Lars Vågnes is a co-founder and CTO at Simli, a company at the forefront of human-like AI avatar solutions. He has a background in Data Science and Machine Learning and a rich history of launching successful AI startups in both Norway and China. He has hands-on experience building AI systems and products spanning the video, audio, and text domain. He has a Computer science academic background from the University of Michigan and Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Lars also recently founded the AI Product Meetup in Oslo, which now has 100+ attendees at monthly meetups for AI developers and others. At Simli, he is leading the charge in developing cutting-edge multimodal AI systems designed to offer accessible and effective video conversations with AI avatars. These avatars are designed to revolutionize how we as individuals and businesses interact with technology, offering real-time, human-like communication experiences.