How was this all achieved? Luckily, the Azuki team shared details on how it all came together:
Azuki worked with Hallway, the AI startup that brought the characters to life
Bobu had no script, but instead had the lore of Azuki and Bobu pre-loaded into his personality. From there, Bobu can pull context from the live chat and respond in a way that brings in historical context, much like ChatGPT’s memory feature
Details in the bedroom scene and Bobu’s character design were created by the team to make the overall environment more realistic.
Live Co-creation
Towards the end of the live stream, Bobu collected suggestions for merch (starting at around 42:30). As the chat became lively, the Azuki team also designed a T-shirt to commemorate the live stream.
After the live broadcast, viewers were directed to BobuFans.com to claim an exclusive t-shirt. While some felt the t-shirt was not well designed, it aptly reflects the spontaneity, delightful chaos, and protagonist that many in the Azuki community know and love.
Bringing Character IP to Life
Leading NFT projects are bringing their lore, characters, and worldbuilding to life in a variety of ways. Here are some recent examples:
This weekend, Yuga will be playing its first game of Project Dragon, a team-based shooter that introduces multiple franchises to its ecosystem.
Pudgy Penguins is partnering with VanEck to promote its Ethereum ETF. To be honest, if Pudgy Penguins appeared in a cult recruitment video, I’d consider joining.
Doodles will premiere Dullesville and Doodleworld at the Toronto International Film Festival in September.
In addition to this, we are also working on many other things at the same time, including but not limited to social media, events, and product updates.
Bobu can broadcast community members’ Azuki or Beanz NFTs can be brought to the stage as special guests. Or even characters from their anime anthology series can be brought to the stage.
Doodles can create an experience where fans can interact with the protagonist and further explore the Doodleverse
Pudgy Penguins can create a personalized interactive onboarding experience for Pudgy World based on how the user accessed the site or what they have in their wallet
These are all large projects that require a lot of consideration, but the possibility of this happening is not as far-fetched as it sounds.
Expanding the Concept of Character IP
Applying Hallway's AI technology makes the most sense for today's characters or human streamers, but it doesn't have to be that way.
Memecoins
As memecoin continues its volatile pump-and-dump cycle, teams continue to outdo each other with ridiculous names, unique campaigns, and loud influencers. Will any team bring their memecoin to life with something like Hallway?
Prediction Markets
As I reported earlier this week, Polymarket brings a new dimension to the prediction market space. What would happen if Polymarket created a character that users could interact with and hear live commentary about various prediction markets, just like we do with markets at sports games, business shows, or commentary from news reporters?
If/when Polymarket users create their own prediction markets, could creating an AI-enhanced character draw more eyes to the market, and thus more attention and betting volume?
My bigger question about the future state is what happens when tokens and markets become anthropomorphic? What is ridiculous today and reasonable tomorrow?
Anyway, it’s always fun to see teams like Azuki experiment and create new ways to engage the community and generate enthusiasm. I hope they continue to explore the promise of Hallway.
