Sanrio, the owner of Hello Kitty, My Melody, and Kuromi, has partnered with AI avatar tech company Genies to launch "personalized" digital experiences for fans. The first project will feature the character gudetama, whose humor and personality have resonated with Gen Z and Millennial fans. Sanrio and Genies say the AI technology is used to enable interactive communication experiences and is not intended to replace the original creative work. All character models and expressions will be individually created and supervised by human creators to preserve each character’s personality, visual identity, and integrity of the original world and story. This partnership follows major deals with MLB and King Records for AI companion versions of the label's manga IP characters.