Israeli AI company D-ID unveiled its latest AI video-generation tool on Monday, saying its developers were forced to work remotely to meet the launch deadline after a missile struck just 200 meters from the company’s offices.

The newly released product from D-ID will enable the creation of real-time AI avatars fast enough for live client interaction, while also making them cheaper to deploy in real-world market solutions.

D-ID’s Israel-based engineering team was forced to shift to remote work a week before the product’s release after a missile fragment struck near the company’s offices.

According to the company, the team managed to complete the final tests and deliver the product without delay, even while working from bomb shelters or amid missile alerts.

V4 Engine from D-ID will enable record-breaking latency when speaking in real time with an AI-generated avatar, with sub-0,5 seconds of latency recorded in the final benchmark tests.

At the same time, the new model offers a solution that is 70 times cheaper than Google's Veo 3 Fast, their main competitor in the field.

"Today, with V4, we’re setting a new benchmark for avatar fidelity and performance while keeping it fast enough for real-time conversations and consistent, efficient, and secure enough for enterprise scale," said D-ID Co-founder and CEO Gil Perry.

The avatars, trained on footage of real-life professional actors to achieve realistic responses, can offer real-time emotion and sentiment alignment with LLM responses.

The product, already used by industry giants like Microsoft, PepsiCo, and Starbucks, will be available for all D-ID clients for a subscription-based plan starting at $5.90.