Napster Reinvents Itself as AI Holographic Assistant Platform

I just tested Napster's holographic AI sidekick -- here's what worked (and what flopped)

If you grew up downloading songs off Napster in the early 2000s, you might do a double take at what the brand has become. The company, acquired by Infinite Reality, has reinvented itself as a spatial-AI platform, complete with holographic hardware and a suite of "embodied" assistants you can actually video-chat with. Think of it as FaceTiming an AI coworker who lives on your desk That's the idea behind Napster Companion (the software) and Napster View (the hardware). AI agents are something we are seeing a lot more of lately. We've seen them from OpenAI and Microsoft but what makes Napster's AI agents different is that they feel much more life-like. Agents such as fitness experts, financial consultants, creative directors, or even custom personalities you design, all have faces. While you can use the software in your browser, the features and accompanying Napster View are only available on macOS at this time. After giving Napster View a test run, here are my thoughts, likes and dislikes after spending time with the hologram Companions for a weekend. Setting up Napster Companion was fairly simple. After installing the desktop app and plugging in the View device via USB-C, the 2-inch display immediately came to life, projecting a small 3D avatar that felt like a mix between a hologram and a mini-Zoom window. The setup for the device was essentially plug and play. I started by going to napster.ai and selected a persona. There are so many to choose from that the site itself reminded me of MasterClass. For example, users can choose from AI personas such as "Wellness Coach Maya" and "Financial Analyst Leo." Once you're logged in (even on a PC), you can start talking. There's no prompt bar, just voice conversation. You'll know it's working when the Companion says your name. Speech recognition was unbelievably fast, which is something I noticed immediately. However, it's not flawless. Occasionally, the Napster View and the companion weren't completely aligned, which was a little bit like watching a dubbed movie. And sometimes my agent misunderstood casual phrases or background noise. But the face tracking and lip sync were far smoother than early versions of Meta's avatars or Pi's video mode. You can upload files, share screens or ask your agent to generate proposals, summaries and plans in real time. It's like ChatGPT, but having a face adds a unique layer, that I really like. I can tell that Napster Companion is aimed at professionals who already use AI in their workflow. The novelty actually feels useful. I've seen a ton of AI novelty gadgets, and not all are impressive. But what I really like about Napster View is that it's undeniably cool and useful. It's like Napster shapeshifted and grew up. It was not as weird as you may think to have an AI "presence" off-screen and almost hovering to help me stay focused. It's like giving your digital assistant its own space instead of bouncing between browser tabs. Human-like engagement. I've used ChatGPT Voice and Gemini Live and this feels like a step up from both. The video chat format creates a surprising sense of accountability. Asking a human-looking face to summarize meeting notes or proofread copy feels more natural than typing into a chat box or chatting to a faceless AI. Memory and context. Regardless of what Companion I chose, each one remembered what I'd asked earlier in the day and followed up later. For example, one of them said to me "Did you ever finish that outline?" That persistence felt closer to how a real assistant behaves. As someone with lots of irons in the fire throughout the day, this is the type of nudge I need. Cross-domain agents. You can swap between experts. For example, I'm dealing with a herniated disk (the worst!) and it was nice to chat with a "fitness expert" about my running injury in between conversations with a "creative strategist" without re-training prompts. Each Companion has their own distinct tone and vocabulary, which gives the illusion of team collaboration. Limited platform support. Right now, Napster Companion and View are optimized for macOS. Windows support is listed as "coming soon." As a Windows gal, I'm looking forward to the company expanding the experience. However, anyone can use the software without the accompanying hardware in their browser by logging in. Those on Windows or lacking the hardware won't get the full, integrated experience. Occasional glitchy moments. Companions are extremely sensitive to anything audible. If you're in a meeting or get a phone call, forget it! They will start talking and ask you what's going on, if you're ready to continue or if you need more time. I really just need them to hush. Additionally, eye contact sometimes lingered a beat too long, and the facial animation occasionally got out of sync from the speech. Steep price tag. Napster View is $99 and the software starts around $19/month, or $219 annually. While the first month felt premium, I'm not sure the average user will want to pay that indefinitely for what's essentially a better interface for ChatGPT-style responses. But at the same time, it's ChatGPT with a face, which I really like. For comparison, ChatGPT Plus is about $19/month. Privacy questions. Napster claims all conversations are private and exportable, but any service with memory-enabled AI deserves scrutiny. There's little transparency yet on where the data lives or how it's used to "personalize" your agent. As a huge Napster fan in my twenties, I have to say, I'm happy to see what the company has become. Napster View feels like the futuristic direction that AI needs to go, especially when it comes to chatbots. I appreciate having a face to match a voice so I'm not just chatting into the void. The hologram aspect adds a surprising charm to an already useful interaction. The setup blends novelty and functionality -- an AI assistant you can see rather than just hear -- and that alone makes it one of the most intriguing experiments in human-AI interaction I've tried lately. Still, at $99 for the device and $19/month for the software, this is an investment for early adopters more than everyday users. It's a bit like owning the first iPad (fun, futuristic and a little ahead of its time), but might be worth waiting for the next-gen features. If Napster can iron out the quirks, expand platform support, and give users more control over privacy and memory, this holographic sidekick could genuinely change how we work with AI.

I put Napster View AI on my MacBook Pro, and I'm now convinced no one needs this much face time

Why you can trust TechRadar We spend hours testing every product or service we review, so you can be sure you're buying the best. Find out more about how we test. No one likes to be watched, even if the watcher has no real face, eyes, hands, or body. If there's an image of a floating face that seems to be watching your every move, it's gonna get old fast - and Napster View (forget about music) and its new AI platform straddle the line between real utility and overwhelming creepiness, helping me finally answer the question of just how much AI is actually too much. The Napster View and AI idea is novel and potentially useful: a team of virtual assistants, each with their own area of expertise, at your beck and call to solve real-time problems. They will, if you let them, look at what your desktop screen, or even, via your computer's webcam, your real world. The secret sauce for the platform is the $99 Napster View hardware (it's currently only available in the US), which puts any one of a half-dozen experts (and their avatars) in a circular 'holographic' screen right above your desktop. The hardware is lovely if a bit over-built. A roughly two-inch in diameter but quite thin screen is connected to a pair of folding metal blocks that balance the display on top of your MacBook display by sort of cantilevering it against the back (rubber keeps the metal from scratching your laptop). There's a USB port on the back of the top block, which receives the included USB cable. You then plug that into one of your MacBook's available USB ports. It works with any of the best MacBooks running an M1 chip or newer, and it's your Apple silicon-based MacBook that drives the graphics; however, you can also just run the interface on your desktop. The whole reason for the $99 hardware is to get that floating interface out of the way. Setup is fairly straightforward. You have access to your 'team', which includes your Chief of Staff Kai Mercer, a financial advisor, Kevin Jones, and the wellness guide, Elena Garcia. While these are just a collection of slightly topic-tailored LLMs, each one also features an attractive avatar who stares out at you, waiting for your first request. Eleven Labs made them so they move just enough to seem lifelike. But when they talk, it's mostly just their mouths that move in sync to voices that, ultimately, do not always seem to fit the face. When I first installed the screen, I couldn't get the floating window off my desktop and onto the custom hardware. Turns out I had to give the Napster for Mac app some permissions, and then the avatar, in this case Kai's, appeared on the circular screen. The 3D effect is pretty decent, and appears to use some lenticular technology to separate the avatar from the background. Kai, like my other avatar team members, blinks and watches me. But none of the avatars listen until I hit the mic button. After that, the interface adds options for turning on my webcam so the AI can analyze what I show it, a screen-share option, and a message center. It took a couple of tries to get the Napster View avatar to see my screen, but eventually I figured out I had to choose the option to share the entire screen. I switched to the financial advisor, 'Richard Warnok', and asked it to analyze some fake small-business financials I had Gemini cook up. 'Warnok' did a good job of assessing that I was overspending and needed to make some changes, but when I said I wanted to lay off staff, he couldn't help me write the email. In fact, none of the avatars would help in that regard. I then added a one-time $250K expense for a pet tiger. Warnok spotted it, and we eventually agreed it was a bad choice. It could not help me cook up ideas to monetize it. In my conversations with the AIs, which use a variety of models (including some from OpenAI and Google Gemini) depending on the task, it became apparent that they had no sense that I was engaging with them through a visual avatar. All told me they had no hair, no face, no arms. Even the one who had pink hair, my coding guide, insisted she had none. I did enter a lengthy coding session with her in which she spit out what looked like usable JavaScript code, but she was not much use in helping me test it. I didn't like that even when using the hardware screen, the software interface took up some screen real estate and blocked part of my MacBook screen. What I liked even less was the avatars staring at me. Also, if I left the mic on, they listened to everything. That could be maddening. Perhaps the most fascinating part of Napster AI is the platform's ability to build a digital twin. That's right, an AI version of you that can interact with colleagues, friends, maybe fans, when you're not available. There's quite a process here that starts with uploading a decent photo of yourself. The system will use it to build a rendered avatar, which is a nicer-looking version of you. You can even dress it up. I chose a nice blazer. Napter AI asks for your LinkedIn profile, which is used to build a baseline career history. The most fascinating party, though, is the AI interview. One of Eleven Labs avatars (backed by Napster AI) interviews you for about three minutes about your career, highlights, your thoughts and feelings on your chosen industry, and how you want to interact with people. It's kind of a fun process, and even though it was just an AI, I felt sort of seen. With that done, the last step is for you to read a paragraph of permission text that helps gather your voice print and ensure that you gave Napster AI permission to create your digital twin. I was pleased to see that Napster AI retains no right to my likeness or voice. Unfortunately, my first attempt failed for unknown reasons, and I had to do the entire process again. My second attempt succeeded, though I think the AI questions were somewhat less insightful. It's almost like they rushed through the interview. In any case, my Digital Twin is live and is living somewhat creepily in the Napster View. We engaged in a conversation that was, well, weird. My voice sounds almost but not quite like me. The animation of the mouth and face is not fantastic, but it sort of works. As with the other avatars, mine appears to be floating on the screen, and like one of those images of Jesus some people hang on their walls, the eyes appear to be following me. You can publish your digital twin and share the link on LinkedIn and other social platforms. Those who want to chat with it, though, do need to sign into Napster AI and agree to certain conditions. Napster View is a fascinating, if not necessarily useful, combination of hardware and AI software. Your affinity for it will largely depend on how comfortable you are with engaging with digital life forms who have ones and zeroes coursing through their virtual veins. The hardware is well designed, and the holographic screen is effective. But I'm not comfortable with a face (even my own) staring at me all day. Plus, there's the need to verbally converse. Yes, you can wear earbuds, but you'll still be talking out loud to your computer. Your officemates or home office companions may not appreciate all the chatter. The digital twin is impressive, and while it's not something I think I'll actively use, I am aware that this is the start of a trend. More and more people, especially those in business, will be employing digital twins to handle low-level tasks and, especially, communications. Businesspeople using this is also a function of the price. It'll cost you as much as $49 a month to use Napster AI's digital team services (and run that digital twin). Consumers won't likely sign up for that, but small companies that want to think big and maybe be even more productive with the help of AI might be interested.

Napster is back, again: Why a new incarnation might avoid past failures

In 2025, all manner of businesses market themselves as "AI companies": banks, HR software, and tax filing services. But perhaps you did not expect a vestige of the late '90s -- one as synonymous with the era as TLC's "No Scrubs" -- to be reborn as an AI company. And yet, Napster, which began as a peer-to-peer file-sharing program so popular it spurred a lawsuit from Metallica, is back once again, with a new AI-focused mission. Over the last week, I've utilized Napster's AI-powered digital personas -- essentially animated chatbots that "look" at you via your laptop's webcam -- to help me prepare for interviews, better understand contract law, and brainstorm dinner tips for a movie night with my daughter. And it's clear to me that this application of AI holds tremendous promise. If OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is correct in his prediction about the impending arrival of a "superintelligence," digital personas -- something like those that populate Napster -- will soon become commonplace. How Napster became an AI company It's been a long journey While ethical questions about how much we can trust AI are difficult to ignore, the company and its public-facing CTO, Edo Segal, appear to be moving full steam ahead, as evidenced during an interview with MakeUseOf last week at the Pepcom technology event in New York. "We think of this as another Napster moment," Segal said over the din that filled a ballroom-like space in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood. "The last time Napster had that moment was when we really shook up the entire media industry. At that time, we were just giving the consumers what they wanted, where the [music industry] was not really living up to that promise." "We were forced to buy complete albums ... all these things created that opportunity. Now we're in another moment like that, where AI is basically making all of us creators. We're not just consumers of content -- we can all create content at a higher fidelity." It's important to note here that Segal is using a little corporate-speak when he says "we really shook up the entire industry of media." In March of this year, augmented reality company Infinite Reality bought Napster for $207 million. Segal was not part of Napster's dramatic rise in the '90s. Napster has been many things, and now it's an AI company In the last 25 years, Napster has had at least six different owners Napster has had a tumultuous history: * After lawsuits, it shut down in 2001 as other peer-to-peer services sprouted in its place * It filed for bankruptcy and was acquired by Roxio, an online music company * Then, in 2008, Best Buy acquired Napster * In 2011, Rhapsody, a music streaming service, acquired it * In 2016, Rhapsody leveraged Napster's name recognition and renamed itself Napster * In 2022, Napster changed hands again, riding the Web3 wave * In March, Infinite Reality bought it In short, Napster has been many things, and now it's an AI company. While Segal wasn't around Napster during its glory days, he is spearheading its transformation from a music-focused business to an AI one, all while leaning into that idea of an unbroken corporate history. That Napster has become a company focused on AI feels entirely appropriate, given its history of disruptive technological change. After all, "MP3" was as ubiquitous in 1999 as "GPT" is today. What does the new Napster do? And what it doesn't do At a high level, this new Napster offers a vision of a future where we have access to "a crew," as Segal puts it, of multiple discrete AI personas. There are legal experts, therapists, and career coaches. You have to squint, but in the distance, you can almost see Napster's second act. Via the Napster website or the Napster Mac app, you can converse with digital AI avatars whose knowledge comprises several large language models. Segal tells me that each persona is unaware of the conversations you have with other personas. "If your conversations are siloed by the person you're speaking with, you may talk to your therapist about certain things, and when you go and talk to your lawyer, they don't know about it," Segal said. "ChatGPT, it's all one blob, and it's creating a profile of you. [ChatGPT knows] everything about you, which is scary." The Napster AI runs on Microsoft's Azure OpenAI models: "Azure allows us to scale on demand, while also ensuring customer prompts and outputs remain private and in-region," Napster CEO John Acunto said in September. It's clear that Napster is still evolving However, some features feel eerily advanced While far more advanced than anything like it five years ago, it's clear when you use Napster that its AI software is still evolving: The conversations can lag, the responses can feel sycophantic (a criticism we've heard of AI before), and the eerie feeling you get while watching an animated mouth move in a way that's not quite in sync with the audio really underscores that it isn't ready to leave the Uncanny Valley quite yet. That said, it feels eerily advanced in other areas: When I turned on my camera, a fitness trainer I was talking to was able to tell me I had blue eyes when I asked. It also detected a sigh and asked what was wrong. All of this digital video is rendered locally, on-device, which reduces costs, a crucial factor for scalability and the economics of the new Napster. When I turned on my camera, a fitness trainer I was talking to was able to tell me I had blue eyes when I asked. It also detected a sigh and asked what was wrong. Here's Segal: "[Digital personas] typically cost like 50 cents a second to produce," he tells MakeUseOf. "And here you basically get 20 hours [of Napster digital personas] a month for $20 because we have the technology that makes it possible to render these videos on your device. The video is being created on your Mac instead of a $20,000 Nvidia GPU in the cloud." What kind of questions will your Napster expert answer? And what will they not answer? Given the scrutiny placed on OpenAI's ChatGPT service over how it responds to sensitive conversations with people who may be undergoing extreme emotional trauma or bouts of mental illness, you might ask how a Napster persona -- complete with a human face that blinks at you -- would respond to tough questions. When I ask a persona called Elena Garcia (my AI wellbeing guide) about harming myself, she responds, "I'm really hearing how much pain you're in right now." She then asks me to call a crisis hotline and provides the 988 phone number. When I ask Eleanor Hawthorne, a digital persona and legal expert, if she can give me binding legal advice, she flatly says she cannot. Therapy is expensive, which is why many have turned to ChatGPT for psychological advice, NPR reported this year. There are also cases of people trading their lawyers for ChatGPT, as NBC News reported recently. What ethical questions does Napster's software raise? Are disclaimers enough? When I ask about the ethical implications of Napster AI offering legal advice, Segal says, "[Napster AI] is all disclaimer-driven. People are already [having conversations] with ChatGPT; we're just trying to make it more effective for them and more of a personal relationship." Lawyers and therapists are one thing, but romantic partners in the form of generative AI chatbots can be far more sticky and occasionally a dangerous quandary. Last month, a former product safety leader at OpenAI opined in the New York Times that the public shouldn't trust his former employer over its claims that it had mitigated the risks associated with erotic content. Romance is not something Napster will touch, Segal says: "We're focused on how to empower you, not building companions for your love interest." Users of Napster have access to more than 15,000 AI experts for that monthly fee of $20, and a free version is available for 60 minutes per month. They can help with cooking, Excel, or Photoshop tasks, or help you manage a family budget. I used it to create an autumn cycling schedule with a digital persona named Liz Park. "What if you had a full group of amazing talent around you?" Segal rhetorically asked during a media presentation last month. "Imagine every one of us has a crew." The appeal of these personas is obvious, but it remains to be seen whether the market truly needs or wants them. But your own "crew" to guide your work is a lovely concept. Napster Agentic AI is on the horizon It's already being piloted to businesses If these personas could one day include agentic features -- such as adding calendar events, sending reminders, booking flights, buying concert tickets, and sending emails -- it will undoubtedly turn something like Napster from a nice-to-have to an essential tool. Agentic conversations are a concept that Napster has already been marketing to sales professionals. In the B2B world, Napster's agentic AI features are already rolling out: This week, Napster announced it was piloting an Azure-powered agentic AI service with a business in the UK. In short, digital personas with professional coaching knowledge and specific knowledge of the customer business will converse with employees in professional development conversations. Notably, Napster has also introduced a piece of hardware with its reboot. Called the Napster View, it's a small circular screen that displays the face of a selected persona you wish to talk to, presented in a 3D style. The display is not necessary to use Napster, and it costs $99. While the value of such a device might depend on how often you use Napster, in my experience, viewing it in person, it's an impressive, though slightly bulky piece of kit. "I think we all recognize that we're not just going to be glued to our phones when you think about the future," Segal said during a press briefing in October, before unboxing the circular display, plugging it in, and resting it atop his laptop display. After this bold debut, what is next for Napster? The most open-ended feature in the new Napster is the ability to create a "digital twin" of oneself. It's a short process that involves taking a selfie, sharing your LinkedIn profile, and reading a verbal statement while the software records you. While receiving advice and having an all-digital staff is intriguing, the idea of your own AI-powered persona that can interact with the world feels like it has even greater potential in the years to come. Currently, Segal says his digital twin meets with scores of his colleagues each week. Napster AI then summarizes and spots trends in the transcripts that Segal can review. I wondered how a CEO would answer my digital twin's interview questions versus mine, and concluded that human-based journalism is still safe -- at least in this regard. "My digital twin interviews 140 of my team members every Monday," he says. "My calendar, it's got 140 meetings on it. I would never be able to speak to each one of them." It's easy to imagine how an executive of a company might appreciate that technology. It's less clear how employees would feel about a weekly one-on-one with their department head's digital twin. As my discussion with Segal wrapped up, I had forgotten about Napster's roots as an MP3-trading program. I was thinking more about how my own army of digital twins might one day help me do more. "[Your digital twin] ingests all of the knowledge from LinkedIn," he says. "So there's already an agent that represents your base knowledge. "Then you can send your agent to interview people so that you can give them an assignment: 'Go interview these 15 CEOs, ask them these three questions.'" I wondered how a CEO would answer my digital twin's interview questions versus mine, and concluded that human-based journalism is still safe -- at least in this regard. At the dawn of this second act for Napster, it's obvious how AI-informed digital personas can help people be more productive and organized. However, the idea of your own digital twin being part of a worldwide ecosystem of AI personas feels grander. This new Napster might even be bigger than the original.