Kaltura announced it will acquire eSelf.ai for $27 million, a deal aimed at infusing its video experience cloud with live, conversational AI avatars. The startup’s stack blends low-latency speech-to-text and text-to-speech, screen understanding, and agentic workflows to let avatars converse in 30+ languages and respond to what’s happening on a user’s screen in real time. TechCrunch+1
Kaltura CEO Ron Yekutiel said the company evaluated multiple targets but chose eSelf for its strength in synchronous interactions—beyond the typical “VOD lip-sync” pipelines common in today’s avatar tools—and for its cultural and geographic fit with Kaltura’s teams. He positioned the acquisition as the next step in a long shift from simple streaming to personalized, AI-driven video experiences. TechCrunch
Founded by Alan Bekker—a deep-learning researcher whose previous startup helped build Snap’s My AI—eSelf emerged from stealth with customers like Christie’s International Real Estate and Brazil’s AGI bank and has powered “millions” of real-time conversations. Bekker and co-founder Eylon Shoshan engineered the platform to act more like a live agent than a templated presenter. TechCrunch
Investor and market reaction has been upbeat: local reports noted Kaltura’s shares jumping after the announcement, reflecting expectations that avatar-based agents could become standard in training, support desks, and interactive learning. Kaltura says it will roll the tech across its enterprise video, education, and CX suites after closing. ctech+1
Bottom line: Kaltura is betting that photoreal, real-time avatars—not just generative video snippets—will be a key interface for how employees and customers learn, troubleshoot, and buy across industries. TechCrunch
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