Talespin raises $20M to train workers using spatial technologies
Talespin has raised $20 million in funding for its task of using virtual reality and augmented reality — or spatial technologies — to train people to do work.
The company became famous a few years ago for a virtual reality demo designed to teach managers how to fire a hapless worker named Barry. While that sounds callous, it was really more about how to emotionally handle difficult tasks at work, and it conveyed how to do it in a gentle way. ...
“We had just raised money going into the pandemic and we had the ability to navigate the uncertainty,” Jackson said. “We immediately started having conversations that [spring of 2020] where everything we had been saying went from frontier tech to more foundational tech. I wasn’t having to sell and convince people of this anymore, as the utility seemed so obvious.” ...
The technology uses 3D virtual humans and environments to help people practice conversational skills and simulate jobs with real-time feedback and skills analytics. ...
“As organizations around the world grapple with unprecedented labor shortages, the need for innovative workforce training solutions has never been greater,” said Austin Noronha, managing director for the U.S. at the Sony Innovation Fund, in a statement. ...
I asked if the company had tapped AI tech like GPT-3 from the OpenAI Foundation, but Jackson said that so far it was proving to be easier to design applications with more limited, hard-wired responses, rather than relying on open-ended dialogue with AI trainers. ...
