“I’m just vibing,” she tells me. “God woke me up today, so I’m feeling blessed. What about you, twin? What’s good?”
“I’m good, thanks. What’s your favorite food?”
“Oh, you know I love some good curry goat. That Jamaican flavor hits different. I also can’t resist sushi and Indian food. What about you?” the voice on the phone says.
“This is crazy,” Vicky Waldrip interjects. She (the real, human Waldrip) has been holding her phone up to me as I interact with an AI-powered clone of her voice. It’s all possible through Call Vicky, a new mobile app Waldrip is launching this month.
I ask Waldrip (the real, human one) if curry goat is in fact her favorite food. She laughs and says it is. “This is how you get the next-level me, not just some Insta or TikTok version,” Waldrip continues of why she decided to launch Call Vicky. “It’s way more personal than posting videos,” and enables fans to “get the truth straight from me, not some internet gossip that confuses everyone.”
The voice and cadence of Waldrip’s audio clone is indistinguishable from her own thanks to hours of video interviews over multiple sessions used “to capture Vicky’s emotion and mannerisms,” explains Ben Ganz of Ultimate AI, the company that built both the app and AI model. The results are “pretty remarkable. I mean, the inflections, the pauses, the excitement. It’s literally her,” he adds.
Chatbots — even AI-powered ones — are not exactly new ground for fans to interact with content creators, however. Last year, people began noticing that their favorite OnlyFans performers seemed to be having more one-on-one chats with subscribers at a time than was humanly possible. It was soon discovered that services like ChatPersona were generating personalized chat text for those performers to send to each individual fan. And K-pop fans can use an app called Blooming Talk to have personalized chats with AI versions of their favorite artists on the A20 Entertainment label. So how is Call Vicky unique? Waldrip owns it — the model, the app, the revenue coming in from the subscription fee (of which Ultimate AI takes a cut), her IP — all of it.
“Think of us like a Patreon — it’s a platform, like a Cameo,” continues Ganz. “It’s there as a tool for creators to monetize themselves. They can take it down any time. We’re not signing name-image-likeness deals. I think that’s predatory.”
And unlike the OnlyFans chats, Waldrip is completely up front about her use of technology. As long as users “know it’s an AI,” she says she doesn’t feel uncomfortable with it, or like it’s deceptive to her fans. “I just don’t want people starting to think that it’s actually me.”
This is the first step in Waldrip’s “AI ecosystem,” says Jonnie Forster, Waldrip’s manager, and the manager of other viral personalities like Haliey Welch (aka Hawk Tuah Girl). “I think every creator is eventually going to have their own digital version of themselves — voice, video, AI clones.” For him, an app like Call Vicky that allows creators to retain their name, image and likeness “is going to be a watershed moment for creators that want to make sure that they are protected in this space.”
Adds Waldrip: “I do think it’s the next big thing, honestly. Fans don’t just want to watch you, they want to talk to you. This is the next best thing to me sliding into your DMs.” Of course, she’s already noticed one difference between her and her AI clone: The clone is more patient than Waldrip is. “I need to work on that,” she says.
This story appeared in the July 30 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.
