame content creation platform into a performance-driven meta-content automation platform, where the company takes someone else’s content and deepens the fandom around it.
The “VersusLM AI constellation” applies generative AI to derive context and generate a layered output that includes the core elements of the VersusGame content format – a video or an animated sequence explaining the topic (a brief synopsis) with a corresponding future event state expressed with a question (the prediction game). It lets you make a prediction that will unfold shortly.
And the goal is to get you to interact frequently at a low cost as the prediction outcomes will keep pulling you back into the content.
The new AI-powered content creation will provide benefits beyond revenue generation, ultimately leading to increased brand loyalty and meaningful audience retention, Vitti said.
The network of influencers, celebrities, and corporate brands can generate hundreds of pieces of interactive content per day about trending topics. With the addition of the new system, the system can scale from generating tens of thousands of unique games per day and reach near-limitless content generation.
“This is a game-changer for companies looking to line up with and monetize their user’s intent at scale,” said Vitti. “By creating a system with no human dependency, companies can increase engagement and revenue while optimizing their ad revenue. We’re excited to offer this technology to our partners, and we look forward to seeing the impact it will have on their businesses.”
The VersusLM AI generates the content from scratch by scanning the host site of the partner and compiling a suitable set of interactive questions between the formats of prediction, opinion to trivia-based games that exclusively focus on the context of the host site running the VersusGame embedded product, MiniGames. It is exactly the relevancy and the highly contextual format that drives the massive increase in engagement, Vitti said
The AI constellation consists of several layers of neural networks working together to generate the various elements of the VersusLM capabilities. The system can interface with ChatGPT or Bart for additional considerations. Partners include Microsoft, NFL, UsaToday, UFC, ABC, Lionsgate and others, where the new AI content format is integrated across the networks.
This gives the company access to a billion users, Vitti said, and it has grown 3,000% to more than 311 million monthly impressions since February.
VersusGame can prompt you to make a prediction.
“VersusGame teamed up with Microsoft Rewards to create a powerhouse of interactive content, taking
advantage of Bing Search while letting users generate Microsoft Rewards points in a new engaging way.
We expect this format to find its way into other Microsoft products and services”, said Alexi Tariah,
Microsoft Rewards Product Manager, in a statement. “VersusGame can also take advantage of the
Microsoft platform offerings like Azure and ChatGPT integrations to further augment their technology as
they expand.”
VersusGame is rolling out the new technology and associated services across partners that make up the VersusGame Network producing content for the Versus Interactive Content Exchange (ICE).
VersusGame started out by targeting consumers with prediction games. But it transitioned a couple of years ago to business to business (B2B). It teamed up with big companies like Microsoft to help them acquired and engage more users by giving them a reason to keep coming back. Users themselves create more content by making the predictions.
“We line up with your intent and your relationships with the concept, which is why one of the reasons why” retention is so high, Vitti said.
The company is using AI to make the results better as well, and its prediction results help it understand things that are going to happen better than a lot of other technologies, Vitti said.
VersusGame recently raised $25 million, and it has 24 people.
“It’s fun to see all these different applications,” Vitti said. “It can help out games. It can help out TV shows, movies, websites, apps and more.”
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