The metaverse is more than just a concept for TV personality and Radio Hall of Fame inductee Lenard McKelvey, known professionally as “Charlamagne Tha God.”
MeetKai is an AI firm that has created metaverse experiences like one for the National Basketball Players Association (NBPA) ahead of this year’s NBA All-Star Weekend. The company added Charlamagne as an investor and strategic advisor in August. In addition to backing the company, Charlamagne is also bringing his own programming to the platform, including content from his iHeartRadio program called The Breakfast Club as well as Black Effect Podcast Network.
MeetKai has two parts of its business. The first part includes large language models that perform complex tasks through AI agents on behalf of humans. The second part is an interactive metaverse platform that integrates AI across phones, tablets, and headsets by converting these agents into dynamic avatars. MeetKai works with 25 brands like The Wall Street Journal and Tripadvisor.
Charlamagne’s investment highlights a growing interest in the social and interactive potentials of AI for people.
“It’s about getting people into this new future of what social entertainment will look like,” Peter John Alexander, MeetKai’s chief business officer told ADWEEK.
ADWEEK spoke to Charlamagne and MeetKai’s Alexander about AI and the metaverse.
This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
ADWEEK: Why invest now and what made you get into the AI game?
Charlamagne: The next-level evolution of social media is virtual reality. My mind is always on how people consume conversations. I always thought it would be very cool to have a virtual reality—somebody sitting at home on their computer can interact with The Breakfast Club instead of watching on YouTube. It’s also a lot of those old interviews we did with President Obama or Vice President Kamala Harris, Mariah Carey… you can be in those conversation now.
How is this platform different than big players like Meta?
Charlamagne: You’ll be able to access this from your phone.
Alexander: Meta has done a great job focusing on hardware and the amount of billions of dollars they’ve invested into their headset. Apple has obviously done the same.
But an interesting way to think about it is democratizing access. Not everyone can go to the DNC, where Charlemagne gets to go. If you can create these unique spaces that anyone can access, whether that’s in a headset or phone, that’s the game changer to us.
