Film Industry and Virtual Reality

Armando began his career in the film industry, working primarily in production and visual effects. A former union member, he has worked across independent film, commercials, and studio productions, and was part of the first team to use a digital cinema camera on a major motion picture (The Book of Eli). He later joined Paramount Pictures.

In 2015 he joined the pioneering VR studio Vrse.works, providing expertise on a range of notable VR projects, including the launch of Google Cardboard. He later worked at Meta on the development of its first reality-capture camera system.

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In 2016, Armando began experimenting with using AI to populate virtual worlds. The following year, he secured funding from Google to build an AI avatar platform that launched at Google I/O in 2018 (Forbes). The project’s success convinced him to pursue AI full-time and ultimately led to the founding of Artie.

Artie

Armando was the co-founder and CTO of Artie, an early consumer AI company originally focused on real-time, multimodal avatars that later expanded into gaming and web3. From 2017 to 2024, Artie grew to nearly 50 people, launched multiple products, and raised $40M from top-tier investors including Founders Fund, Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, Zynga founder Mark Pincus, and YouTube founder Chad Hurley.

Artie built advanced AI avatar infrastructure including:

These innovations resulted in multiple U.S. patents. The company was acquired in 2024.

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Keynotes & Panels

Patents

Link to patents →