Decart has released Lucy 2.6, the successor to its real-time AI video model. The update is all about enhancing the quality of AI-transformed live video streams, introducing sharper aesthetics, more natural object placement and more faithful reproduction of reference images. Lucy 2.6 is live now on the Decart platform via its API platform and a free demo, the company has announced.
The new rollout this summer’s release of Lucy 2.5, which introduced real-time visual effects in livestreams, paving the way for some entirely new video applications.
According to Decart, Lucy 2.6 sticks more closely to what users ask for, whether they describe an edit, upload a reference image or combine the two. Characters now look more like their reference images, with more accurate faces, proportions and materials. Lighting, lip sync and motion are also improved, in both photorealistic and animated styles. Outfits and unusual garments keep their fit and detail as the stream runs, while products and props added to a scene match the reference in detail, material and proportions.
From Demo to Deployment
The new version of Lucy has already been put to work in the real world. Decart partnered with the mixed-reality startup The Famous Group to add spooky, Halloween-style real-time special effects to fan camera footage on the screens at a recent Colorado Avalanche home game.
The transformations ran live, on footage already going out to an audience, rather than being added in post-production. For broadcasters, that points to a way of making live coverage more interactive, without the overhead of traditional video rendering.
Retail is a second front. Decart teamed up with LOOOK.AI to create a virtual try-on installation at Under Armour’s Oxford St. store in London. Powered by the Lucy model, it let passers-by see how they’d look wearing an array of garments sold by the brand.
With Lucy 2.6 keeping clothing and products closer to their references, the same approach is carrying over to live shopping streams, where sellers show off products without needing physical samples. Decart’s Delulu Stream app puts Lucy in the hands of livestreamers, who can stream as a character while keeping their own motion and expression, swap outfits or products mid-stream, redesign their set, or let viewers request effects in real time.
What Still Has to Improve
Lucy 2.6 is an incremental upgrade, and Decart says it is already working on the next version of the model. The gap it is closing is fidelity: whether an edited face, garment or product holds up closely enough that viewers stop noticing the edit. That matters most in commerce. A live shopping stream where viewers can ask to see a different color, a different fit or a closer look at a product only works if what they see matches what they would receive.
Scale is the other open question. A single store installation or a one-off broadcast shows the technology works live. Running it across thousands of simultaneous streams, each tailored to its audience, is a harder test. Disclosure will matter too, as AI-altered presenters and characters become harder to tell apart from the real thing.
Real-time video generation has come a long way in a short time. If it keeps progressing at this pace, the limiting factor will soon be less the technology underneath it than the imagination of the people using it.