The merger will allow brands and marketers to measure viewers emotional response to video, analyze viewer response via an analytics dashboard
Kairos, the face recognition technology used for brand marketing, has announced the acquisition of EmotionReader. EmotionReader is a limerick, a startup that uses algorithms to analyze facial expressions around video content. It will facilitate firms to make different decisions around media spend based on viewer response.
Facial identification for clients
The acquisition makes sense considering that Kairos core business is focused on facial identification for enterprise clients. Knowing who someone is paired with how they feel about your content is a powerful tool for brands and marketers.
The idea for Kairos started when founder was making HR time-clocking systems for Apple. People were cheating the system, so he decided to implement facial recognition to ensure that employees were actually clocking in and out when they said they were.
That premise spun out into Kairos, and soon it was realized that facial identification as a service was much more powerful than any niche time clocking service.
Technology only for businesses and not government agencies
But the founder is very cautious with the technology Kairos has built. While Kairos aims to make facial recognition technology and all the powerful insights that come with it accessible and available to all businesses. The company has been very clear about the fact that Kairos isn’t interested in selling this technology to government agencies.
Company recently contributed a post right here on a leading website outlining the various reasons why governments aren’t ready for this type of technology. Alongside the outstanding invasion of personal privacy, there are also serious issues around bias against people of colour.
The post stated that there is no place in America for facial recognition that supports false arrests and murder. In a social climate wracked with protests and angst around disproportionate prison populations and police misconduct, engaging software that is clearly not ready for civil use in law enforcement activities does not serve citizens, and will only lead to further unrest.
