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Affectiva
Company typePrivate
Industrysoftware, artificial intelligence
FoundedMassachusetts, United States (2009 (2009))[1][2]
FoundersRana el Kaliouby, Ph.D.[2][3] (CEO & Co-founder)
Rosalind W. Picard, Sc.D.[2][3] (Co-founder)
FateAcquired by SmartEye
Headquarters
Boston, Massachusetts
,
United States[4][5]
Number of locations
Boston, Massachusetts and Cairo, Egypt
ProductsAffectiva Automotive AI,[6] Affectiva Media Analytics[7]
ServicesEmotion AI[8]
Total equity(venture capital) $53 million[9]
Number of employees
100-150[10]
Websiteaffectiva.com

Affectiva is a software development company that created artificial intelligence. In 2021, the company was acquired by SmartEye. The company claimed its AI understood human emotions, cognitive states, activities and the objects people use, by analyzing facial and vocal expressions.[11] The offshoot of MIT Media Lab,[12] Affectiva created a new technological category of Artificial Emotional Intelligence, namely, Emotion AI.[13]

History

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Affectiva was co-founded by Rana el Kaliouby, Ph.D., who became chief executive officer as of May 25, 2016,[14] and Rosalind W. Picard, Sc.D., who worked as chairman and Chief Scientist until 2013. Both of Affectiva's early products grew out of collaborative research at the MIT's Media Lab to help people on the autism spectrum.[15]

Affectiva was acquired for a mostly-stock deal of $73.5m by Swedish SmartEye, a former competitor.[16]

Technology

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The company has expanded its Emotion AI technology to detect more than facial expressions, reactions and emotions. Affectiva's software detects complex and nuanced emotions, cognitive states, such as drowsiness and distraction, certain activities and the objects people use. It does that by analyzing the human face, vocal intonations and body posture.

Affectiva's AI is built with deep learning, computer vision, and large amounts of data that has been collected in real-world scenarios.[17] The AI uses an optical sensor like a webcam or smartphone camera to identify a human face in real-time.[17] Then, computer vision algorithms identify key features on the face, which are analyzed by deep learning algorithms to classify facial expressions. These facial expressions are then mapped back to emotions. One journal paper found the Affectiva iMotions Facial Expression Analysis Software results are comparable to results using facial Electromyography.[18] Affectiva also uses computer vision to detect objects like a cellphone[19] and car seat,[20] as well as body key points, which track body joints to determine movement and location.[21]

Affectiva has collected massive amounts of data that are used to train and test the company's deep learning algorithms, and provide insight into human emotional reactions and engagement. The company has analyzed more than 10 million face videos from 90 countries, making it one of the largest data repositories of its kind.[22] Affectiva has also collected more than 19,000 hours of automotive in-cabin data from 4,000 unique individuals.[23] This automotive data is used to adapt its algorithms to varying camera angles, lighting and other environmental conditions in a vehicle.

Applications

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Affectiva's AI had many applications, but the company's primary focus is on Media Analytics.[24] Other uses of Affectiva's AI includes applications in automotive,[25] healthcare[26][27] and mental health,[28] robotics,[29] conversational interfaces,[30] education,[31][32] gaming,[33][34] and more.

Media Analytics

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Affectiva's technology was first deployed in media analytics, for market research purposes. The company had since then tested more than 53,000 ads in 90 countries.[35] Brands, advertising agencies and insights firms used the company's Emotion AI to measure the unfiltered and unbiased emotional responses consumers have when viewing video ads and movie trailers.[36] These insights helped improve brand and media content, and predict key metrics in advertising such as sales lift, purchase intent and virality.[37][28] Affectiva's technology was also used in qualitative research.[38]

Affectiva had partnered with leading insights firms such as Kantar, LRW, Added Value and Unruly.[39][40] Through these collaborations, 28 percent of the Fortune Global 500 companies, and 70 percent of the world's largest advertisers, used Affectiva's Emotion AI.[35]

On September 5, 2019, Affectiva announced the appointment of Graham Page, a seasoned Kantar executive, as Global Managing Director of Media Analytics to expand on the company's existing footprint in the media analytics space.[41]

Automotive

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On March 21, 2018, Affectiva launched Affectiva Automotive AI, the first multi-modal in-cabin sensing solution[buzzword] to understand what is happening with people in a vehicle.[25] It used cameras in the car to measure in real time, the state of the driver, the state of the occupants and the state of the vehicle interior (i.e. cabin). This insight helped car manufacturers, fleet management companies and rideshare providers improve road safety and build better driver monitoring systems, by understanding dangerous driver behavior such as drowsiness, distraction and anger.[42] It was also used to create more comfortable and enjoyable transportation experiences, by understanding how passengers react to the environment, such as content they can consume in the back of the car.[24]

In addition to understanding driver and occupant emotional and cognitive states, Affectiva Automotive AI could also detect contextual cabin information such as the number of passengers, where they are sitting and if an object is present.

Affectiva worked with a number of leading car manufacturers and transportation technology companies, including Aptiv,[43] Cerence,[44] Hyundai Kia,[45] Faurecia,[46] Porsche,[47] BMW,[48] GreenRoad Technologies,[49] and Veoneer.[50]  

Acquisition

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In June 2021 Smart Eye acquired Affectiva.[51]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ Bosker, Bianca (December 24, 2012). "Affectiva's Emotion Recognition Tech: When Machines Know What You're Feeling". The Huffington Post. Retrieved February 3, 2013.
  2. ^ a b c Kerstetter, Jim (February 2, 2013). "Building better Super Bowl ads by watching you watch them". CNET. Retrieved February 3, 2013.
  3. ^ a b "Meet Our Team". Affectiva. Archived from the original on February 3, 2013. Retrieved February 3, 2013.
  4. ^ "Contact us". Affectiva. Archived from the original on January 17, 2013. Retrieved February 3, 2013.
  5. ^ Girard, Kim (January 29, 2013). "Creating the Perfect Super Bowl Ad". Forbes. Retrieved February 3, 2013.
  6. ^ "Automotive AI". Affectiva. Retrieved August 14, 2020.
  7. ^ "Media Analytics". Affectiva. Archived from the original on August 3, 2020. Retrieved August 14, 2020.
  8. ^ "Emotion AI". Forbes. Retrieved August 14, 2020.
  9. ^ Affectiva Raises $26 Million to Fast-Track Human Perception AI in Automotive and Conversational Interfaces BusinessWire, April 11, 2019, Retrieved August 14, 2020.
  10. ^ Company profile, Glassdoor.com, February 13, 2015, Retrieved May 17, 2017
  11. ^ "New Affectiva cloud API helps machines understand emotions in human speech". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2020-11-20.
  12. ^ Khatchadourian, Raffi. "We Know How You Feel". The New Yorker. Retrieved 2020-11-20.
  13. ^ Press, Gil. "Emerging Artificial Intelligence (AI) Leaders: Rana el Kaliouby, Affectiva". Forbes. Retrieved 2020-11-20.
  14. ^ Affectiva. "Emotion AI Leader Affectiva Announces $14 Million in Growth Capital". www.prnewswire.com (Press release). Retrieved 2020-12-17.
  15. ^ Press, Gil. "Emerging Artificial Intelligence (AI) Leaders: Rana el Kaliouby, Affectiva". Forbes. Retrieved 2020-12-17.
  16. ^ Korosec, Kirsten (2021-05-25). "Emotion-detection software startup Affectiva acquired for $73.5M". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2023-08-22.
  17. ^ a b "How emotion-tracking A.I. will change computing as we know it". www.digitaltrends.com. 18 April 2019. Retrieved 2020-12-04.
  18. ^ Kulke, Louisa; Feyerabend, Dennis; Schacht, Annekathrin (2020). "A Comparison of the Affectiva iMotions Facial Expression Analysis Software With EMG for Identifying Facial Expressions of Emotion". Frontiers in Psychology. 11: 329. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00329. ISSN 1664-1078. PMC 7058682. PMID 32184749.
  19. ^ "Rana el Kaliouby on LinkedIn: #automotive #technology #ai". www.linkedin.com. Retrieved 2020-12-04.
  20. ^ "Rana el Kaliouby on LinkedIn: #automotive #technology #ai". www.linkedin.com. Retrieved 2020-12-04.
  21. ^ "Affectiva Automotive AI: In-Cabin Sensing that transforms road safety and the mobility experience". Youtube.
  22. ^ "Research Shows Advertising is Having a More Emotional Impact on Consumers, But Not All Advertisers Are Using Emotions Effectively". www.businesswire.com. 2020-10-27. Retrieved 2020-12-04.
  23. ^ Affectiva. "Affectiva Automotive AI". go.affectiva.com. Retrieved 2020-12-04.
  24. ^ a b Team, Insights. "Forbes Insights: Designing AI That Knows How You Feel". Forbes. Retrieved 2020-12-11.
  25. ^ a b "Affectiva Launches Multi-Modal Automotive In-Cabin AI to Improve Road Safety and Accelerate Autonomy". www.businesswire.com. 2018-03-21. Retrieved 2020-12-11.
  26. ^ McManus, Ashley. "SDK on the Spot: FacePrint Emotion Recognition Program Detects Early Parkinson's Disease Symptoms". blog.affectiva.com. Retrieved 2020-12-11.
  27. ^ "AI Reads Human Emotions. Should it?". MIT Technology Review. Retrieved 2020-12-11.
  28. ^ a b "How emotion-tracking A.I. will change computing as we know it". Digital Trends. 2019-04-18. Retrieved 2020-12-11.
  29. ^ "Softbank Robotics enhances Pepper the robot's emotional intelligence". VentureBeat. 2018-08-28. Retrieved 2020-12-11.
  30. ^ McManus, Ashley. "Emotion AI for Chat Bots: The Next Wave of Artificial Intelligence". blog.affectiva.com. Retrieved 2020-12-11.
  31. ^ "Emotion-Gauging Startup's Learning Apps See if You're Bored". www.digitaltrends.com. 13 December 2016. Retrieved 2020-12-11.
  32. ^ Kaliouby, Rana el (2020-06-15). "Emotionally aware technology could help us beat Zoom fatigue". Fast Company. Retrieved 2020-12-11.
  33. ^ Murnane, Kevin. "Gaming: 'Nevermind' Reads Your Mind And Adapts To Your Emotions". Forbes. Retrieved 2020-12-11.
  34. ^ "Affectiva Releases Emotion Artificial Intelligence Plug-In for Unity". www.businesswire.com. 2016-10-17. Retrieved 2020-12-11.
  35. ^ a b "Research Shows Advertising is Having a More Emotional Impact on Consumers, But Not All Advertisers Are Using Emotions Effectively". www.businesswire.com. 2020-10-27. Retrieved 2020-12-11.
  36. ^ Affectiva. "Movie Trailers and Emotion: The Full Story". blog.affectiva.com. Retrieved 2020-12-11.
  37. ^ Affectiva. "Affectiva Media Analytics". go.affectiva.com. Retrieved 2020-12-11.
  38. ^ Affectiva. "The Emotion Behind Your Conversation: Transforming the Online Qual Experience". blog.affectiva.com. Retrieved 2020-12-11.
  39. ^ Affectiva. "Download: Kantar Webinar on Emotions in Advertising". go.affectiva.com. Retrieved 2020-12-11.
  40. ^ McManus, Ashley. "Balancing Long-Term Brand Effects and Short-Term Activation with Unruly". blog.affectiva.com. Retrieved 2020-12-11.
  41. ^ "Affectiva Appoints Graham Page as New Global Managing Director of Media Analytics". www.businesswire.com. 2019-09-05. Retrieved 2020-12-11.
  42. ^ Quain, John R. (2019-03-28). "Eyes on the Road! (Your Car Is Watching) (Published 2019)". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2020-12-11.
  43. ^ PLC, Aptiv. "Aptiv Partners with Affectiva to Enable the Next Generation Vehicle Experience". www.prnewswire.com (Press release). Retrieved 2020-12-11.
  44. ^ "Affectiva and Nuance to Bring Emotional Intelligence to AI-Powered Automotive Assistants". Nuance Communications. Retrieved 2020-12-11.
  45. ^ America, Kia Motors. "Kia looks to post-autonomous driving era at CES 2019". www.prnewswire.com (Press release). Retrieved 2020-12-11.
  46. ^ "Faurecia/Accenture team on Connected Car Lab". www.just-auto.com. 2019-06-07. Retrieved 2020-12-11.
  47. ^ McManus, Ashley. "Affectiva Joins Startup Autobahn for Emotion AI Vehicles". blog.affectiva.com. Retrieved 2020-12-11.
  48. ^ McManus, Ashley. "BMW: How In-Cabin Sensing Helps Build the Ultimate In-Vehicle Experience". blog.affectiva.com. Retrieved 2020-12-11.
  49. ^ "GreenRoad Technologies and Affectiva Partner to Bring Real-Time Driver Impairment Monitoring to the Fleet Management Market". www.businesswire.com. 2018-09-06. Retrieved 2020-12-11.
  50. ^ "CES 2019". Veoneer. Retrieved 2020-12-11.
  51. ^ "Smart Eye Completes Acquisition of Affectiva". www.businesswire.com. 2021-06-23. Retrieved 2021-06-29.
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