Digital DNA Studio

This page lists the release notes for Soul Machines' Digital DNA Studio.

Digital DNA Studio is your super-powered creative tool to enable you to quickly design, train, skill, deploy, measure ROI, and manage your team while developing your very own Digital Person.

Please visit our website: soulmachines.com to find out more about our solutions and services.  You can also contact our Customer Success Team if you want to know more about how we can help in your digital transformation journey.

Release Version 2.52 | 18 March 2024

FEATURE

We’ve added an improved response time by toggling on or off streaming in the Generative Conversation Base and Fallback. This allows long answers to be broken up into multiple sentences that are delivered at one time to keep the conversation engaging. By default, this button is toggled on. You can toggle it off at any point under the Generative Conversation Base settings, beneath the “Max response length” field.

 

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UPDATES

Our Skills UI just got a new look!

  • Streamlined Experience: Check out the separated “Conversation” and “Additional Skills” sections under “Knowledge” when creating or editing a project - they’re much easier to navigate!

  • Conversation Simplified: All projects must have a “Conversation” selected, but this can be updated easily based on your project’s needs.

    • Easy Selection: When choosing a conversation provider, you'll find them neatly categorized as "Featured" and "External Platform" for effortless selection.

    • Using Orchestration? Simply select the "Orchestration Skill" in the Conversation section.

  • Focused Skill Selection: When adding “Additional Skills”, only non-conversation skills will appear to make it even easier to enhance your project.

BUG FIXES

  • We’ve fixed a bug with the Digital Chief Experience Officer (DCXO) template so the Digital Person now responds with an error-handling prompt for the user to repeat themselves.

  • A bug was identified and fixed in the orchestration server when no NLP was selected.

Release Version 2.51 | 4 March 2024

FEATURE

We’ve added a BETA stock Digital Person named Kate who will be wearing glasses. Kate is not editable in the Comprehensive Blender Tool just yet, but we’re working towards the ability to accessorize Digital People, and this is a great first step! Check her out in your studio account.

UPDATES

We’ve removed the Knowledge Base Builder from the main menu as this product is being moved to end of life status. If you have an existing project in Knowledge Base Builder, you can still access the URL directly.

Legacy Digital People using Human OS 2.2 or lower will be removed from studio as they’re no longer supported.

Content Cards can now be used with the Solution Expert Template as well as Generative Conversation so you can add multi-modal content to your experience.

BUG FIXES

A bug with creating video assets has been fixed so video controls will remain visible and the entire script will be recorded.

Release Version 2.50 | 19 February 2024

UPDATES

We’ve updated the Content Card Skill so that it now supports markdown tables which can be used with the Generative Conversation Base.

Release Version 2.49 | 22 January 2024

FEATURE

We’ve added support for Bahasa Malay (Malaysian) for both STT & TTS on azure speech services.

We’ve added Automatic Iconic Gestures. You can enable this for your project to take advantage of automatic gesture insertion for any conversation backend. You toggle this feature on and off under “Other Behavioral Settings” on the “Create a Project Page.” Automatic Iconic Gestures enable your Digital Person to perform additional, more expressive gestures when speaking. If these gestures don’t work in your experience, leave this toggle off. Learn more about this in Behavior Adjustments and Settings.

UPDATES

Generative Conversation Base & Fallback skill

We’re constantly updating our Generative Conversation Documentation to include the latest features and best practices for set-up.

BUG FIXES

  • Resolved an issue to allow URLs to show as specified in the knowledge snippets when using the Generative Conversation Base & Fallback skill

  • We’ve fixed an error when using the Generative Conversation Base & Fallback skill where URLs with large amounts of text were not being scraped. All URLs will now scrape up to the first 40,000 tokens. You can turn this on or off by toggling “Convert URL data into optimized conversation content” under the “Generative Conversation Base” settings.

  • We’ve resolved a bug with Microsoft STT timing out so connection remains intact.

  • We’ve fixed a bug so Digital People viewed in preview mode are now connecting correctly to OpenAI.

Release Version 2.48 | 11 December 2023

FEATURE

UPDATES

Our monthly package subscribers can now use the “Manage Subscription” button in Digital DNA Studio to update their package type.

When configuring the Content Cards Skill, you now have the option to ignore markdown syntax on image and video links - this is on by default. The Content Cards Skill can be found under “Knowledge” by clicking “Open Knowledge Manager” and then “Add Skills.”

Generative Conversation Base & Fallback skill

We’ve updated our Generative Conversation Skills Best Practices guide to include the latest tips for setting up the Generative Conversation Base & Fallback skill.

BUG FIXES

  • Resolved a bug where Microsoft STT failed but didn’t reconnect - will now reconnect automatically after 10 seconds.

  • Knowledge snippets are now being modified and summarized by OpenAI when the UI option is selected.

Release Version 2.46 | 13 November 2023

FEATURE

The Content Card Skill automatically displays contextual video, image and/or link cards to support and enhance your Digital Person's conversation responses without needing to add Soul Machines Context Variables to every conversation node as long as the conversation contains a valid public video, image & url data. This is especially helpful for generative conversations where structured context variable declaration was not possible. Simply add this skill as a “post process” skill to your favorite base conversation to supplement conversational data with multi modal content.

New Stock Digital People

New Preset Avatars available! We've refreshed our line up of Preset Avatars to show off all the cool things you can create in Digital DNA Blender. With 20 new preconfigured looks available, we're sure you'll find something that inspires!

New Stock Digital People

 

New male tailored outfit

We have an all new tailored outfit for our masculine body types within the DDNA Blender. The outfit can be customized with preset selections or custom configurations for the inside T-shirt as well as the tailored jacket by the users!

UPDATES

Flexible Knowledge Snippet and Additional Prompt text input area in the Generative Conversation Base & Fallback skill

The Generative conversation skill iteration and editing just became a lot easier with the flexible text input area within the skill configuration modal. The area allows for natural sizing flexibility to support low or high knowledge snippet and additional prompt input to provide context to your generative conversation!

Changed GPT-TYPE configuration in the Generative Conversation Base & Fallback skill

The GPT-type drop down selection now allows users to select between “chat” & “completion” GPT-types reducing the confusion between the type of model vs model version. This also means if you are using a “Model Override”, please make sure your model override is compatible with the GPT-type (eg: if using “GPT-3.5 turbo instruct as the model override, make sure “completion” is selected as the corresponding GPT-type). Read more about it here.

No need to add “\n” to Knowledge Snippets & Knowledge URL’s in the Generative Conversation Base & Fallback skill

There is no need to separate knowledge snippets & knowledge URL’s with the “\n” new line marker as they are now automatically separated when entering knowledge snippets in separate lines within the text and URL input areas in the skill modal.

BUG FIXES

  • Resolved a bug where the a DDNA Studio Owner was not able to resend invitation to DDNA Studio to fellow team members who want to join their DDNA Studio organization.

Release Version 2.45 | 30 October 2023

FEATURE

The Explorer Template helps Studio Users with creating their first project. It is an “in-app helper” who can guide you through the process. It is not intended to be deployed into a production version but “uses the product to sell the product”. The Explorer is equipped with a very large store of knowledge related to Digital DNA Studio which is hosted at an external s3 link. It uses the Generative Conversation Base Skill and OpenAI’s version of ChatGPT (3.5).

Interactive Preview

A user can choose “preview” on the template card found on their Digital DNA Studio home page and begin speaking with the Digital Person in a live preview pop-up window. Out-of-the-box, the template will help users choose which smartphone is best for them based on their requirements.

STT & TTS support for Hebrew

We now offer support for our STT & TTS service in Hebrew language.

BUG FIXES

  • Resolved a bug where the a user with role “analytics” was not able to access Project Insights from the Project tiles on DDNA Studio dashboard

Release Version 2.44 | 2 October 2023

FEATURE

The Solution Expert Template is now available in studio. Templates serve as preconfigured Digital Person experiences, offering examples of effective Digital Person placement for success, aiming to inspire DDNA Studio users with possibilities and expedite their understanding of integrating a Digital Person into their business, service, or product. The Solution Expert Template helps users during the consideration stage of their journey and is best for situations where the decision is complex. All projects come pre-configured with the Generative Conversation Base Skill and OpenAI’s version of GPT-4 enabling the Digital Person to speak. 

Preview pop-up window

A user can choose “preview” on the template card found on their Digital DNA Studio home page and begin speaking with the Digital Person in a live preview pop-up window. Out-of-the-box, the template will help users choose which smartphone is best for them based on their requirements.

UPDATE

Improved Knowledge Extraction From Customer Documentation And Websites

You can now point the Generative Conversation Skill or Base to a pdf or endpoint and it automatically creates knowledge snippets, or bits of knowledge that will be provided as context to the OpenAI GPT prompt. This allows the generative conversation skill to effectively extract knowledge from any document and website, so that you can easily train the LLM with unique content.

Skills

Skills are now available on multi-region production servers, decreasing latency and increasing resilience.

BUG FIXES

  • We’ve improved skills uptime and resilience

Release Version 2.43 | September 2023

FEATURE

Microsoft Power Virtual Agent (PVA)

Microsoft PVA is now supported as an NLP offering within Digital DNA Studio under “Manage Conversations and Skills.”

Skills

Skills are now available on Orchestration Servers so you can access all features when building a customized experience.

UPDATED

No Camera Idle Gazing

When users do not allow the user of their camera, the Digital Person will still perform idle gazing behavior which consists of subtle random gazing around the screen. Ideal gazing is triggered a few seconds after the user and Digital Person go quiet. If the user speaks, the Digital Person will gaze back at the user again. Behavior styles “Shy” and “Frosty” will exhibit the most visible idle gazing behavior.

 

Release Version 2.41 | 07 Aug 2023

UPDATE

Nine new Gesture Animations

We are excited to introduce the new insertable gestures in this release, allowing users to enhance their interactions with gestures denoted by the "#" symbol. These gestures bring a more immersive and expressive experience to the product.

Here are the available insertable gestures:

  • #HeartSignFingers - This gesture specifically focuses on the hand and finger movements associated with a heart sign. Use it to convey love and endearment.

  • #Peace - With this gesture, both hands form the peace sign. It symbolizes harmony and unity, perfect for conveying peaceful intentions.

  • #CircleContinuing - This gesture represents a continuous circular motion. Use it to emphasize ongoing or continuous actions.

  • #ChopContinuing - This gesture involves a chopping motion, indicating a continuing action or process. It adds a dynamic element to your interactions.

  • #Tada - This gesture showcases a celebratory "Tada" pose, expressing joy and excitement. It's great for announcing achievements or surprises.

  • #HoldFloorHand - This gesture demonstrates a hand motion indicating holding or grasping something. It adds a sense of stability and control to your interactions.

  • #IdeaFingerUp - This gesture features a finger pointing upward, representing an idea or a eureka moment. Use it to convey creative thoughts or suggestions.

  • #Enthusiastic - This gesture is marked by a lively and animated demeanor, reflecting genuine excitement and passion. It involves a bright smile with enthusiastic gestures, aiming to convey and spread positive energy.

  • #Greeting - This gesture involves friendly expressions used to acknowledge and welcome others in a cordial manner.

 

Updates to DDNA Designer

A new skin and makeup (casual) option has been added to DDNA Designer.

Release Version 2.40 | 10 July 2023

FEATURE

  • Microsoft Speech-to-Text (STT) support:
    You can now choose between Google (default) or Microsoft Cognitive Services as your Speech-to-text provider. Each speech recognition provider offers a different set of languages, accents, and additional speech features. Please refer to the Language and Voice Settings documentation for more information.

 
UPDATE

  • Enhanced Listening Behaviour: Introduces improved visibility and expressiveness to existing listening behavior, including adjusted voice activity detector to reduce nodding during noise and music, and incorporates facial expressions and head motions for added acknowledgement.

  • Generative Conversation Skill: You can now specify a model overrides for GPT4 and ChatGPT connections, and we’ve enhanced our guardrails around user-entered configurations to prevent unusable models. Additionally we’ve improved how the Skill handles prior conversation turns - we now include other conversational turns from base conversation or other skills (when GPT skill is used as a fallback)

  • New Voices: We’ve now updated the available voices to include the newer voices from our supported TTS providers (Amazon, Microsoft, Google). We’ve added over 400 new voices across the supported languages for you to check out! 

 

BUGFIX

  • We fixed an issue where it would appear like the Digital Person was still listening even when the microphone was muted

  • We fixed an issue where the Digital Person’s fingers were flickering

  • We fixed an issue where the Digital Person would sometimes look in the wrong direction when using Insertable Gestures

  • Several other small bug-fixes

Release Version 2.38 | 29 May 2023

 

FEATURE

New features in Digital DNA Blender

  • Now you have the ability to upload a background image for your Digital People. This feature allows you to further customise the environment in which your digital creations exist, providing a more immersive and personalised experience.

  • We have added additional phenotypes to Digital DNA Blender. This update broadens the range of characteristics available, enabling you to create even more diverse and unique Digital People.

  • New clothing options with increased wardrobe texture and pattern selection. For feminine Digital People, you can now dress them in a tailored jacket and for masculine Digital People, we have added more pre-curated options for the cardigan, perfect for a casual yet refined look.

Widget Source Code now available on Github

We’ve made the source code for our Widget available on Github. This means you can explore and utilize the code for your own purposes.

 

UPDATE

Generative Conversation (GPT) skill v1.7
The Generative Conversation skill has been released with the following new/enhanced features:

  1. Added support for Azure OpenAI API endpoints

  2. Changed the webscraper to only scrape the first 10 URLs presented to address an issue with excessive number of knowledge URLs overloading the API

  3. Added ability to edit knowledge snippets after they were generated

  4. Added flag to disable rebuild of knowledge on deploy (so any manual work doesn't get overwritten)

  5. Up to 2 pre-built prompts can now be added to a corpus

  6. Handle numerous edge cases that would cause the skill to not respond

 

Knowledge Base Builder v1.6

Knowledge Base responses now supports command and gesture markup.

 

Support for "Extensions" within New Watson Assistant

We’ve fixed an issue where only the second request to a Watson Assistant Extension was processed. Extensions should now work as expected. Please reach out to support if you continue to experience issues.

Release Version 2.37 | 15 May 2023

FEATURE

Multiple Organization Access

Digital DNA Studio now allows users to access multiple organizational accounts using a single set of login credentials. This feature is particularly beneficial for partner organizations that handle multiple customers and want their support users to work across different organizations.

Release Version 2.36 | 01 May 2023

FEATURE

Create DP Video Assets

We have introduced a powerful new feature: Create Video Assets. With this option, available on the DDNA Project Management page, you can generate and download videos of your Digital Person delivering a custom script. Now, you can bring your Digital Person to life in exciting new ways, and share your creations on social media to engage with your audience like never before.

 

UPDATE

Knowledge Base Builder

  • The Knowledge Base builder has been enhanced with the ability to save the knowledge base in the application itself allowing you to come back to it and continue work.

  • Knowledge Bases are now stored in the cloud, enabling access and use within DDNA Studio without updating Knowledge Base Skill configuration manually for every change to the corpus.

  • We’ve added the functionality to ensure knowledge bases produced via Knowledge Base Builder will populate the Insights Dashboard out of the box, no action required.

 

New clothing options for Digital People

We now have introduced blazer and boatneck outfit for feminine Digital People.

Release Version 2.35 | 03 Apr 2023

FEATURE

Generative Content Skill v1.2

We are thrilled to announce the latest release of Generative Conversation Skill v1.2! This highly anticipated update includes support for ChatGPT and GPT-4, enhancing the already impressive capabilities of Generative Conversation Skill.

v15.7 Soul Machines WebSDK

FEATURE

WebSDK now supports the ability to not stop DP from speaking when switching tabs. A new optional parameter stopSpeakingWhenNotVisible has been added to the Scene Configuration. When true, the Digital Person's speech will be interrupted if the user changes tabs or navigates to another page. This will prevent the Digital Person from reaching any content cards or speech markers that have not yet been reached at the time of interruption. Set to false to allow DP to continue speaking while a different tab is active.

Release Version 2.34 | 21 Mar 2023

FEATURE

Generative Content Skill v1.1

Well, Generative AI has certainly been in the news lately, so we're excited to announce our Generative Conversation Skill. This Skill lets you connect your Digital Person to the GPT-3 Large Language Model (LLM) and provide knowledge snippets for use by the model. This is the same Skill that powers Suki on our website.

 

New clothing options for Digital People

We now have introduced full sleeve formal shirts, scrubs, and sweaters with a wide variety of patterns and colours for clothing.

 

Single Sign-on login for Soul Machines Ecosystem

DDNA users can now navigate to SM Academy, Creator Community, Support, and KnowledgeBase Conversation Builder using the Soul Machines credentials. To support this feature, the account name has been split into First and Last names on the Studio Account page.

 

Create and Manage Skills from Digital DNA Studio

You can now create and manage skills for users within your organization. The purpose of creating a skill is to register it on the Soul Machines Platform. Any user with an owner, support, or editor role, can create skills, and anyone in the organization can edit Skill definitions regardless of whether they created them.

 

UPDATE

Voiceflow v1.2
This release now includes support for the Speech Modality, joining our existing support for Text modality.

 

Skin Swatches in DDNA Blender

We have updated the skin tone swatches in DDNA Blender to give more contextual information about each skin option, including whether it includes facial hair and the eyebrow shapes.

 

BUG FIX

Survey Skill v1.3
This is primarily a bug-fix release that improves matching of choice questions when the answer does not exactly match the option from the original form.  It also improves usage as a Base conversation with greeting support.

Release Version 2.33 | 20 Feb 2023

UPDATE

KnowledgeBase Builder 1.4

The knowledge base builder has been enhanced to allow training and testing of conversations, making it easier and faster to iterate.

Support for Voiceflow Content cards

We now support visual features of voiceflow through content cards. This does require that you use a VoiceFlow "Custom Action" step, which is only available if you have a voiceflow subscription (not available for free accounts).

Release Version 2.32 | 07 Feb 2023

FEATURE

Voiceflow Support 1.0

Conversation Designers rejoice! We now support Voiceflow as a conversation provider. VoiceFlow provides an easy to use visual editor for creating conversations. V1.0 offers basic support for text conversations. Future releases will add further features.

UPDATE

KnowledgeBase Builder 1.3

We've improved the user experience when editing the knowledge base. Please keep your feedback coming!

BUG FIX

Digital Person Under Eye Wrinkle

We’ve resolved a bug impacting an over exaggerated wrinkle on some Digital People created with Comprehensive DDNA Blender.

 

Release Version 2.31 | 23 Jan 2023

FEATURE

Project Preview

Users of DDNA Studio can now preview their Digital Person configurations all within DDNA Studio Project configuration sections! The project configuration area will showcase the preview on the right half of the screen with configuration options and selections to the right of the preview. After making selections such as a look, language, voice, behavior etc. users can click “update preview” at any time to see their changes immediately and choose appropriate configurations for their final experience. In addition, the Preview also offers a Script for the users to type text to use as part of Digital Person narration within the Preview.

v1.12 Web Widget

FEATURE

BUG FIXES

  • Fixed audio button color for muted state

  • Fixed firefox scroll issue when going from a long content card to a short content card

  • Fixed general issues with markup card

  • Fixed the outline of the content card

  • Fixed Safari bfcache issue - reload when navigating from bfcache

v15.6 Soul Machines WebSDK

FEATURE

  • WebSDK now has tracking capability to measure Digital People connection time tracing

  • We now have support for logging API key errors with hints

BUG FIXES

  • ContentAwareness change unable to find video error to warning

  • A bug causing issues with ContentAwareness support within session-persistence is now been fixed

 

Release Version 2.30 | 14 Dec 2022

FEATURE

Knowledge Base Builder

We’ve now released the first version of our Knowledge base builder - a GUI that allows creators to easily create a knowledge base without needing to edit JSON, but instead via an intuitive user interface. Included in this release is the ability to Crawl a website and pre-populate the KB JSON file with all the pages found, along with the meta:description / H1 / title of the page as a starter response.  The intention here is greet the end-user with a page-specific response as KnowledgeBase will match on the page URL as they navigate the site. The Knowledge Base Builder can be accessed at https://knowledgebase-ui.dev.soulmachines.cloud/.

 

Shopify Skill

With the Shopify Skill, you can interact with a digital person while browsing a Shopify website. With this skill, users can search for products and then navigate to the page of the item. The user can ask questions about a product, such as: “What sizes does this come in?”, “Is black available?”. The user can ask to see their cart, and the skill will navigate to the user’s cart. If the user is on a product page, they can request it to be added to their cart.

Release Version 2.29 | 28 Nov 2022

FEATURE

DDNA Blender: Significant Update: Next-Gen CGl Platform

We are invested in making world-class CGI and have updated our CGI platform to deliver:

  • Future-proofing for the Metaverse

  • Significantly increased realism of skin detail

  • More “true to life” skin colors

  • Better handling of light and shadows

Rollout details:

  • The new platform is opt-in. Re-publish your Digital Person from DDNA Blender to take advantage of this new platform

 

DDNA Blender: Skin Luminosity Sliders

 

Thai language support

  • Our Digital People can now understand and speak the Thai language.

 

Joke Skill

  • The Joke skill when enabled and triggered will randomly draw a joke from a collection of jokes.

    The skill when enabled and triggered will randomly draw a joke from a collection of jokes. Using the Skill Configuration, you can toggle on and off the "Only return clean jokes" setting, which filters what jokes can be returned.

Soul Machines MobileSDK

We have now made the following sample project GitHub repos public to provide a starting point for developing custom mobile UI.

Release Version 2.28 | 14 Nov 2022

FEATURE

Mobile API keys

DDNA Studio API Keys page now allows you to create Mobile API keys. The Mobile API Keys provide easy authentication to connect any Soul Machines APIs and Mobile devices.

 

UPDATE

Knowledge Base Skill

The KnowledgeBase Skill now supports session persistence on a website when used in conjunction with the Web Widget. This allows you to configure per-page (or wildcard) responses that will be spoken by the Digital Person when the user navigates to the page with an active Digital Person. 

NOTE: This will only work with sm-web-component based sites or custom front-ends that send the PAGE_METADATA message.

 

NLP Adapter Skill Documentation

We’ve updated the getting started documentation for NLP Adapter Skills to guide you through integrating Soul Machines Skill API with a third-party NLP system or chatbot platform.

v1.3 Soul Machines MobileSDK

FEATURE

API Key support and OS Updates

The Android and iOS SDKs have both been updated to v1.3, which includes the following features:

  • Android SDK support for Android 13

  • iOS SDK support for iOS 16

  • API Key support for both platforms

v1.11 Web Widget

BUG FIXES

  • Widget bundling issue with global variable conflicts has now been resolved

  • Video autoplay issue on the Safari browser has now been resolved

  • For certain deployments, the default profile background color was transparent, this issue is now resolved

Release Version 2.27 | 31 Oct 2022

UPDATE

Survey Skill

The Google Forms Survey Skills now supports the following features of Google Forms:

  • Checkboxes

  • Title and description

  • Sections

  • Images as options

  • Accepts multiple answers for checkbox question type

Note: To display images as options and support multi-select via mouse in the UI, you should either implement a custom UI or contact your customer representative to request a  beta version of the web component which does have it enabled. 

Release Version 2.26 | 17 Oct 2022

 

FEATURE

Conversation Visualization

DDNA Studio users can now visualize the path each conversation takes through the Conversation Node Graph. The node graph feature, available under the Insights tab of each project provides visibility to the different paths for users in the conversation along with insights on the most frequently visited nodes.

Visibility of HumanOS version

The avatar tiles within the Project configuration area of DDNA Studio now indicate the HumanOS version of the Digital Person. This tag helps you understand the features/configurations available for a Digital Person depending on the HumanOS version with which they are built. The indicator also helps users to visibly know if the Digital Person is on the latest version of HumanOS.

Project Configuration Options Notification

The project configurations area now features improved sidebar indication of form errors and inline messages for unavailable sections of the configuration to give DDNA Studio users details about available and unavailable sections along with tooltips to enable the use of those sections.
As an example, Studio now shows an inline message in the Behavior Section of a project having a Digital Person with an older version of HumanOS to let the user know that Behavior Styles section is not available for this HumanOS and similarly a red error indication appears in the sidebar if a section of the configuration has an error associated with it.

 

UPDATE

Survey Skill

The Survey Skill has received several updates including:

  • The ability to implement conditional question logic using a webhook

  • The ability to turn a ‘survey’ into a ‘quiz’ using a webhook

Web API Keys are now editable

The web API keys can now be edited post-creation, allowing for configuration changes like editing the applicable domains and projects. This can now be done by navigating to the API keys section of Studio and clicking the edit icon.

v1.10 Web Widget

FEATURE

  • The default logs for the web widget can now be turned off, additionally, live logging configuration can be enabled

  • The advanced CSS customizations can now be easily previewed, configured, and copied through a live preview of the CSS configurations on a web widget. Try this feature here.

v15.3 Soul Machines WebSDK

FEATURE

  • WebSDK now supports the ability to turn off default connection logs and enable developers to allow live logging configuration for scene and content awareness from the Scene constructor. The available log levels include debug, warn, log, and error with the ability to define the minimum log level and change it live during the scene.

Release Version 2.25 | 03 Oct 2022

FEATURE

Microsoft Teams Auto Join Skill

This Skill, when configured with a Digital Person, will join a Microsoft Teams meeting when invited. The skill will monitor the DP’s Microsoft Outlook schedule and if a meeting is approaching (roughly 2-3 minutes away) the Skill will have the DP join the meeting. This Skill will check for a meeting every 60 seconds. The skill will constantly check their calendar until the Digital Person is deleted from DDNA studio.

 

UPDATE

Site Search Skill

Now can return up to 4 internal links card types, which enables the Digital Person to surface cards that allow the user to navigate to other pages on the same domain.

Knowledge Base Skill

The knowledge base skill now has a new extension that allows for prebuilt models to be included. Our first prebuilt model is Elegant Failure, which mitigates user frustration by intelligently responding to any request your conversation can’t answer.

Release Version 2.24 | 19 Sept 2022

FEATURE

New Digital CXO Role

Our Digital CXO is intended to conduct 1:1 customer research at scale. Most useful for CSAT or NPS type scores, a DCXO can help you understand what your website visitors are really thinking beyond what can be captured in traditional methods (eg, web forms). Powered by a simple integration with Google Forms, you can get a Digital CXO up and running on your website in less than an hour. 

Contact Skill

Our Contact Skill allows you to now collect information from the user for follow-up. We currently support Name, Phone number, and Email address.

New Weather Skill

We’ve added a new Weather Skill which uses OpenWeatherMap, which has images for different weather conditions.

Studio Notification System

DDNA Studio now offers in-app notifications that allow Soul Machines Admins to notify users of critical or relevant information, warnings, and errors. The notifications appear at the top right bar of Studio Dashboard through the bell icon.

DDNA Studio Invitation

Studio organization owners and support user roles can now resend DDNA Studio invitations to other members in their organization if the original link to the invitation has expired.

 

UPDATE

Wake Word Skill

We now support a comma-separated list of wake words & sleep words, as well as allow you to customize what the DP says when it is asked to go to sleep. We’ve also now added Initial and Default states.

Survey Skill

The Survey Skill now supports showing an image per question (note, the image per answer feature is coming soon)

Insights API

UPDATE

Integration guides

  • Insights API documentation has been updated to include a step-by-step guide for connecting Insights API as a data source to DOMO and PowerBI for easy integration.

v1.9 Web Widget

FEATURE

  • Web Widget now displays a loading bar indicator showing the progress of the connection status to your Digital Person.

UPDATED

  • Widget now supports a simplified schema for advanced CSS customizations. The palette now supports grey, primary, secondary, and tertiary color customizations.

v15.2 Soul Machines WebSDK

FEATURE

  • We now have a new Connection State Event API that communicates loading progress in five different states of connection as ConnectionStateTypes. These events can be useful for developers building branded and custom-loading experiences using the webSDK.

Release Version 2.23 | 05 Sept 2022

FEATURE

New NLP Platform

Improve Navigation on the Project Form

  • Paginate and divide the project form into sections for quick project configurations by letting the user directly jump to the corresponding section of the form

UPDATE

Knowledge Base Skill

  • Now includes support for content cards using the standard showCard() syntax. Read more here.

  • Now includes a Call To Action response which the DP can speak after replying to the user’s query. For example: “what else can I help you with?”

BUG FIX

  • We’ve done some work behind the scenes to minimize issues where the Digital Person’s body might show through their clothing

  • Increase Session Server health check interval to avoid blender being killed on startup

v15.1 Soul Machines WebSDK

UPDATE

  • Support for Single Page Applications with SM Digital Person to send PAGE_METADATA intent to NLP engine whenever the URL changes

Release Version 2.22 | 22 Aug 2022

FEATURE

Role Templates in DDNA Studio

Introducing the Digital Workforce

Now getting setup with a Digital Employee is even easier with our new Role templates, which allow you to have a fully functional Digital Person running on your website with just a couple of clicks.

Our first role is the Digital Greeter. Try it out in DDNA Studio today! The templates are available to select on the DDNA Studio Dashboard page above your projects section. The templates can be customized or utilized as it is.

 

UPDATE

Event Scheduling Skill

  • The Event scheduling skill now displays a markdown graphic of the user’s calendar with the event. Users can also specify phrases such as "today", "tomorrow", "noon", “next monday”, or certain US holidays to schedule events.

DDNA Blender

  • We’ve added 12 new hairstyles, including making all existing hairstyles come in at least 7 colors, significantly increasing the variety of looks possible

 

BUG FIX

  • Fix for some hair fitting incorrectly in DDNA Blender

  • Resolved an issue with the Repeat skill where the Digital Person repeated what the user said rather than their last response, as well as the content cards not displaying properly.

v1.8 Web Widget

FEATURE

  • Web Widget now has a new Turn Taking indicator within its UI to visualize the state of speech and thinking behavior by highlighting when user speech is recognized, when the digital person is speaking, and then when the digital person is thinking or processing the user’s input.

  • We now have a “bottom left” positioning option for the widget using the parameter data-sm-position and setting it to bottomLeft. This feature expands the options to position the widget between the bottom right and bottom left.

  • The version of the web widget can now be easily known through the src parameter within the embed code

BUG FIXES

  • Fixed an issue with Internal Link content cards reappearing

v14.6 Soul Machines WebSDK

FEATURE

  • Support for new API for listening events as ConversationStateTypes to indicate four different conversation states: “dpprocessing”, “dpspeaking”, “userspeaking” and “idle”.

UPDATE

  • “PAGE_LOADED” intent is now updated to “PAGE_METADATA”

  • PAGE_METADATA” intent is not sent to the conversation at the conversation start to avoid any potential confusion with the “Welcome” intent

Release Version 2.21 | 08 Aug 2022

FEATURE

Digital Greeter Base Conversation

This Skill is the Base for the Greeter Role. It introduces the Digital Person, welcomes the user with optional rapport building, and sets framing for the conversation.

Site Navigation Skill

The Site Navigation Skill enables the Digital Person to search a domain name for particular content, if no matches are found in other Skills. The top result is shown to the user as a link card so the user can navigate to that content.

UPDATE

Stock DPs upgraded to HumanOS 2.4

The “Stock” Digital People are now running HumanOS2.4, so you can take advantage of all the latest features

Updates to Skills

The Google Forms Survey Skill now allows you to order the linear scale question in ascending or descending order.

BUG FIX

Removed Misleading "Number of Conversations"

The number of conversation counts shown under the “Accounts and Team“ page have been removed in lieu of the number showing incorrect values

v1.7 Web Widget

FEATURE

  • Web Widget now supports Markdown Card as a valid content card. The markdown card, once configured can be used to present content in plaint text formatting (markdown) that gets converted to html content. A common use of the markdown card is to present a variety of different types of information together in one card and customize the card’s content

  • Web Widget users can now use Advanced customization configuration to customize the default colors, styles and fonts by using css variables specific to the widget in their website’s style sheet. The customizations currently possible include Theme, Font, Color Palette and Box Shadow.

v14.5 Soul Machines WebSDK

FEATURE

  • Support new intent “PAGE_LOADED” and context variable “pageUrl“ to the NLP denoting the status of a new page load and the page url respectively. The “PAGE_LOADED” intent is sent upon the detection of a new page load in an active Digital Person session. The “pageUrl” context variable captures the URL of the current webpage. The context variable updates for each “PAGE_LOADED” intent.

Release Version 2.20 | 25 July 2022

FEATURE

Digital People

You can now collect the DNA from any existing Digital Person within your organisation from the 3-dot menu on the project form page. This feature works for any Digital People created via the comprehensive Blender since its release. The DNA for Digital People created via the Simple mode can be found on the DNA Bank page.

Microsoft Events Skill

This Skill gives the Digital Person the ability to conversationally schedule a Microsoft Outlook meeting. The Skill is triggered by Create/Setup/Schedule (an event)/(a meeting).

You can ask for a specific person (firstname, lastname) to be added to the meeting (name must be an active user in your organisation or in your contacts). By default is 30 mins meeting is created at the time requested. The Digital Person will request for the meeting title. Currently limited to entering only one person or one group at a time. End user is asked if they want to add anyone else, saying “no” ends the Skill.

Knowledge Base Skill

This Skill gives the Digital Person the ability to answer end user questions based on a customer’s knowledge base. The Knowledge Base Skill data needs to be in a JSON file that contains three fields for each record:

  • “intent” - this can be anything as long as it is unique for the project

  • “examples” - This is an array of strings that contain examples of different phrasings for the question

  • “metadata” - This contains an array of strings that are the responses to the question. If more than one value is found for a given intent, the skill will randomly pick one of the responses to reply with.

If there is not an exact match, a NLU process will attempt to find the closest intent based on the examples. If no match is found, it should reply back with a configurable NO_MATCH response.

UPDATED

Skills

  • Additional configuration options have been added to the Google Forms Survey Skill: you can now disable Digital Person from reading all options of multiple choice questions and display upper and lower bounds of linear scale questions.

  • Support for Default Values in Skill Configuration

BUGFIX

  • Fix for Skill_Config not available in Watson first conversation turn

v1.6 Web Widget

FEATURE

  • Web Widget now supports Internal Link Card as a valid content card. The internal links card, once configured appears on top of the Digital Person Widget as a floating card to present a clickable button associated with a link and optionally an image and description to go along with the link. The button when clicked loads the page in the same tab as the current webpage

UPDATED

  • The icon to represent a disconnected state has been replaced by ‘X’ for a clearer representation

  • The image shown in the image card is now in full size

BUG FIXES

  • Fixed widget video remaining black on iPadOS/iOS Safari 15.5

  • Fixed incorrect color and states of camera and microphone

Release Version 2.19 | 11 July 2022

FEATURE

New Skill: Transcription

When a DP has the Transcription Skill, the conversation session is stored as a text file in the Customer’s secure Azure S3 container with the user's requests and conversation responses. The transcript is update throughout the conversation.

New Skill: Wake Word

This Skill was designed to help the Digital Person when there are multiple end users talking. It puts the Digital Person into a Sleep Mode, until it hears the predefined Wake Word, and vice versa. This prevents the DP from interrupting in meetings where multiple people are speaking.

Example:

WAKE WORD: Hey Alice

READY WORD: Alice is online. How can I help.

SLEEP WORD: Good bye Alice

New Skill: Repeat

The Repeat Skill simply repeats the very last response from the Digital Person.

DDNA Blender

  • Created a rad looking Digital Person and want to share it? Or perhaps after you published it you wanted to edit it later, but couldn’t? Now both of these things are possible with our new “DNA” feature which allows you to encapsulate all the Blender settings that created that specific look. You can send DNA to other DDNA Blender users so they can recreate the same look or use it as a starting point for iterations.
    In this release we are launching the ability to use DNA from within the Blender. A future release will extend this to the project page as well.

Web API Keys

  • Session persistence and related cross page authentication for pages within the same domain is now supported by web API keys through DDNA Studio. This feature requires regenerating the web API keys for respective projects.

 

UPDATED

Insights API

  • The “Conversation Node Summary” endpoint now supports a new “graph” mode which makes it easy to support popular graphing libraries like Apache E-Charts or D3.js. This allows:

    • Data filtering set that can be requested

    • Pre-process the data for the “graph response” of the endpoint to avoid circular references due to conversation loops, for Sankey diagrams.

    • A special conversation start and end node, for cleaner graphs.

v1.5 Web Widget

FEATURE

The below features for the Web Widget are not backwards compatible and require a re-embedding of the copy pasteable embed snippet from DDNA Studio

  • Web Widget now supports External Link Card as a valid content card. The card follows the same command as the Default UI (microsite) deployment. The external links card, once configured appears on top of the Digital Person Widget as a floating card to present a clickable button associated with a link and optionally an image and description to go along with the link.

  • Web Widget now supports Image Card as a valid content card. The card follows the same command as the Default UI (microsite) deployment. The image card, once configured appears on top of the Digital Person Widget as a floating card to present a remotely hosted image

  • Web Widget now supports Session Persistence through Web API Key authentication. This feature allows the widget to persist and keep the conversation continuous between page loads of the same domain within the same tab of the browser.

 

KNOWN ISSUES

  • Widget video remains black on iPadOS/iOS Safari 15.5 upon entry. This is resolved by clicking any button within the widget UI

  • MacOS Monterey 12.4 Safari 15.5 - Digital Person in the web widget is muted when navigating to a different page in the same tab (using session persistence). This is Safari autoplay policy limitation, when navigating to next page, the video can only be played muted, user needs to unmute it from button.

  • In Safari, user is prompted for media permission after navigation if media was enabled prior to navigation. Advanced users may change this behavior using Safari → Settings for [Site Name] → Microphone (and/or camera) → Allow

 

v14.4 Soul Machines WebSDK

FEATURE

  • Support session persistence across pages using API key

  • Return content card id in the card payload to support content awareness

Release Version 2.18 | 27 June 2022

FEATURE

New Sample Conversation that supports Skills

The previous sample conversation did not support Skill, so new users, would have to go back and create a new project using an NLP before they could try out Skills. Now they can use the both, the sample conversations and skills together.

 

New Skill: Google Forms Survey

Google Forms is a survey administration software included as part of the free, web-based Google Docs Editors suite offered by Google. With this Skill, customers can create a Google Form or Survey that the DP will conduct with the end user. With the Google Forms Survey skill, Customers can conduct a survey about the services they provide as part of the interaction with the Digital Person. The DCXO will use this Skill for conducting NPS and CSAT surveys Out-of-the-box!

Supported form questions:

  • Short Answer

  • Paragraph

  • Multiple Choice

  • Linear Scale

In addition to the conversation session being stored in the Customer’s secure Azure S3 container, the Customer can leverage Google’s Survey Reports and/or Forms for Business to integrate with their software.

 

Web Widget now supports content cards

Web Widget now supports Options Card as a valid content card. The card follows the same command as the Default UI (microsite) deployment. The options card, once configured appears on top of the Digital Person Widget as a floating card.

 

UPDATED

DDNA Blender

  • We’ve added two new face shapes (1 masculine and 1 feminine)

  • We’ve added 9 new skin texture options (5 masculine and 4 feminine)

Release Version 2.17 | 12 June 2022

FEATURE

Kore.ai NLP as skill

  • Now, you can create your conversations in Kore.ai

 

UPDATED

DDNA Blender

  • The camera now moves dynamically to more appropriately frame the aspect of the Digital Person you’re currently working on.

Digital Person Behavior for Japanese

  • Introduced a second bespoke behaviour style called ‘Dramatic’ for Japanese.

Retired 6 legacy Digital People from production

  • The 6 legacy Digital People: Aria, Bella, Lina, Lucia, Nia, and Roman are now retired. These digital people will continue to function if they are deployed, but if the project form is edited in any way the user will see a “missing” icon for their Digital Person and will need to choose another Digital Person from the available list.

 

BUG FIXES

DDNA Blender

  • Some of the name-tags were a bit wonky. They’re now appropriately positioned. Sorry about that.

v14.3 Soul Machines WebSDK

FEATURE

  • New Content Card API automates handling storage and fetching of custom payload making determining when to display content cards considerably easier
    Learn more here!

BUG FIXES

Insights API Parameter Passing

  • ProjectID is now a required parameter for Conversation Node Summary Endpoint. This fixes a bug that could create ambiguous data.

Release Version 2.16 | 30 May 2022 

FEATURE

Digital DNA Blender - now available to all users of DDNA Studio:

  • DDNA Blender allows users to interactively design their own Digital Person that best represents their brand, client, or organization. Interactively design your own Digital Person, including their head, skin, eyes, nose, and mouth. Modify their hairstyle, eye color, make-up, clothing, and background.

  • You can now apply makeup to your digital person. There are 4 presets, including “bare” (none). You can also dial down the intensity of the presets.

  • You can now add a name-tag to your digital person, including customizing the badge using a supplied photoshop template

UPDATED

DDNA Blender:

  • We’ve added a thumbnail image to each slider so you can get a feel for what that feature will add to your Digital Person. You can still hover over the image to view the feature name (“Feminine 1” etc)

DDNA How Should Your Digital Person Behave:

Improved Local Development Experience

  • We now validate that the IP addresses entered are public ones. If a private IP address is entered, an appropriate error message is displayed.

BUG FIXES

DDNA Blender:

  • We’ve tidied up a few user experience issues

Camera Behavior

  • We’ve updated the messaging for the Static Frame options when using a Custom UI, and clarified the developer is required to position their digital person in relation to onscreen content.

Release Version 2.15 | 16 May 2022

FEATURE

Camera Behavior Options

We have renamed the Default Camera option to Static Camera and provided a choice of three Static Frames. When selecting a Static Frame for your experience, you can now choose between a head and shoulders frame, a chest up frame, and a waist up frame.

Improved Local Development Experience

When using local development mode for an orchestration server you can now specify a whitelist with multiple IP address blocks. This makes it easier to share a project between multiple developers in different locations.

UPDATED

Upgraded Stock DPs for New Projects

The “Stock” Digital People are now running HumanOS 2.3, so you can take advantage of all the latest features.

Updated Terms and Conditions

We’ve updated our terms and conditions for using DDNA Studio and our Digital People. The updated T&Cs can be viewed here: https://studio.soulmachines.cloud/terms-and-conditions

BUG FIXES

DDNA Designer

We’ve improved error handling and notifications and fixed some UI bugs.

v14.2.1 Soul Machines WebSDK

 

UPDATED

  • Fix microphone failing on MacOS Safari for the WebSDK

Release Version 2.14 | 2 May 2022

FEATURE

DDNA Skills: Shared "memory" between Skills

  • When the Digital Person is using one or more Skills, the Skill conversational is now saved in memory, which can be read and written to, by other skills within the same session

  • This includes preset fields/types, but developers are also able to add to them

DDNA Skills: General location service for skills use

Use the end user’s IP address to get their general location for Skills like “Weather”

Insights CSV export from DDNA Studio

The insights dashboard now allows CSV export of the data shown in the graphs for easy analysis and consumption

Insights API New Endpoint - Topical Flow

The topical flow API endpoint provides the data for conversation nodes and the general flow of the conversation with a view of the predecessor and successor nodes along with key information like their node id’s, tags etc. to demonstrate the flow of conversation and popularity of nodes across multiple conversations of a project.

 

UPDATED

DDNA Skills: Environment selection for DialogFlow CX

A drop down has been added that allows users to select the environment for Dialogflow CX projects.

Release Version 2.13/2.13.1 | 12 April 2022

FEATURE

Amazon Lex NLP

Now, you can create your conversations in Amazon Lex

DDNA Skills: Dialogflow CX

Now, you can add skills onto your conversations built in Dialogflow CX

New Skill: Translation

  • We’ve enabled you to write your conversation in English, but translate back and forth for the end-user

  • Based on the language you select for your end-user, you’ll now be able to reach a wider audience with just one conversational corpus

New Skill: Facebook

Your Digital Person can now search an account’s Facebook feed to present posts, videos, or pictures

New Skill: Weather

Your Digital Person can now answer the question, “What’s the weather like in San Francisco?” among many other locations

Embed Code Snippet

Studio Deployment Summary page now includes an option to embed the Digital Person using an Embed Code Snippet allowing for an easy copy-pasteable code block that can be added to a page on any whitelisted domains without any code requirements

 

UPDATED

Twitter Skill

We’ve updated the Twitter skill to now allow your Digital Person to search using hashtags.

Youtube Skill

We’ve updated the skill to now allow your Digital Person to search multiple Youtube channels.

Skills are Aware of Conversational Context

We’ve exposed conversation history and processing stage out to the Skills API to allow skills to now see the history of your conversation and know if they’re receiving an end user response or a DP response.

Insights API Documentation

We’ve updated the Insights API documentation to guide through various queries and responses for both the Insights API endpoints.

Release Version 2.12 | 7 March 2022

 

FEATURE

Launching DDNA Skills for Early Access!

The Skills platform is now available for Early Access! The Skills API and SDK will enable all creators to develop their own skills and use them in their projects.

Learn more here!

Insights API v1.0

Previously, the only opportunity to measure and analyze interaction data was through the EQ Dashboard, and limited visibility of this data in the Insights Dashboard. With the Insights API v1.0, we aim to give the power of all the raw data we have for each session in an API that can be consumed with different BI and Data Visualization tools.

We’ve started by showing how it’s done with Domo.

API Keys

API keys are now available through DDNA Studio! The API Keys provide easy authentication to connect any Soul Machines APIs and custom UI. Currently, we offer two different scopes for the API Keys

Learn more here!

Analytics API Key

The Analytics API Key provides authentication for the Insights API v1.0. The API key scope can be determined to include one, multiple, or all projects within an organization to allow access to raw data through the Insights API for BI tools.

Learn more here!

WebSDK API Key

Previously, creators had to deploy a token server in order to authenticate a deployment to a custom UI. Now, with the web API keys provided at deployment, it is significantly easier to authenticate your custom deployment.

Learn more here!

 

UPDATED

Improved Skills UI in DDNA Studio

The Skills UI in Digital DNA Studio has been expanded and optimized. We’ve simplified browsing and improved navigation of the Skills Library.

Learn more here!

Youtube Skill

Previously, you could only connect 1 Youtube channel to your Digital Person. Now, you can connect multiple channels and also do a youtube playlist search for your Digital Person to surface even more rich content to your end-users.

Learn more here!

Renaming Microsoft LUIS

Digital DNA Studio UI and our documentation have been updated to use the correct term Azure Bot Service in place of Microsoft LUIS.

Release Version 2.11 | 8 Feb 2022

 

FEATURE

Skills support for LUIS NLP

The Skills platform now supports Microsoft LUIS as a Base Conversation, allowing you to use your favorite Skills with a LUIS corpus! 

New Top Bar Design

Digital DNA Studio now offers improved UI for project sorting and searching within the project dashboard. The new top bar design includes filtering for projects created by “me” and by “everyone else” in the organization including alphabetical and chronological sorting of projects. The top bar design also provides better visibility of all projects on the dashboards page.

New Analytics Role

Digital DNA Studio now supports a new “Analytics” role which provides users in that role access to the insights of all projects within a specific organization. The role does not have access to editing or creating projects.  

Spelling Skill

When the Spelling Skill is added to a project the Digital Person will be able to spell out words on request. Try asking your Digital Person to spell awesome! 

 

UPDATED

Improved Skills UI in DDNA Studio

The Skills UI in Digital DNA Studio has been expanded and optimized. Now when viewing Skills added to a project, you can jump directly to the Skill configuration page. 

 

BUG FIXES

v14.1.1 Soul Machines WebSDK

Fix initialization issue for scene.onConversationResultsEvents and scene.onSpeechMarkerEvents when creating a Persona object.

Release Version 2.10 | 16 Dec 2021

 

FEATURE

New Base Conversation and Skills Configuration

The base conversation interface is now merged with the Skills interface within Digital DNA Studio to account for dependencies and make assigning skills and conversations easier. 

  • Skills are currently supported for all Digital People on HumanOS 2.2 or later.

  • Skill selection is limited to Dialogflow ES and Watson NLP platforms only.

  • Skills are only supported in the English language. 

Math Skill

The Math Skill allows you to enhance the intelligence of your Digital Person by providing the ability to answer math-related questions. 

YouTube Skill 

The YouTube Skill will allow you to add YouTube channels or content videos in the Skills section of Digital DNA Studio. This skill can be customized to your needs, depending on what channel you want to focus on in your search.

New CUE Feature: Pointing

Your Digital Person can now point at the on-screen content to draw attention! Pointing is enabled on both arms of the Digital Person to point with the arm on the side of the displayed content. Autonomous Ponting can be enabled by toggling on the “Real-Time Gesturing” toggle Pointing at on-screen content can also be customized through the corpus. 

CUE features (real-time gesturing, camera cuts, and content awareness) are currently supported for all Digital People on HumanOS 2.2 or later. 

New Support Role

A new Support role now introduced to allow a Soul Machines support personnel or partner to have “Owner” rights within any organization to provide troubleshooting and technical support. 

New Project Sharing Workflow

Digital DNA Studio now allows viewing all projects within an organization for Owner and Support user roles. In addition, the project editor, organization owner, and support roles can also concurrently edit a project within the organization for greater collaboration. 

  • “Created by you” and “Created by everyone” toggle to sort through projects easier

  • Concurrent editing of projects within the organization with warning banners to let the user know of any saved versions of the project not part of their instance of the project

  • “Created by” and “Last Edited by” user information for each project on the Project Summary screen

Learn more here!

New Onboarding Workflow

The login and registration process along with the Welcome Email for the Digital DNA Studio has now been modified to remove the waitlist. Access to Digital DNA Studio is now invite-only, with the welcome email containing the link (expires in 5 days) along with simple instructions to getting started.

8 New Stock Digital People

We have added 8 new stock digital people - taking the total stock digital people to 14, with 3 males in the mix.

Learn more here!

 

Deprecated

Retiring HumanOS 1.x (6) Stock Digital People from New Orgs

We are retiring the 6 stock Digital People running on HumanOS1.x since they were not built via a standardized process, they have no upgrade path, and they do not reflect the current state of our platform and technology. Starting this release, the 6 stock Digital People on HumanOS1.x will not be visible to any new organizations. 

Learn more here!

v14.1.1 Soul Machines WebSDK

 

FEATURE

Allowing Camera and Mic Toggle Mid-Session

  • Add a simpler way to create a `Scene` instance by passing camera and microphone configurations

  • Add a new function `startVideo` in `Scene` to allow developers to handle different restrictions on autoplay policy across browsers

  • Allow user to activate/deactivate camera and microphone in a connected session

This functionality is available for Digital People deployed on SDK14.x or HumanOS2.2 and above 

 

BUG FIXES

  • Fix logic error of handling requestedMediaDevices and requiredMediaDevices

  • Fix uncaught promise error of `noUserMedia`

  • Fix initialization issue on onSceneonConversationResultsEvents and onSpeechMarkerEvents are initialized when creating a Persona. 

Release Version 2.9 | 17 Nov 2021

 

Deprecated

Remove Legacy Project References

  • All references to “Legacy Projects” have been removed in DDNA Studio including references in the dashboard and interaction insights page as a housekeeping task to reduce confusion.

Release Version 2.7/2.8 | 28 Sept 2021

 

FEATURE

Enable Content Awareness and Camera Features

  • Human OS 2.2 features all-new awareness and camera cuts features that can dramatically improve the level of engagement and comprehension of your DP. 

  • You can now enable these features from within Studio for DPs that are on Human OS 2.2. 

New 3rd Party Voices

  • Christmas came early! Microsoft, Amazon, and Google have released some great, high-quality voices. 

  • We have also added these new voices and can now be selected through Studio.

Native Dialogflow CX Support

  • We’ve long supported Dialogflow ES in Studio. Since Google released their new NLP, Dialogflow CX, we’ve heard a lot of requests for support in Studio. 

  • Now, you can upload your CX agents and connect them to your DP through DDNA Studio. 

Note: Dialogflow CX is only supported for DP that are on Human OS 2.2+

New Stock Digital People

  • With this release, we are adding 4 new stock digital people, all running HumanOS2.2 and all auto-built via the new platform. 

Rylie

Rua

Anele

Tanaka

 

 

 

 

Female

Female

Female

Female

+ Viola and Gabriella are already available

Skills - Early Access

  • Currently, customers are forced to develop all of the capabilities and the content that their DP is capable of performing on their own. That includes 4-6 weeks per integration with backend systems, 3+ hours per turn of conversation, 4 weeks per custom NLP integration. 

  • Our assumption is that by developing a set of reusable capabilities (what we’re calling Skills, for now) we’ll greatly reduce the time cost to develop content and allow customers to spend more time building amazing experiences. 

  • With the v2.8 release of Studio, we’ll be releasing this feature in Early Access. Our goal is to learn from our customers and iterate quickly! There will be 1 skill that we release, the Elegant Failure skill. This feature will only work with a Watson or Dialogflow ES corpus. Please, reach out and let us know what you think! 

  • We’re just getting started here, so the better feedback you provide us, the better software we’ll be able to create.

Release Version 2.6 | 8 Aug 2021

 

FEATURE

Deploy Auckland Theme w/ your Orchestration Server

  • Previously, our customers and partners were forced to build their own orchestration server, a custom UI and a token server in order to deploy a Digital Person w/ an Orchestration Server. 

  • Now, simply include a link to your orchestration server and your public IP (if developing locally) to expedite deployment. 

  • Note: When running a local Orchestration Server ('Developing Locally') your Public IP is required so that we can whitelist its requests. Be sure that you double-check this IP as you enter it in as an incorrect entry will result in your Digital Person not deploying successfully. 

Deploy a Digital Person demo in seconds 

  • Our customers and partners told us that while Studio is super easy to use, the first journey is filled with friction. 

  • Now, we’ve included the ability to test out a sample conversation so that you can get your first Digital Person delivered in a matter of seconds with no prior work.

  • We’re confident that this will help our customers and partners see the magic of an interaction with a Digital Person with just one choice, the voice. 

Introducing...Viola! 

  • Viola is our first Digital Person created from our industry-leading Digital DNA Blender. She’s running Human OS 2.0, our breakthrough autonomous animation operating system. 

  • Select her directly from Digital DNA Studio and have a chat! 

  • Heads up, several new Digital People coming in the near future! 

Release Version 2.5 | 23 Jul 2021

FEATURE

The following new features and improvements have been added to Digital DNA Studio version 2.5:

  • Arabic language support improves lip-sync quality and overall end-user experience. 

  • Password Policy updated to a minimum of 8 characters to increase trust in the platform.

Release Version 2.4 | 08 Jun 2021

FEATURE

The following new features and improvements have been added to Digital DNA Studio version 2.4:

  • The new Project Management’ page replaces the ‘Deployment’ page’ that provide users with easy access to actionable buttons and project details:

    • Deploy a project

    • Duplicate a project

    • Delete a project

    • Displays project details such as Labels & Corpus type

  • Apply Predefined’ or ‘Custom’ labels to differentiate between multiple Projects.

  • Project Summary query runtime improved performance. 

Release Version 2.3 | 03 May 2021

FEATURE

The following new features and improvements have been added to Digital DNA Studio version 2.3:

Note: The AES feature requires a Digital Person running in Human OS 2.0 - Aria only

  • Improved User Notifications:

    • Consistent notifications across the Product

    • Destructive Actions moved to a Modal Notification that reduces the risk of accidents

 

UPDATED

Enhancements to the Digital DNA Studio Default UI

The following new features and improvements have been added to the Digital DNA Studio Default UI:

Video Block

  • Video popup now has animated transitions on open/close.

  • The video card now always plays the video in a popup.

  • Pressing the "ESC" key closes the video popup.

  • After the video popup is closed, the microphone now correctly stays muted if it was already muted before the video was played.

Goodbye Page 

  • The goodbye page now contains an animated tick image.

  • Goodbye page copy has been improved to be more friendly.

Landing page

  • Updated appearance for "Accept Terms" checkbox.

  • Updated appearance for the “Come on in” button.

 

BUG FIXES

  • Content block sizing is more consistent across devices, with improvement for iPad landscape in particular.

  • Playing videos from the transcript history no longer triggers conversational input (e.g. "I'm done watching").

  • The Colour contrast of all buttons has been increased. 

  • The mouseover effect has been added to more buttons across the UI.

  • When a session times out, the timeout page "Exit Session" button now leads to the Landing Page instead of the Goodbye Page.

  • Web SDK updated to v12 to address the "Welcome Message" bug.

  • The content block and chat block are more consistent now across different devices.

  • Hover state has been added to the connection indicator icon.

Release Version 2.2.1 | 15 Mar 2021

The following new features and improvements have been added to Digital DNA Studio version 2.2.1:

General Updates 

  • We heard that authentication errors would leave customers in limbo. So we’ve resolved that by redirecting to an authentication error page.

Updates to the Dashboard 

  • We’ve made several bug fixes and small usability improvements to enhance the user experience of Digital DNA Studio: 

    • Added a tooltip for project names to enable users to easily see the full project name.

    • Fixed a common issue where the Digital Person images do not always load.

    • Reworked the Dashboard project tiles to improve the readability of project names. 

    • Added a Launch button to the project maintenance menu to simplify getting to your Digital Person.

Updates to Creating a Project

  • We’ve also heard a ton of feedback regarding the usability of our “Create” function, so we’ve made small tweaks to improve the % of customers that create their first project:

    • Provided clearer error messages for users who upload a Dialogflow CX file.

    • Allowed users to upload a Watson JSON corpus creds file (alternative format). 

    • Clarified NLP error messages to help customers troubleshoot more easily.

    • Triggered validation on submit instead of midway for simplicity. 

    • Displayed a preview of the users uploaded logo to confirm if it works.

    • Cleared some technical debt; refactored code by moving each section into its own component.

    • Renamed Google TTS voices with “Wavenet” for clarity. 

    • Added a brand new Amazon TTS voice: Olivia (en-AU, female).

    • Added two new Google voices: ar-XA-Wavenet-D (ar-XA, female), es-ES-Wavenet-B (es-ES, male).

NEW!  Microsoft Neural Voices 

  • Microsoft has launched some incredible new neural voices. We now support all of Microsoft’s most recently launched voices in each of our 12 support languages. 

  • Oh, and Microsoft Luis native support coming soon =).

Enhancements to the Digital DNA Studio Default UI (Auckland Theme V9)

The following new features and improvements have been added to the Digital DNA Studio Default UI (aka Auckland theme):

Video Content Block

  • Conversation engineers are now able to use a video content block.

  • The video block currently only supports YouTube video links.

  • When a user plays the video block:

    • The persona is blurred out

    • The user's microphone is muted

    • The video is displayed in a popup view

    • Pausing the video does not close the popup

  • Clicking the popup close button sends “I’m done watching” as a user response, removing the popup state.


Example usage in Dialogflow context variables:

{{   "type": "video",   "data": {{     "videoId": "oRdxUFDoQe0"   }} }}

 

Example usage in Dialogflow custom payload:

 

{   "soulmachines": {     "michaelJacksonVideo": {       "type": "video",       "data": {        "videoId": "oRdxUFDoQe0"       }     }   } }

Full screen persona in portrait mode

  • Persona video area takes up the full height of the screen in portrait mode.

  • Content cards are overlaid on persona video, white background is gone.

  • Camera tilts vertically when needed to make room for content cards.

Set feature state using speech markers (requires SDK12)

Some UI features can now be toggled via the corpus:

  • Transcript (transcript : on / off)

  • Microphone (microphone : on / off)

Example corpus usage:

Sure, let me turn on your microphone. @feature(microphone, on)

Okay, @feature(microphone, off) I've turned off your microphone.

Sure, let me close the transcript @feature(transcript, off) for you.

End session from corpus (requires SDK12)

  • Conversation can now be ended from the corpus.

  • Ending the session from the corpus directs the user to a "Goodbye" page.

  • Same "Goodbye" page is now used when the user ends the session from the sidebar menu.


Example corpus usage:

Thanks, it was nice talking to you. Goodbye! @close()

Bug fixes

  • Unsupported browsers on iOS (Chrome, Firefox) now display "Unsupported Browser" page to the user.

  • Unsupported browsers page now displays correctly on iOS 14.4 and later.

  • In-app browsers on Android (Facebook, Instagram etc.) now display "Unsupported Browser" page to the user.

  • External Link block now takes up the maximum width available.

  • EULA and Landing Page now refer to "Digital Person" instead of "Digital Hero".

 

Release Version 2.2 | 09 Feb 2021

The following new features and improvements have been added to Digital DNA Studio version 2.2:

Updates to our Analytics API

  • We got a ton of amazing feedback on our Analytics API. Thank you! We’re hooking you up with some updates to make it immensely easier to use. 

  • Add endDate to the conversation summaries payload.

  • Remove query by session/events, just sharing query-daily-combined and renaming it to (query-daily-events).

  • Restrict the (query-daily-events) to daily.

  • Remove the 'time' field and just use '@timestamp' - remove the @.

  • For (query-daily-events), remove the duplication in the events array - i.e. we don't need the sessionId or projectId repeated for each event within that array given that we can get the sessionId from the parent / above the array.

  • Add WebRTC data to (query-daily-events).

  • Add sessionId parameter to filter the (query-daily-events) API.

  • Add events-summary endpoint.

  • Add logic for external projects.

Train Speech Hints through Studio

  • We’re limited by the STTs of our time. We heard many of our customers were using speech hints in their bespoke environments. 

  • Now, train your STT with speech hints directly from Studio!

Release Version 2.1 | 15 Dec 2020

The following new features and improvements have been added to Digital DNA Studio version 2.1:

Adjust the Speed and Pitch of your DPs Voice

  • We learned from our customers that the ability to preview the TTS is critical in early-stage development. They evaluate many voices to see which fits their brand best. Additionally, they want to be able to adjust the prosody to craft their voice.

  • Now, customers can customize the speed and pitch for any Google voice directly from Digital DNA Studio. Additionally, you can now preview any voice (across all providers).

Other Updates

  • Custom URL login page: https://authenticate-studio.soulmachines.cloud.

  • We’ve made updates to our config service to make things run smoother for all our customers.

  • We’ve plugged some security risks on our Watson and Dialogflow corpus validation.

Release Version 2.0 | 12 Nov 2020

The following new features and improvements have been added to Digital DNA Studio version 2.0:

Interaction Insights 

We’ve been hustling to solve one of the most fundamental needs that all of our customers have been requesting since the dawn of Digital DNA Studio: understanding how they can manage, analyze, and improve their Digital People. 

We’re proud to take step one on that journey today with Interaction Insights by Soul Machines.

  • Now, quickly scan through highlights on how your Digital Person is performing.

  • Get an idea of how that compares to their historical performance.

  • Uncover trends by comparing the data that matters most.

  • And dive into a specific time period or view usage from a specific device type.

New Amazon Polly Neural Voices

  • Previously, we offered several Amazon voices. As a part of a recent update, they’ve released a new range of high-quality Neural Voices. 

  • Now, you can test and deploy your Digital People with the best of Amazon’s Neural Voices, directly through Digital DNA Studio.

Minor UI Tweaks 

  • We got feedback from you that some things just didn’t make sense. Cool, good feedback.

  • We’ve made those updates and are now full steam ahead.

Emotional expressiveness updates

  • Coming with Human OS 2 Beta at the end of this year!

  • We learned that our digital people weren’t expressive enough due to some changes we had made in the past. 

  • We’ve since corrected those issues and made each of our digital people even more expressive to help you tell the story that you’re trying to tell. Happy training with personality tags!

Release Version 1.9.1 | 20 Oct 2020

The following new features and improvements have been added to Digital DNA Studio version 1.9.1:

Support Dynamic FOV for all Digital People

  • Previously, Studio only supported a single field of view for Digital People. This would result in content covering the DP or the DP sliding out of the frame.

  • Now, all Studio DP support dynamic FOV so that the experience is optimal and you don’t experience these issues anymore.

Interrupt feature available for all projects 

  • Previously, the interrupt button would intermittently disappear. 

  • Now, all Studio deployed Digital People have the interrupt feature for when they’re monologuing a bit too much. 

WebRTC Stats in side-bar

  • Previously, customers were having issues with latency and were unable to diagnose. 

  • Now, you can open up the left sidebar to view WebRTC data on signal quality.

  • Now, you can create richer content for your end-users with the new external links or markdown content types. 

  • Link to a webpage and include a delightful graphic or use simple markdown to style your text content.

Image Block Mini-Upgrade

  • We’re in the process of making a major upgrade to the beloved image block, but in the meantime, we’re releasing a much-requested upgrade. 

  • The image block no longer stretch smaller images, rather it maintains the aspect ratio.

Improvements to Responsive Transcript on Mobile

  • Previously, the transcript on mobile would cover the DP among several other mobile responsive challenges. 

  • We’ve improved the mobile experience across the board, including the responsiveness of the experience so that it’s more optimized for tablets and phones.

Other Notable Fixes

  • Clear conversation and feature state for new sessions.

  • Options block supports "value" property with fallback to "label"

  • Options block becomes “locked” after an option has been selected.

  • The logo is hidden if a logo URL has not been provided. 

  • Feedback link has been removed from the side menu.

Release Version 1.9 | Oct 2020

The following new features and improvements have been added to Digital DNA Studio version 1.9:

Giving your Digital Person a voice 

  • Previously, we’d have you set the voice and the language that your DP understood in a really disjointed way. We also got feedback that the choices that we were having you make were confusing. 

  • Now, we’ve removed extra decisions that you need to make (like provider) and brought these two dropdowns together to make things more intuitive.

Copy and UX Language

  • We got feedback from our customers, and our team, that the language that we used when quickly prototyping Digital DNA Studio wasn’t scalable. It was too technical. 

  • So we’ve taken a fresh approach making it easier than ever the first time a new team member joins. 

Server Upgrades to deliver data for Insights Panel

  • Our next big undertaking is delivering the first Insights Panel (formerly known as EQ Dashboard) directly through Digital DNA Studio. We realized that there was some work to be done so that we could collect and deliver all of the data that we want to equip customers with. 

  • So we’ve made those updates and are now full steam ahead.

Emotional expressiveness updates (coming soon)

  • We learned that our digital people weren’t expressive enough due to some changes we had made in the past. 

  • We’ve since corrected those issues and made each of our digital people even more expressive to help you tell the story that you’re trying to tell. Happy training with personality tags!

Release Version 1.8 | Sept 2020

The following new features and improvements have been added to Digital DNA Studio version 1.8:

Organization Management

  • Digital DNA Studio is a product that we’re building for your entire organization. But our customers kept on telling us that there was no way for them to manage their teams.

  • Now, you add your own team members, assign roles, view your usage, and even delete your account and data if you decide that Soul Machines isn’t the solution for you. We’ve also started to distinguish features by plan so that Partners and Enterprise customers can have access to the unique features that they’re used to.

Allow me to reintroduce myself

  • One of our core principles is to strive to make sure that our digital people is representative of the world in which they exist. As such, we’ve renamed some of our digital people to reflect the diversity that their looks were inspired by. 

  • Say hi to Lucia, Lina, and Nia!

Lucia

Lina

Nia

 

Female

Female

Female

EQ data collection updates

  • We learned that our digital people weren’t collecting EQ data that was not above an unusually high bar. 

  • We’ve since corrected those issues and made each of our digital people can collect data on the finer expressions that our end users make!

Usability updates

  • We got some feedback from our customers that some of the UX could be improved along with some of the copy fine-tuned. We’ve got your back. Happy creating!

Emotional expressiveness updates (coming soon)

  • We learned that our digital people weren’t expressive enough due to some changes we had made in the past. 

  • We’ve since corrected those issues and made each of our digital people even more expressive to help you tell the story that you’re trying to tell. Happy training with personality tags!

Release Version 1.7 | Aug 2020

The following new features and improvements have been added to Digital DNA Studio version 1.7:

Integration with our support center 

  • We launched the Soul Machines Support Center last month. That was a necessary step forward. We got some great feedback that we could make the experience more seamless. So we have! No need to manage your bookmarks. Now, you can access our support center, give us feedback, or suggest an improvement from the Studio. 

Validate your corpus on upload

  • Our customers told us that they’d be setting up their projects, ready to chat with their shiny new digital person, and then he or she wouldn’t respond. The worst! More often than not, it’s because the credentials you’ve uploaded aren’t valid or are broken. So we’ve added validation on upload so you know right away if your credentials file is valid!

Responsive design fixes for smaller screen sizes

  • We noticed that the Studio looked quite broken on smaller screen sizes. That’s less than ideal. So we’ve finessed the UI a bit to make the experience delightful for everyone.

Usability updates

  • We got some feedback from our customers that some of the UX could be improved. We’ve got your back. Happy creating!

Release Version 1.6 | July 2020

The following new features and improvements have been added to Digital DNA Studio version 1.6:

Validate your Watson Corpus

  • Now, authors will be able to download and upload a single file to then select any corpus in their Watson workspace. This means easier selection and validation that the corpus is functional before deploying your project. No more confusion on which credentials to input!

My DH will Greet Me

  • We’ve enabled the “Welcome Node” feature from Watson and Dialogflow to allow authors to be greeted as soon as their DH starts up. This means our Studio experience is now consistent with how Sam or any other commercial DH greets you. No more awkward pauses!

Performance and Loading Improvements

  • Our authors were seeing performance issues at >30 projects. We’ve made some updates under the hood to solve that challenge, among a few others. 

Reporting and Usage Analytics

  • We’ve done some work under the hood to get usage analytics on everything that happens in the DDNA Studio. This will help us learn and make smarter product decisions!

Help Center

  • Our team has launched a standalone Help Center for customers to be able to request technical support and give product feedback.

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