What if you could talk to Barack Obama, Elizabeth Bennet or Isambard Kingdom Brunel? Thanks to Portrait – an AI-powered app by Bath-based Rocketmakers – that kind of lifelike, human-feeling conversation is becoming a reality. Emma Clegg talks to the real-life version of CEO Richard Godfrey (he also has an AI incarnation). Rocketmakers are part of the Bath Unlimited group, who represent world-class businesses based in the region…
Imagine asking Barack Obama about how he feels about the Trump administration. Or Elizabeth Bennet about what her first impressions of Mr Darcy were, or Isambard Kingdom Brunel about how he felt when his design for Bristol’s Clifton Suspension Bridge was accepted, or William Wordsworth about the moment inspiration struck for his Daffodils poem.
Well, I heard Barack’s answer to the first question. Or rather an AI version of him on a mobile. He paused perhaps a millisecond longer than he might have done in real life, but his voice was Barack’s, his face was a close animated version, and his answer reflected his liberal perspective on the Trump administration. These sort of interactions will soon be open to all, courtesy of an app called Portrait, a system that creates lifelike 3D conversational characters. This is being developed by Rocketmakers in Bath, a software development company specialising in creating custom software, including apps and web applications.
At the helm of Rocketmakers, who are part of the Bath Unlimited brand, is Richard Godfrey, co-founder of the studio, whose journey from techie to AI trailblazer since the company launched in 2007 has been shaped by curiosity, ethics and an unwavering commitment to human-centred design.
“It’s not about creating deepfakes or tricking anyone,” he clarifies. “It’s about whether we can create something that feels human enough to engage with – to offer a meaningful interaction when no one else is there.”
It’s not about creating deepfakes or tricking anyone… it’s about whether we can create something that feels human enough to engage with
Portrait is finding applications in education and entertainment. “For some learners – people with dyslexia, for instance – reading the material is hard. Talking to a character like Wordsworth or Isambard Kingdom Brunel instead opens up new ways of understanding.”
They’ve tested the idea with students and lecturers at Bath Spa University. “Creative writing students spoke with the characters. And we thought, what if authors could talk to the characters they’re writing, to see how they’d respond in different situations?”
Rocketmakers are also using the technology for brand development. “With Coventry Building Society, we created a character called Elizabeth, one of their core customer personas. Now they can test new ideas and campaigns by interacting with that character before anything goes to market.”
There’s even been an application within gaming. “We put a Portrait character on the front of a safe for Sage. You had to convince it to open, and one way to do that was to give it a compliment. That’s really hard to programme traditionally, but AI lets us do it quite easily.”
The philosophy of human engagement is evolving into a new product, Familiar, which aims to combat loneliness among the elderly. “There’s a well-known spiral in care,” Richard explains. “If you’re lonely, you become more lonely. You stop going out. You become more withdrawn, you might get ill, and then it all starts to decline. If you can break that cycle early, you can actually reverse it. That’s what we’re trying to do with Familiar.”
So how does it work? “You’d talk to the same digital person every day. Someone who understands what you like talking about, and who maybe also understands what not to mention, because it might trigger bad memories. Families can configure that. It’s about creating guardrails for a safe, emotionally intelligent environment.”
It’s certainly an exceptionally fast-moving world. “We’ve always built systems expecting them to change quickly,” Richard says. “We’ve been lucky to have had that foresight – when something new comes out, we can plug it in within hours and benefit right away, instead of panicking about how to rebuild everything.”
That flexibility has become a core strength as AI accelerates. But even with decades of experience, Richard admits: “It’s the first time in my career that I’m feeling like it’s running away a bit. It’s really hard to choose the right technologies because you just don’t know what’s coming next.”
Of course, the very nature of AI means its logic isn’t always traceable. “We call it non-deterministic,” Richard explains. “You can’t see how it arrives at a particular answer. And ask the same thing twice, you might get a different response.”
That might make it sound inconsistent, or like a system bug, but he doesn’t see it that way. “Ask a human the same question twice and you’ll probably get a different answer too. AI isn’t human, but it has similar idiosyncrasies.”
Still, there are challenges, especially for businesses that fear reputational risk. “A lot of companies won’t put an AI in front of customers because they are afraid it’ll say the wrong thing. But at the same time, they’re quite happy to put a 16-year-old in a shop with almost no training. We need to balance the perspectives.”
The company has grown pretty swiftly. The journey began with three co-founders, including Richard, all technical, all programmers. But they quickly realised that they were missing a crucial element. “We had no idea about design,” he laughs. “So I phoned Bath Spa University, spoke to the head of design and asked, ‘Who’s your best student?’ That’s how we hired Phil, our first employee. He’s still with us today, and he heads up our design practice.”
That was followed by Adam, a publishing student who became Chief Innovation Officer. And Danny, who started shadowing the team one afternoon a week, uninvited. “He came back every Wednesday for a year. So we gave him a job.”
The team swelled to 50 in the post-COVID boom, then scaled back to 20 as AI transformed the start-up landscape. “It’s much harder to find investment now. And honestly, AI is letting people build prototypes themselves, which affects our business too. So we’ve adapted.”
Despite the market turbulence, start-ups remain central to the studio’s mission. “I jokingly call our start-up work the worst business model in the world,” Richard says. “You invest your time and expertise in start-ups where it’s a one-in-ten chance of success over ten years.”
So why do it? “Because it’s more meaningful. You’re not just a supplier; you’re in it with them. And when it works, the return can be much bigger.”
Their approach is similar to Dragons’ Den: in exchange for their help, the studio takes a small equity stake. It’s a high-risk, high-reward game and the desire to make it more accessible led to another project, a book. Published in April, it offers a roadmap for would-be founders. “I wrote it over Christmas,” Richard says. “We were having the same conversations over and over, so I thought, why not put it all in one place?”
The book, I’ve Got a Great Idea for an App – So What Next?, is aimed at non-tech readers. “It’s very accessible. It covers everything from concept to funding, prototyping, building, deploying and exiting. It’s like a self-help book for people with digital ideas.”
One of the team’s newest ventures is Your Room, a product that blends AI agents with market research. “You can create a room with any kind of persona, say, 20-somethings from the north of England who like running, and then talk to them as a focus group,” he says.
Another application is characters to create practice interviews and expert panels. “If you know who’s interviewing you, you can create mock versions of them and rehearse beforehand. It’s like role-playing, but smarter.”
Richard has even created a room for himself, complete with Steve Jobs and Barack Obama. “And yes, I’ve created myself. So I can talk to myself,” he laughs. “First sign of madness, right?”
Despite the dizzying pace of change, one concern remains constant for Richard, the quality of human connection. And it’s more than a passing worry, especially as he prepares to welcome his first grandchild.
“I do worry about that,” he says, “Massively, in fact. Social networking, the way we connect, or don’t connect, with each other. We’ve always liked working in the same space because in-person collaboration is just so much more effective. You lose a lot with remote work, even if it’s more efficient in other ways.”
And what of our connection to nature, the rhythms of the earth and the real world? “Exactly. My kids are in their mid- to late twenties and they’ve only ever known a digital world. So for their children, it’s going to be even more saturated. That’s why we try to make what we do feel human. It’s not about replacing people – it’s about what we can create when a real person just isn’t available.”
For a company so embedded in the cutting edge, Richard is refreshingly humble about predicting the future. “We’re doing things now that we couldn’t have done a year ago. Who knows what two years from now looks like? So we don’t set huge fixed goals – we just stay flexible and try to build useful things, quickly.”
As AI reshapes everything from caregiving to customer service, education to storytelling, this studio is asking one central question: how do we keep real people at the heart of it all?
If they get the answer right, the future might feel more familiar.
rocketmakers.com; bathunlimited.org
Unlimited Minds
What are your ambitions?
Our ten-year goal is to have the technology that we make part of 50-million people’s lives. We want to be creating scalable, engaging applications that truly make a difference. We like creating software for all sorts of applications, but an ideal project is one that brings together innovation, quality and purpose. Our ambition is to find projects that combine all three.
How do you innovate?
Innovation is truly at the core of our business, and we feel really lucky to be able to say that. Our innovation stems from applying insights from cutting-edge technology to the applications our customers are developing with us. We also do a lot of research. For the last two or three years we’ve been working to understand AI and how to use it to create some really fascinating and enabling technologies.
How do you connect with the local community?
It’s important to us to connect with the local community in-person. We attend local meet-ups, sponsor events, and take any opportunity to showcase our technology and engage with the people around us. We love to bring local people into our business as well, people who are passionate about technology. I sit on the board of Bath BID, and engage through that with the universities, the local council and others, to connect with how tech and businesses can contribute to the city.
How do you motivate your staff?
We motivate by working with people who want to change the world. Whether you’re a designer, project manager or software engineer, being surrounded by passionate, engaging people makes all the difference.
