Overview

• Odyssey, co-founded by Oliver Cameron and Jeff Hawke, launched its interactive video research preview on May 28 to enable real-time user interaction within AI-generated worlds.
• The model streams new video frames every 40 milliseconds to create immersive environments resembling a glitchy version of Google Street View.
• Participants can explore generated worlds for up to 2½ minutes per session, using Nvidia H100 GPU clusters that cost roughly $1 to $2 per user-hour.
• Backed by Pixar cofounder Edwin Catmull, Odyssey has secured $27 million in funding from investors including GV, EQT Ventures, and Air Street Capital.
• The company is researching richer world representations to improve temporal stability, persistent state, and expand interaction capabilities for entertainment, education, and training.