Shim: Read.ai tracks head orientation for engagement without facial recognition
David Shim · #2280 Read.ai is adding 50k users per day · Sep 15, 2025 · at 3:34
David Shim, founder of Read.ai, explains the computer vision models Read.ai uses to infer participant attention during video calls.
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“We look at head orientation, so we don't look at your face, we don't do any facial recognition, but we go and we say, if you're looking at the camera straight ahead, and you're talking, your camera's there, and then if you look over this way, and you go to a fixed position when someone else is talking, your head stays in the same spot, we have a model that says, that's a second screen, so you're actually paying attention, you're not distracted, but if you start scanning your head back into forehead, if you go like this a lot, that's going in saying, you're not as engaged in the conversation, because you're not going to a fixed point, so we've got these models in place that understand engagement.”
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