Emotions, Accents, and Avatars Galore & Why Apple Says It’s All Just an Illusion | 87

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In this episode of Sidecar Sync, co-hosts Amith Nagarajan and Mallory Mejias dive deep into the cutting edge of AI-generated audio and video. Mallory demos the stunning new ElevenLabs V3 voice engine and the lifelike hand gestures of HeyGen's Avatar 4, while Amith shares behind-the-scenes insights from a recent hackathon focused on building agentic software. The pair also unpack Apple’s eyebrow-raising research paper, “The Illusion of Thinking,” and debate whether AI models are truly reasoning—or just pattern-matching very well. Whether you're building AI learning hubs or just wondering when Siri will finally get it together, this episode’s for you.

🎥 Video Demo of ElevenLabs V3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zv_IoWIO5Ek

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🛠 AI Tools and Resources Mentioned in This Episode:
ElevenLabs V3 ➞ https://www.elevenlabs.io
HeyGen Avatar 4 ➞ https://www.heygen.com
Claude ➞ https://claude.ai
OpenAI Voice Mode ➞ https://openai.com/chatgpt
Synthesia ➞ https://www.synthesia.io

🔎 Check out Sidecar's AI Learning Hub and get your Association AI Professional (AAiP) certification:
 https://learn.sidecar.ai

📅 Find out more digitalNow 2025 and register now:
https://digitalnow.sidecar.ai/

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Amith Nagarajan is the Chairman of Blue Cypress, a family of purpose-driven companies and proud practitioners of Conscious Capitalism. The Blue Cypress companies focus on helping associations, non-profits, and other purpose-driven organizations achieve long-term success. Amith is also an active early-stage investor in B2B SaaS companies. He’s had the good fortune of nearly three decades of success as an entrepreneur and enjoys helping others in their journey.

https://linkedin.com/amithnagarajan

Mallory Mejias is passionate about creating opportunities for association professionals to learn, grow, and better serve their members using artificial intelligence. She enjoys blending creativity and innovation to produce fresh, meaningful content for the association space. Mallory co-hosts and produces the Sidecar Sync podcast, where she delves into the latest trends in AI and technology, translating them into actionable insights.

https://linkedin.com/mallorymejias