Field notes from the studio.
On realtime characters, the craft of presence, and the agentic pipelines that write and translate this very journal.
June 11, 2026 · 6 min · api · product
How much does a realtime AI avatar API cost in 2026? The $5/hour answer
Realtime AI avatar API pricing compared across LiveAvatar, D-ID, and HeyGen — normalized to dollars per hour of live streaming — and why we anchored our plans at about $5/hour.
June 10, 2026 · 6 min · engineering · agents · i18n
Agentic localization: how this blog stays multilingual without a translation team
Every post on this journal can ship in English, Chinese, and Japanese. The translators are LLM agents; the editors are pull requests. Here's the pipeline.
June 10, 2026 · 6 min · product · api
Looking for a HeyGen alternative? Decide what you're actually replacing first
A developer's guide to choosing a HeyGen alternative in 2026: video-generation platforms vs realtime avatar APIs, what each costs per minute, and when each one wins.
June 10, 2026 · 7 min · api · product
HeyGen API pricing explained (2026): video credits, the LiveAvatar split, and the realtime math
What HeyGen's API actually costs in 2026 — per-second video rates, the LiveAvatar realtime spin-off, credit conversions — and how the math changes for live conversational avatars.
June 10, 2026 · 7 min · engineering · content
Payload CMS vs. a git-based blog: what we chose for an agent-written site
We researched running Payload 3 on Cloudflare Workers + D1, weighed it against keeping content in the repo, and picked the stack AI agents are best at maintaining.
June 10, 2026 · 6 min · product · api
Synthesia pricing in 2026 — and the alternatives when you need more than rendered video
Synthesia's plans, what the API actually includes, and the alternative paths — D-ID, HeyGen, and realtime avatar APIs — when your use case is interactive rather than rendered.
June 10, 2026 · 6 min · engineering · api · agents
The Architecture of Presence: Integrating a Realtime AI Avatar API
How to integrate a realtime AI avatar API: the architecture behind sub-second, audio-clocked conversational avatars, and what it takes to ship one in your app.
June 8, 2026 · 6 min · product · companion
Companion apps grow up when the companion has a face
Text-based AI companions hit a ceiling: presence. What changes — in retention, in intimacy, in product design — when your companion looks at the user and speaks.
June 6, 2026 · 5 min · product · training
Roleplay at scale: AI avatars for sales and corporate training
The best training is rehearsal against a difficult human. Realtime avatars make that rehearsal infinitely available, repeatable, and measurable.
June 4, 2026 · 6 min · engineering · api
What is a realtime avatar API? A builder's guide
From a single portrait to a character that answers in live, audio-synced video: the moving parts of a realtime avatar API and what to evaluate before you build on one.