The MAIA Experience

Overview

An intimate, 10‑minute encounter with MAIA — a real‑time AI character that sees, listens, and converses with visitors inside Prof. Dupin’s study as a pre‑show to a larger story world.

My Role

MS in Emerging Tech, AI & Design at NYU. Solo experience and systems lead across narrative interaction, dialogue pacing, interaction rules, and the full AI pipeline (STT/CV/LLM/TTS) integrated with lighting and set cues.

Outcomes

• Delivered a 10‑minute, high‑intimacy AI encounter with full production design for dozens of participants.
• Established a reusable AI‑character pipeline for future activations (STT → CV → LLM → TTS → show control).
• Defined patterns for emotional, theatrical AI interaction that can transfer to other storyworlds and products.

Why It Mattered

Natural language interaction is emerging as a primary UX surface. MAIA explores how AI characters can carry narrative and emotional weight in physical space, blending computation with performance while keeping latency low and privacy in the room.