Convai is a Silicon Valley startup building a platform for creating and deploying spatially aware 3D AI characters in games, virtual worlds, training simulations, and XR experiences. Founded in 2022 by Purnendu Mukherjee, a former NVIDIA engineer, and co-founder Prashant Mishra, the company set out to give non-playable characters and virtual humans the ability to perceive their environment, hold natural conversations, and act with believable behavior.
The platform combines large language models, speech synthesis, lip sync, and a scene-perception layer so that characters can see and hear their surroundings, react to objects and other agents, and respond with contextually appropriate dialogue, gestures, and actions. Convai integrates with Unreal Engine, Unity, NVIDIA ACE, Roblox, and major XR runtimes, and supports both embodied virtual humans and disembodied AI characters across web, mobile, and headset deployments.
Convai bootstrapped its early development and then raised approximately $5 million in a seed round in October 2022 from investors including Dune Ventures, Monta Vista Capital, and Rainfall Ventures. The company has since partnered with NVIDIA on the ACE character technology stack and demonstrated its agents at events including GTC and CES, with reported revenue of approximately $6.5 million in 2024 according to public industry trackers.
The company competes most directly with Inworld AI and Charisma.ai, differentiating on spatial perception, NVIDIA ecosystem integration, and a focus on developer-facing tooling for game studios, training and simulation vendors, and brands building immersive experiences.