Sergey Tokarev, an IT businessman, talks about the success of Doublicat released by RefaceAI, a Ukrainian IT development company, on January 13, 2020. Doublicat allows its users to replace faces on GIF-images. In July, the app surpassed 5 million downloads on the app stores. It also reached the tops of AppStore and GooglePlay charts in various countries.
Sergey Tokarev, an IT businessman, talks about the success of Doublicat released by RefaceAI, a Ukrainian IT development company, on January 13, 2020. Doublicat allows its users to replace faces on GIF-images. In July, the app surpassed 5 million downloads on the app stores. It also reached the tops of AppStore and GooglePlay charts in various countries.
It is an entertaining app that allows its users to become a famous athlete, celebrity, politician, and more by using a face replacement technology. Sergey Tokarev, a RefaceAI investor, talks about the factors that made the app so much popular across the world.
Success Factors
The development team of RefaceAI originally worked as NeoCortex when the company was founded in 2011. Initially, the team worked on improving the existing machine-learning methods. Later on, it started working on the development of a unique technology in the field of face replacement. It took three years to develop an Artificial Intelligence-based technology, Generative Adversarial Nets (GAN).
One year later, RefaceAI released the Reflect app that allowed its users to replace faces on photos. Luckily, the Reflect app attracted Elon Musk, the founder of Tesla. Sergey Tokarev explains that Musk’s post on Twitter helped the company a lot. The team did not stop there and released Doublicat at the beginning of this year. The famous Ukrainian singers used the app in the production of their music videos. It is a huge success factor in the popularity of the app.
The unique GAN technology produces quality results as compared to the CGI (Computer-Generated Imagery) technology used by the competitors of RefaceAI. The results of the app are very close to reality. The team is still working on improving the technology as much as possible. The next target of the Ukraine-based company is to replace faces on videos.
Milestones achieved by Doublicat
The app was released in January 2020. In the first two months, the app was downloaded by more than 750000 on AppStore and GooglePlay. One month later, the app achieved the milestone of 1 million downloads. It grew intensively in the next two months and reached the mark of 4 million downloads. In July, the app crossed the 5 million mark as well, according to Sergey Tokarev. In Ukraine, the app left TikTok and Privatbank, the most popular apps, behind in July.
Doublicat grabbed huge popularity in Malaysia, the Philippines, Brunei, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Thailand. In the US, the ranking of the app in the entertainment category of GooglePlay was 13th as of July 28. Morphine, Faces, and GIF You are the competitors of Doublicat. However, they are left way behind by it as far as the current stats are concerned.
Future Goals
Tokarev says, “RefaceAI is planning to master a new technology of face replacement on videos in the near future.” Moreover, the company will develop new software that will detect the videos created by using face replacement technologies. It will help the users to stay away from any misuse of their videos. The company received some reports of people using the app to replace faces of people with the faces of explicit movie artists. It hurts the reputation of people that is why the company will develop software to detect fake videos and photos. The popularity of the Doublicat app has reached way ahead of its competitors due to its excellent results and unique technology. It is one of the best apps in the entertainment category of the app stores.