Deep Nostalgia Technology is Powered by D-ID’s Live Portrait

9 April 2021


D-ID’s Live Portrait is the tech behind the huge success of Deep Nostalgia™ of MyHeritage mobile app which became the most downloaded free app in the UK and US.

When MyHeritage released their Deep Nostalgia tool just over a week ago, using D-ID’s Live Portrait technology, we knew it was going to be a success. But we weren’t prepared for quite how far and fast it was going to go. From the launch at Rootstech in Salt Lake City, Utah, the technology has now reached around the world, with people on every continent on earth using the app to make emotional connections to long-departed family members.

Over 26 million faces have been animated in just a few days, at a rate of thousands per hour. 

The MyHeritage mobile app even made it to the top of the App Store, making it the most downloaded free app both in the US and UK, even behind Tiktok

Here’s a quick summary of some of the reactions and uses people have been putting the software to.

Celebrities Using Live Portrait

Even celebrities were getting in on the act. Using the tool to animate their friends and family.

US TV talk-show host, Jimmy Kimmel, said his team was playing around with Deep Nostalgia™ so much they lost an afternoon of productivity!

Renowned English actor and activist, Sir Ian McKellen, famous for playing Magneto in X-Men and Gandalf from Lord of the Rings, animated famous Irish poet and playwright Oscar Wilde.

CNN journalist and anchor, Jake Tapper animated a distant family member born in 1773

In The Media

Joelle Goldstein, People.com:

“MyHeritage is helping people experience their family history like never before.”

AJ Willingham, CNN: 

“It’s hard to explain the mix of emotions that spark upon seeing a photo of Frederick Douglass come alive with the click of a button.” She says “And yet, there he is, blinking and nodding as if he were just alive yesterday, as if he hadn’t died in 1895, years before film recording became commonplace.”

Tristin Hopper, The Canadian National Post:

“Even the most humourless of great-grandparents can be rendered into smiling and genteel golems.”

D-ID’s technology also featured in the Independent, New York Post, Adweek, Design Taxi, and many others.

Examples From World History

People have been using the app to animate key figures from world history, people who often lived before the AI video era.

Key figures in African-American history

American Presidents

A thread of great artists and thinkers including American Poet, Emily Dickinson and naturalist, Charles Darwin

The godfather of AI and data science, British codebreaker, Alan Turing

Indian Independence activist, Shaheed Bhagat Singh

French writer and thinker, Victor Hugo – who wrote Les Misérables

Some Emotional Reactions

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