Odyssey Unveils AI Model Capable of Streaming Interactive 3D Worlds

Odyssey, a startup launched by autonomous vehicle veterans Oliver Cameron and Jeff Hawke, has created an AI model that enables users to interact with streaming video in real time.

Now available as an early demo on the web, the model renders and streams new video frames every 40 milliseconds. With simple controls, users can navigate within the scene—much like exploring a 3D environment in a video game.

Company Unveils World Model System That Predicts Future Scenes with Lifelike Precision and Extended Video Generation

According to a company blog post, the system predicts future scenes based on the current environment, past events, and user inputs. This “world model” can generate lifelike visuals, maintain spatial accuracy, learn actions from video footage, and produce seamless video streams lasting five minutes or more.

Startups and Tech Giants Race to Build World Models for Next-Gen Media and Robotics Simulation

Several startups and major tech companies—including DeepMind, Fei-Fei Li’s World Labs, Microsoft, and Decart—are actively developing world models. These systems are seen as a foundation for future interactive media like games and films, as well as for realistic simulations used in robot training environments.

However, reactions from creative industries have been mixed. A recent Wired investigation revealed that some game studios, including Activision Blizzard—which has laid off large numbers of staff—are using AI to streamline production and offset workforce loss. Meanwhile, a 2024 study commissioned by the Animation Guild estimated that AI could disrupt over 100,000 film, television, and animation jobs in the U.S. in the near future.

Odyssey, for its part, emphasizes that it aims to work with creatives rather than replace them.

“Interactive video unlocks a new frontier for entertainment,” the company writes in a blog post, “where stories can be generated and explored in real time, without the limitations and high costs of traditional media production. We believe that over time, everything we now experience as video—entertainment, advertising, education, training, and travel—will become interactive, powered by Odyssey’s technology.”

Odyssey admits that its current demo is still in an early stage, with noticeable imperfections. The AI-generated environments often appear blurry and warped, and the layout can be inconsistent—moving in one direction or turning around may cause the scenery to unexpectedly change.

Despite these limitations, the company says improvements are coming quickly. Right now, the model can stream video at up to 30 frames per second, powered by clusters of Nvidia H100 GPUs, with operating costs estimated at $1 to $2 per user-hour.

Odyssey Advances World Models with Realistic Dynamics, Persistent Environments, and Open-Ended Action Learning

Odyssey says it’s working on more advanced world models that better reflect real-world dynamics, with improved temporal stability and persistent environments. “We’re also expanding from simple motion to broader world interaction, training our systems to learn open-ended actions from large-scale video,” the company noted in a blog post.

Unlike many other AI labs, Odyssey has developed its own 360-degree, backpack-mounted camera system to capture real-world environments. The startup believes this custom data collection approach can produce higher-quality models than those trained solely on publicly available datasets.

So far, Odyssey has secured $27 million in funding from investors like EQT Ventures, GV, and Air Street Capital. Notably, Ed Catmull—Pixar co-founder and former president of Walt Disney Animation Studios—sits on its board of directors.

In December, the company announced that it’s developing software to let creators import scenes generated by its AI into industry-standard tools like Unreal Engine, Blender, and Adobe After Effects, enabling manual editing and refinement.

Read the original article on: TechCrunch

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