Film Industry and Virtual Reality

Armando began his career in the film industry, working primarily in production and visual effects. A former union member, he has worked across independent film, commercials, and studio productions, and was part of the first team to use a digital cinema camera on a major motion picture (The Book of Eli). He later joined Paramount Pictures.

In 2015 he joined the pioneering VR studio Vrse.works, providing expertise on a range of notable VR projects, including the launch of Google Cardboard. He later worked at Meta on the development of its first reality-capture camera system.

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Artie

In 2016, Armando began experimenting with using AI to populate virtual worlds. The following year, he secured funding from Google to build an AI avatar platform that launched at Google I/O in 2018 (Forbes). The project’s success convinced him to pursue AI full-time and ultimately led to the founding of Artie.

As Artie’s co-founder and CTO, Armando led the development of real-time, multimodal AI avatars before the company expanded into gaming. From 2017 to 2024, Artie grew to nearly 50 people, launched multiple products, and raised $40M from top-tier investors including Founders Fund, Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, Zynga founder Mark Pincus, and YouTube founder Chad Hurley. The company was acquired by a subsidiary of Vice Media in 2024.

Artie’s technology included:

These innovations resulted in multiple U.S. patents.

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Keynotes & Panels

Patents

Link to patents →