This isn’t science fiction anymore. It’s just science. Digital twins are being created and they can do things for you. By cloning your face, knowledge, ethos, preferences and even body shape, your AI replica can carry out tasks that previously had to be you. Not only that, but information you give to the websites you use every day can effectively create digital twin versions of you, that they use to inform what they sell you next.
Is this creepy, or does it make sense? Taking yourself out of admin and routine tasks could mean you can deliver more impact, make more money, or simply enjoy your life more now you have more time to live it. Having companies understand your preferences on a deeper level can only be a good thing, right?
Greater productivity, enjoyment and doing work that only the real you can do could be on the other side of cloning yourself. Here’s what digital twins are up to in 2024 so far.
Digital twins: the work they are doing for entrepreneurs
Participate in healthcare trials
Sanofi, a French multinational pharmaceutical and healthcare company, can “create digital twins of the human patients seen in the clinic” according to Thomas Klabunde, the company’s global head of translational disease modeling. This is cool. “Virtual patients allow us to test our novel drug candidates before moving them into the clinic.”
“Virtual trials can assess both the impact of a medicine on the disease itself and the resulting impact on clinical measures that make a difference for patients,” explains Sanofi’s website, citing trials on virtual asthma patients, where Sanofi explored if a specific compound “could make a meaningful difference for patients over their current options.” Their scientists asked the model to predict the outcome of a real clinical trial, using information describing the compound, but without knowing the results of the actual test. The data showed a “good match.”
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Forget testing on animals. Test on a digital version of you. Know about potential side effects, understand if a treatment will be effective, and avoid any allergic reactions ahead of time. Your digital twin is happy to help.
Try on new clothes
AI has been involved in fashion retail for a while. From “complete the look” recommendations (as offered by platforms such as Intelistyle) in ecommerce stores, that apply masses of data to predict what you will want to buy next, to virtual dressing rooms (like those offered by 3DLOOK) where you can see what clothes would look like on you before you buy them, it’s all serving to save time shopping and reduce return rates for outlets.
Clothing brand Temperley London uses MySizeID, a virtual clothes fitting app, to take the measurements of customers and offer size recommendations. 1822 Denim let customers view its denim products on their own, unique virtual models using 3DLOOK’s YourFit tool and reducing returns by 30% in the process.
For your digital twin to take this one step further, they need to actually shop on your behalf. Using your measurements and fashion preferences, they would browse products, find ones that would suit you well, and put them into your basket with a short explanation of why they chose that item. Or maybe the shop just turns up at your door. But even ahead of that, avoiding changing rooms has to be a positive, when you want to dress well without wasting energy.
Attend focus groups
Say goodbye to “outdated brand trackers, managing surveys, or moderating focus groups,” said Brox AI, describing itself as “a team of slightly deranged entrepreneurs, data scientists and developers.” Instead, discover what the world thinks and why with an AI version of your target audience. There’s no need to ask or guess their feelings, preferences, and what they’d buy from you if offered. With a digital model of their personalities, you can accurately find out in a few minutes.
Brox’s mission is to make market research as quick and easy as a Google search, “by combining the power of AI and real human voices.” A brand can interrogate the digital twins of its ideal customers on a mass scale and create products to become deeper embedded in their life. Digital twins can answer an infinite number of questions.
This is interrogative AI, generative AI, extensive data sets from real people, and market research industry knowledge, combined for huge savings of time and money. As a consumer, the more you make buying decisions, the more AI can study your actions and predict what you want in future. As a brand, how much could you grow if you knew exactly what your audience wanted, as fast as you could think of the questions to ask?
Coach your followers
Great coaches are busy. They can’t help everyone who wants their help without working more hours or compromising their service with one-to-many options. So they are deploying digital twins to coach and mentor people on their behalf, using their unique methods and frameworks.
Lorraine Hamilton is a former engineer turned professional coach, coach trainer and creator of the SWITCH Coaching System. She has 17 years experience coaching ambitious high-achieving women, writing books and mentoring other coaches. Hamilton used Coachvox to create Lorraine AI to provide full support for her clients without constantly having to respond to client messages and emails. “The tool provides amazing insights into what clients and potential clients are struggling most with,” she explained, leveraging it to educate her followers on her signature methods, as well as coaching in general.
If you wanted to help as many people as possible, how would you do it without compromising your earning potential, quality of service, or free time? Perhaps your digital twin has the solution.
Go on your dates
Bumble founder and former CEO, Whitney Wolf Herd, explained at the Bloomberg Technology Summit that Bumble was planning an “AI concierge” that could go on your dates for you, with other AI concierges. On one level, this makes sense. The AI knows your demographics, preferences, interests, and swiping behaviour. It knows what types of people you’ve clicked with in the past. Your digital twin could skip the small talk and filter through the masses of potential partners to save you time and effort meeting every one yourself.
This technology is played out in Hang the DJ, a Black Mirror episode in which people are paired up by a dating program that puts an expiration date on all relationships. Writer Devon Maloney was skeptical, describing the episode as “a heartbreaking hour that explores the emotional and technological limits of dating apps, and in doing so perfectly captures the modern desperation of trusting algorithms to find us love—and, in fact, of dating in this era at all.” She said it left her “existentially upset.”
Would you let your digital twin go on your dates? Or would it miss nuances like body language, smell and chemistry, that surely can’t be left to algorithms and simulations. Is the risk of letting the perfect match slip through an AI filter outweighed by all that time saved on awkward first dates? For some people, it’s genius. For others it’s too far.
Digital twins in 2024: what they can do on your behalf
An AI version of you can do more than you thought was possible. Participate in virtual health trials, try on new clothes, attend focus groups, coach your followers and go on your dates are just some of its tasks. In theory you’ll save time, be happier, healthier and better dressed, make better purchases, more impact from your work and find the partner of your dreams. How will you use digital twins in your business, and what could you achieve if you really leaned in?
