Emotions, Accents, and Avatars Galore & Why Apple Says It's All ...
In this episode of the Sidecar Sync, co-hosts Amith Nagarajan and Mallory Mejias delve deep into the cutting edge of AI-generated audio and video. Mallory demonstrates the stunning new ElevenLabs V3 voice engine and the lifelike hand gestures of HeyGen's Avatar 4, while Amith shares behind-the-scenes insights from a recent hackathon focused on building agentic software. The pair also unpack Apple’s eyebrow-raising research paper, “The Illusion of Thinking,” and debate whether AI models are truly reasoning—or just pattern-matching very well. Whether you're building AI learning hubs or just wondering when Siri will finally get it together, this episode is for you.
Timestamps:
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AI Tools and Resources Mentioned in This Episode:
- ElevenLabs V3 ➞ https://www.elevenlabs.io
- HeyGen Avatar 4 ➞ https://www.heygen.com
- Claude ➞ https://claude.ai
- OpenAI Voice Mode ➞ https://openai.com/chatgpt
- Synthesia ➞ https://www.synthesia.io
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More about Your Hosts:
Amith Nagarajan is the Chairman of Blue Cypress 🔗 https://BlueCypress.io, a family of purpose-driven companies and proud practitioners of Conscious Capitalism. The Blue Cypress companies focus on helping associations, non-profits, and other purpose-driven organizations achieve long-term success. Amith is also an active early-stage investor in B2B SaaS companies. He’s had the good fortune of nearly three decades of success as an entrepreneur and enjoys helping others in their journey.
Follow Amith on LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/amithnagarajan
Mallory Mejias is passionate about creating opportunities for association professionals to learn, grow, and better serve their members using artificial intelligence. She enjoys blending creativity and innovation to produce fresh, meaningful content for the association space.
Follow Mallory on Linkedin: https://linkedin.com/mallorymejias
🤖 Please note this transcript was generated using (you guessed it) AI, so please excuse any errors 🤖
[00:00:00] Mallory: Because you can see avatars of other people. I think when you see them of yourself though, and you see how realistic they look, that's when you can really gauge just how crazy this technology is.
[00:00:12] Amith: Welcome to Sidecar Sync, your weekly dose of innovation. If you're looking for the latest news, insights, and developments in the association world, especially those driven by artificial intelligence, you're in the right place.
[00:00:24] We cut through the noise to bring you the most relevant updates with a keen focus on how AI and other emerging technologies are shaping the future. No fluff, just facts and informed discussions. I'm Amith Nagarajan, Chairman of Blue Cypress, and I'm your host. Greetings and welcome to the Sidecar Sync. My name is Amith,
