The intersection between creativity and digital technology is being explored by innovative companies in Oxfordshire, supported by the region’s wealth of cutting-edge expertise as well as its creative resources.
CreaTech is the use of innovations in technology such as AI, virtual and augmented reality or haptic technology (which allows users to experience touch), to transform cultural experiences and enhance creative processes.
The creative sector alone generates around £108 billion in gross value added (GVA) to the UK economy, and the Creative Industries Council aims to add a further £50 billion GVA to that total by 2030. Extended to advertising, marketing and creative digital innovation, the field is even wider.
Added together, the UK’s creative and digital sectors are economic growth areas, contributing a total of £283 billion. The UK is ranked third in the world for investment in CreaTech, behind the USA and China. Its growth depends on skills, and this is another reason why growing organisations are attracted to Oxfordshire. There are AI centres of expertise at each of its two universities, Oxford Brookes and the University of Oxford. The latter has been a consistent investor in AI, with several successful spinouts.
Games
In the gaming segment, Oxfordshire hosts a number of thriving companies, including Rebellion, which, as the creator of Sniper Elite, Zombie Army, Evil Genius, and 2000AD, is one of the world’s most successful independent video games studios. Also based in Oxford is First Touch Games, an award-winning studio whose best-known games are Score! Hero and Dream League Soccer. Outside the city, there are smaller studios such as Excalibur Games in Bloxham near Banbury, which has published over 350 titles, and Two Tails in Witney which makes video games for PC, consoles and virtual reality.
Interactive storytellling
Charisma ai, based in Osney Mead in central Oxford, believes that AI offers creatives a valuable tool. A bridge between the creative and tech world, its platform was developed for writers and offers them a ‘controllable AI’. Instead of using code, it is based on natural language, with features such as memory, emotion, and story tracking. Its approach has been recognised by Hollywood studios, AAA games developers, writers and technologists. The platform offers plug and play modules with ready-made scenes in 3D games engines, and state-of-the-art AI voices and characters.
Charisma ai’s CEO and co-founder, Guy Gadney, says: “AI will have a huge impact on storytelling across entertainment, education and marketing. Charisma.ai powers interactive storytelling, placing our audiences in immersive worlds with strong and believable characters.”
The company partners with universities around the world, aiming to create new forms of entertainment and learning.
It has a long-standing partnership with the University of Oxford to explore how interactive teaching and learning powered by Charisma.ai can revolutionise English language teaching, for example by creating exciting new ways of teaching the classic texts. Working together, Charisma ai and University of Oxford teams have made protypes including a WhatsApp-style retelling of Romeo and Juliet and an interactive introduction to Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales combining text and video.
While the founders expected their idea principally to be taken up by the games industry, Charisma.ai runs writers’ labs with writers from film, TV and even poetry. It has found that one of the fastest adopters was immersive theatre, where it is important to have a fluid narrative of the kind that AI can assist with very ably.
Charisma ai has received seed funding from US investor Comcast NBCUniversal LIFT Labs as well as London-based VC firm Venrex.
Creativity and AI technology is proving to be a compelling combination in Oxfordshire and the story of how CreaTech develops is going to be a gripping one to follow.
Image provided by Charisma.ai