Soul Machines
11 known investors
Soul Machines develops "Experiential AI" technology to create lifelike, human-like Digital Workers that can see, hear, react, remember and respond emotionally, using cognitive modeling and a patented Digital Brain. Its Digital Workforce product orchestrates across AI systems such as LLMs, autonomous agents, workflows and private data sources to deliver personalized interactions for businesses.
Also known as Soul Machines Limited
Founders & leadership
Investors · 11
Also in the syndicate · 2
Funding
SEC filings, press & company announcements$70M disclosed across 1 of 4 rounds · 2016–2022
- $70MSeries B1Feb 2022 · 2 sources
SoftBank Vision Fund 2 (lead), Cleveland Avenue, Horizons Ventures, Liberty City Ventures, Salesforce Ventures, Solasta Ventures, Temasek
Source ↗
Source: company announcements and press reports — follow each round's link for the claim.
Company profile
researched Aug 2026Soul Machines builds lifelike, autonomous digital humans — marketed as Digital Workers or AI Agents — that businesses deploy into customer-facing and internal roles. The company's foundational technology, branded Experiential AI, combines cognitive modeling (teaching AI to reason using data, experience and context) with embodied cognition (simulating the biological and neurological systems behind human expression and emotion). Its patented Digital Brain layers simulated human systems including sensory, motor, attention/perception and autonomic nervous systems to produce autonomous behavior, real-time memory creation and retrieval, and comprehension of the surrounding real world, allowing agents to see, hear, react, remember and display empathy.
The product line spans four offerings. Digital Workforce is the enterprise platform, providing intelligent orchestration across a customer's AI stack — LLMs, agentic workflow tools such as Salesforce and ServiceNow, autonomous agents and private data sources including CRM, HRIS and data warehouses — with deployment across websites, intranets and multiple platforms. Templates cover roles such as customer service agent, operations optimization coach, HR benefits agent and clinical trial onboarding agent. Workforce Connect is an app for deploying Digital Workers inside existing workflow products. Soul Machines Studio is a self-serve developer sandbox for building and customizing agents, with LLM-agnostic integration (including GPT models) and avatar design, behavior, gesture, voice and language configuration. A consumer-facing AI Assistants line offers coaching and skills support. The company states it holds 14 patent families along with trade secrets and trademarks.
Public deployments reported by press include Florence, a digital health worker created with the World Health Organization for COVID-19 information and tobacco-cessation counseling; Yumi, a digital skincare specialist for P&G brand SK-II; Ruth, a digital cookie coach for Nestlé Toll House; Nadia for Australia's National Disability Insurance Scheme; Sophie for Air New Zealand; and licensed celebrity personas including Digital Marilyn (with Authentic Brands Group) and a digital version of K-pop artist Mark Tuan.
Founding story
The company originated in a University of Auckland research lab. Mark Sagar, who won Scientific and Engineering Academy Awards in 2010 and 2011 for CGI work on films including Avatar and King Kong, established a lab at the university in 2012 to explore the convergence of CGI and AI. His BabyX project, a digital infant that responded with human-like emotion, explored cognitive modeling and embodied cognition. Serial entrepreneur Greg Cross was introduced to Sagar by a mutual friend, and the pair spun the research lab out as Soul Machines in 2016, raising a first round led by Solina Chau and Horizons Ventures. One source describes the company as incorporated on 14 July 2016 in Auckland as a University of Auckland Bioengineering Institute spin-out, with an initial $7.5M Series A led by Horizons Ventures and Iconiq Capital.
Business model
B2B and self-serve software. Enterprise customers license the Digital Workforce platform and commissioned digital humans for customer experience, HR, operations and healthcare use cases, while developers and smaller users subscribe to Soul Machines Studio and Workforce Connect. Studio uses a freemium model, and enterprise plans are quoted via sales.
Tiered subscriptions plus enterprise contracts. Soul Machines Studio pricing is published as a free tier, Basic at $12.99/month or $140/year, Plus at $99/month or $1,069/year, Pro at $2,700/month or $29,160/year, and Pro + Premium Integrations at $34,160/year, with tiers differentiated by conversation minutes, number of live agents, embedding options, custom LLM integration and workflow integration. Enterprise pricing is handled directly by the sales team. Press coverage describes an earlier high-end SaaS licensing approach for bespoke digital people that shifted toward a platform/self-service model.
Traction
Press reports 513,000 conversations across the Digital People division in 2023, with average conversation length of roughly 10 minutes in 2023 rising to about 20 minutes in 2024, and a longest recorded conversation of nearly four hours with the digital Mark Tuan persona. Soul Machines Studio was reported at 4,817% quarter-over-quarter customer growth. For the SK-II digital specialist Yumi, the company reported a 4.6x increase in conversion rate, a 2.3% increase in customer satisfaction and customers being twice as likely to buy. One secondary source cites over 200 employees and deployments in 15 countries by 2025, and sessions reportedly 40% longer than traditional chatbots.
Latest developments
The current website promotes Digital Workforce with role-based Digital Worker templates, Workforce Connect for embedding agents in existing workflow tools such as Zapier, and the ability to run an OpenAI Agent as a live embodied interface, alongside 7-day free trials for Studio and Workforce Connect. Digital Marilyn, developed with Authentic Brands Group, was unveiled at SXSW in March 2024, and the company said it would continue refining the Digital Brain and researching real-world awareness for AI.
▸Full profile — market position, technology, go-to-market, geography, history, risks & controversies
Market position
Described in coverage as a pioneer and leading player in the digital human and biological AI category, with named enterprise and institutional users including Google, Procter & Gamble, Nestlé, Air New Zealand and the World Health Organization, and with SoftBank Vision Fund 2, Temasek, Salesforce Ventures and Horizons Ventures on the cap table.
Rather than generating pre-rendered video or scripted avatars, Soul Machines positions its agents as autonomous and unscripted, driven by a biologically grounded Digital Brain that produces emotional reactions, gaze and gesture in real time and can perceive the user, for example smiling in response to a smile. Coverage contrasts this neurobiology-plus-computer-vision approach with video-avatar peers, and cites longer session durations versus text chatbots as evidence of the engagement difference.
Technology
Experiential AI, the company's patented approach, unites cognitive modeling with embodied cognition. The Digital Brain is a runtime architecture of simulated human systems — sensory, motor, attention/perception and autonomic nervous — driving autonomous animation, gaze and affective response, real-time memory formation and retrieval, and real-world comprehension; the BabyX prototype simulated neurochemicals such as dopamine and oxytocin to drive autonomous behavior. The stack is LLM-agnostic, integrating proprietary or third-party models such as GPT, and includes real-time facial expression synthesis and muscle modeling derived from CGI research. Digital Workforce adds an orchestration layer over LLMs, workflow tools, autonomous agents and private enterprise data. The company reports 14 patent families plus trade secrets and trademarks.
Go-to-market
Enterprises seeking customer experience, HR, operations and healthcare-facing agents, particularly service industries wanting an alternative to text chat and audio-only call centers; brands and entertainment rights holders building fan and celebrity experiences; public health and government bodies; and developers and small teams using Studio and Workforce Connect. Consumer users also access AI Assistants for coaching and language learning.", "go_to_market">
Geography
Headquartered and founded in Auckland, New Zealand, with US offices in San Francisco and Los Angeles opened by 2018 and, per one secondary account, later offices in Tokyo, London and Melbourne and deployments across 15 countries with multilingual support.
History
Founded in 2016 in Auckland, New Zealand. Early deployments included Nadia for Australia's National Disability Insurance Scheme and Sophie for Air New Zealand, and US offices were opened in San Francisco and Los Angeles by 2018. The World Health Organization deployed Florence, described in one account as 2020 and in another as a 2021 partnership. A $40M Series B was reported for 2020, followed by a $70 million Series B1 announced in February 2022 led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2, which brought total funding to $135 million. Digital DNA Studio launched in 2023, moving the company toward a self-service platform model, and LLMs such as GPT-4 were integrated from 2023. Digital Marilyn, created with Authentic Brands Group, was unveiled at SXSW in March 2024. Current leadership is headed by CEO Julie Kim, with co-founders Greg Cross and Mark Sagar on the board of directors.
Risks & controversies
TechCrunch testing in 2022 found the digital people functioned largely as visual chatbots, answering only scripted or narrowly phrased questions, recycling responses and deflecting difficult queries, and noted that client-commissioned personas were predominantly female, raising a woman-as-servant critique. Co-founder Greg Cross characterized the environment as challenging, with business models in the AI sector still emerging. Creating a persona of a deceased person (Marilyn Monroe) presented rights and authenticity challenges.
Compiled by commissioned research from 7 cited public sources — announcements, filings, and press listed under research sources below.
Key figures
latest reportedCompany-reported or press-reported figures, each dated to when it was claimed — not independently audited.
Founder mafia
2 people who came through Soul Machines went on to found or lead other companies.
Timeline · 9
launches, deals, and filingsAI-powered interactive Marilyn Monroe persona created with Authentic Brands Group, which manages the Monroe estate.
Digital version of K-pop artist Mark Tuan; fans averaged over 20 minutes in conversation, with a longest session of nearly four hours.
Self-service platform enabling brands to create digital humans, shifting the company toward a platform-as-a-service model.
Round brought total funding to $135 million; proceeds directed at enhancing the Digital Brain technology.
$70M source ↗
WHO used Florence, built on Soul Machines technology, to counter COVID-19 misinformation and support tobacco cessation. One source dates the WHO partnership to 2021.
Cross is also a member of the New Zealand Tech Hall of Fame and a Sir John Logan Campbell Executive in Residence at the University of Auckland.
Incorporated in Auckland, New Zealand as a University of Auckland Bioengineering Institute spin-out by Dr. Mark Sagar and Greg Cross, following the BabyX research project.
Dated company events from announcements, filings, and press; legal rows summarize public dockets and regulator releases.
In the news
▸Research sources · 7
primary sources listed
- Soul Machinessoulmachines.com · web
7 public sources were cited for this profile; the first-party ones are listed here.
Frequently asked questions
- What does Soul Machines do?
- New Zealand-founded developer of autonomous, emotionally responsive digital humans for enterprise customer, HR and health roles.
- Who founded Soul Machines?
- Soul Machines was founded by Greg Cross, Mark Sagar.
- Who are Soul Machines's investors?
- Soul Machines's investors include Bright Pixel Capital, Cleveland Avenue, SoftBank Vision Fund, Horizons Ventures, Lakestar, Liberty City Ventures, Salesforce Ventures, Solasta Ventures and 1 more.
- How much funding has Soul Machines raised?
- Soul Machines has disclosed $70M raised across 1 of its 4 known rounds.