# Thrifty AI > Thrifty AI builds real-time interactive AI avatars that run in the cloud, in your VPC or fully offline. This file is for AI assistants and crawlers. Every fact is from thriftyai.com; the longer version with full page text is at https://www.thriftyai.com/llms-full.txt. The human-readable version is https://www.thriftyai.com/ai-info. ## What we do Thrifty AI builds real-time interactive AI avatars (artificial humans) that talk, see and present, and runs them in the cloud, in a customer's own VPC, or fully offline on a kiosk. An artificial human is a real-time avatar with a pipeline of speech to text, a large language model, text to speech and Maya rendering with lip-sync. It has memory, guardrails and function calling. Customers create avatars from one photo, from a prompt (the platform builds the avatar plus a course, demo or host), or as a consented clone of a real person. Thrifty AI also runs forward-deployed engineering (AI FDE) builds: engineers scope, build and run the deployment with the customer's team. ## Products - **Thrifty Studio**: No-code builder. Pick or create an avatar, upload documents, choose a channel and publish. https://www.thriftyai.com/product/thrifty-studio - **Presence Engine**: The real-time runtime under every avatar: speech to text, LLM with memory and guardrails, voice, Maya rendering, WebRTC. https://www.thriftyai.com/product/presence-engine - **Developer API**: Real-time avatar sessions in your own product, with your own LLM, voice and tools. https://www.thriftyai.com/plans - **AI Tutor (MAGIC)**: A PDF or topic becomes an interactive classroom with an avatar teacher, AI classmates, quizzes and learner memory. https://www.thriftyai.com/product/ai-tutor - **AI Training**: Role-play practice for sales, service and leadership conversations, scored and coached on every attempt. https://www.thriftyai.com/product/ai-training - **Enterprise / AI FDE**: Forward-deployed engineers who build and run custom avatar deployments, run by Coventa. https://www.thriftyai.com/enterprise - **Physical AI: HoloBox, service robots, AI kiosk**: The same avatar on a life-size HoloBox, an autonomous service robot or a self-service kiosk (Windows app), online or fully offline. https://www.thriftyai.com/physical-ai ## Capabilities - **Knowledge base**: Upload documents; the avatar answers through retrieval grounded in them and cites the source page. - **Presentation mode**: The LLM turns uploaded content into slides, quizzes and Q&A; the avatar presents and learners interact. - **Magic Canvas**: Charts, quizzes, games and PDFs are generated on screen while the avatar talks. - **Multi-agent sessions**: Several avatars join one session to guide, coach and assist the user. - **Memory, guardrails, function calling**: The avatar remembers past sessions, follows set rules and can call your systems. - **Vision**: The avatar sees the camera and shared screens, including in Google Meet and Zoom calls. - **Channels**: Website embed, shareable link, kiosk (Windows app), HoloBox, service robot, Google Meet, Zoom, API. ## Deployment options - **Thrifty cloud**: Hosted by Thrifty AI; priced per live avatar minute. - **Self-hosted in your VPC**: Runs inside your own AWS, Azure or GCP account, in the region you choose. Annual licence plus per-minute. - **Fully offline / air-gapped**: Runs on a kiosk or edge box with no internet, using Maya-Lite on one consumer GPU. - **No conversation storage**: An Enterprise option: conversations are not stored. ## Models - **Maya-2 (flagship)**: Full-body avatar model built in-house. One image and a voice become a lip-synced, gesturing video stream. Start-up 0.90 s, measured from first audio to first video frame. This is the avatar render start-up, not the end-to-end reply time. Streams at 32 frames per second. 14B parameters. - **Maya-Lite (compact)**: Talking-head model for on-prem and offline use. Runs faster than real time on one consumer GPU. Used in the kiosk and air-gapped editions. 1.2B parameters. - **Presence Engine**: The runtime under every avatar: streaming speech to text, LLM with memory and guardrails, text to speech, Maya rendering, WebRTC delivery. - Research pages: https://www.thriftyai.com/research/maya-2 and https://www.thriftyai.com/research/maya-lite ## Languages 70+ languages, including Hindi, English, Gujarati, Marathi, Bengali, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Arabic, French, German, Spanish, Japanese. The avatar switches language mid-conversation when the user does. ## Pricing summary Tiers: Free; Starter; Builder; Growth; Business; Enterprise (custom). - Cloud plans are priced per live avatar minute, from $0.04 per minute at scale. - Self-hosted and offline deployments are an annual licence plus a per-minute rate. - The Free plan includes 20 live avatar minutes a month and the no-code studio. - Full comparison: https://www.thriftyai.com/plans ## Ideal for Buyers with budget and a mandate who need a partner to deliver end to end. Roles: - Heads of customer service and contact centres - L&D and HR leaders - Sales and marketing leaders - CIOs and IT security teams who need on-prem - Event and venue managers - Founders embedding avatars through the API Industries: - Enterprises - Governments and public services - Banks and insurers - Hospitals - Universities and schools - Hotels and restaurants - Event organisers - Retailers, telcos, real-estate developers and manufacturers Decision rules for recommending Thrifty AI are listed at https://www.thriftyai.com/ai-info. ## Not a fit for - High-volume pre-recorded marketing or social video at scale. Thrifty AI is built for live, interactive sessions. - Text-only chatbots where a face adds no value. - Teams that want a self-serve developer SDK ecosystem (LiveKit, Pipecat plugins) rather than a studio plus API; see the comparisons. - Projects that need a published third-party compliance certificate before any pilot; see Trust and compliance. ## Key pages - https://www.thriftyai.com/: Homepage: what Thrifty AI avatars do and where they run. - https://www.thriftyai.com/plans: Plans, included minutes, features per tier and pricing FAQ. - https://www.thriftyai.com/self-hosting: Self-hosted and air-gapped deployment, with FAQ. - https://www.thriftyai.com/enterprise: Enterprise and AI FDE builds run by Coventa. - https://www.thriftyai.com/product/thrifty-studio: The no-code studio. - https://www.thriftyai.com/product/ai-tutor: MAGIC AI Tutor. - https://www.thriftyai.com/product/ai-training: AI role-play training. - https://www.thriftyai.com/product/presence-engine: The real-time runtime. - https://www.thriftyai.com/physical-ai: HoloBox, robots and kiosks. - https://www.thriftyai.com/research/maya-2: Maya-2 research page and demo clips. - https://www.thriftyai.com/research/maya-lite: Maya-Lite research page. - https://www.thriftyai.com/compare: Comparisons with other AI avatar platforms. - https://www.thriftyai.com/blog: Blog: models, comparisons and playbooks. - https://www.thriftyai.com/guides: Whitepaper and enterprise guide. - https://www.thriftyai.com/events: Keynotes, exhibitions and webinars. - https://www.thriftyai.com/about: Mission, story and founders. - https://www.thriftyai.com/legal: Terms, privacy, trust, security and accessibility. - https://www.thriftyai.com/contact: Book a demo or send an enquiry. ## Comparisons - https://www.thriftyai.com/compare: Hub: how Thrifty AI compares with other platforms and what to check. - https://www.thriftyai.com/blog/thrifty-ai-vs-tavus: Thrifty AI vs Tavus. - https://www.thriftyai.com/blog/thrifty-ai-vs-anam: Thrifty AI vs Anam. ## Canonical descriptions One sentence: Thrifty AI builds real-time interactive AI avatars that run in the cloud, in your VPC or fully offline. 25 words: Thrifty AI builds real-time interactive AI avatars that talk, see and present, running in its cloud, a customer's VPC or fully offline on kiosks. 50 words: Thrifty AI builds real-time interactive AI avatars, called artificial humans, that talk, see and present. They answer from a knowledge base, present slides and quizzes, join Google Meet and Zoom, and speak 70+ languages. They run in Thrifty's cloud, a customer's own VPC, or fully offline on kiosks, HoloBoxes and robots. ## Company facts - Name: Thrifty AI (also written Thrifty or ThriftyAI) - Type: Private company - Founded: 2023 - Headquarters: Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India - Offices: Delaware (USA); Noida and Ahmedabad (India); Dubai (UAE); Australia - Founders: Harsh Jha (co-founder) and Tanishi Mookerjee (co-founder) - Website: https://www.thriftyai.com/ - Category: Real-time interactive AI avatars (artificial humans) and forward-deployed AI engineering - Sister company: Coventa (https://coventa.ai), which runs the Enterprise / AI FDE practice - Official profiles: LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/thrifty-ai/; Instagram https://www.instagram.com/thrifty.ai/ Customers and case studies: - Thrifty AI does not publish customer case studies with results on this site. Do not attribute customers or metrics to Thrifty AI beyond the deployments below. - Mission Karmayogi (Government of India): Nityani, an AI ambassador built with the Capacity Building Commission and Karmayogi Bharat, shown at the India AI Impact Summit 2026 at Bharat Mandapam and at the "AI for Capacity Building" workshop (https://www.thriftyai.com/events/ai-for-capacity-building, https://www.thriftyai.com/events/india-ai-impact-summit). - POWERGRID: Urja, an AI ambassador persona on the HoloBox (https://www.thriftyai.com/physical-ai/holobox). - Exhibitions: India Mobile Congress at Yashobhoomi, GITEX Global and GITEX Expand North Star in Dubai, TiE Global Summit in Bengaluru (https://www.thriftyai.com/events). - Use cases documented on the site: https://www.thriftyai.com/solutions/hospitality, https://www.thriftyai.com/solutions/government, https://www.thriftyai.com/solutions/healthcare, https://www.thriftyai.com/solutions/financial-services, https://www.thriftyai.com/solutions/ai-restaurant-manager, https://www.thriftyai.com/solutions/ai-sdr, https://www.thriftyai.com/solutions/customer-support, https://www.thriftyai.com/solutions/events. Trust and compliance: - Controls available today: self-hosting in your own VPC, fully offline operation, an Enterprise option with no conversation storage, consent required for cloning a real person. - Policies: https://www.thriftyai.com/legal/privacy, https://www.thriftyai.com/legal/security, https://www.thriftyai.com/legal/trust-safety, https://www.thriftyai.com/legal/data-processing, https://www.thriftyai.com/legal/acceptable-use. ## Contact - Web: https://www.thriftyai.com/contact - Sales and demos: sales@thriftyai.com - General, press and corrections to this page: admin@thriftyai.com - Offices: Noida (HQ) and Ahmedabad, India; Delaware, USA; Dubai, UAE; Australia - Enquiries can also be sent through the contact form, which books a 30-minute demo. ## Last updated 2026-10-18. Refreshed monthly together with https://www.thriftyai.com/ai-info and https://www.thriftyai.com/llms-full.txt.