Sir John Kirwan’s new concert: from rugby coach to dream coach

All Blacks legend and longtime mental health advocate Sir John Kirwan is about to add a new season of coaching to his resume: sleep coach.

Using artificial intelligence technology, the great rugby player has been transformed into a digital human to personally guide people to a peaceful night’s sleep.

Digital JK, or DJK as it is known, is a new feature of Mentemia, Kirwan’s mental wellbeing platform, providing simple tools and techniques for people to include in their daily routine.

DJK the Sleep Coach offers sleep advice, answers sleep-based questions, and helps users develop a sleep improvement plan.

“Good sleep is absolutely critical to good mental health,” Kirwan said. “We can all relate to how we feel if we slept poorly at night, so it was a natural place to start for DJK.”

Introducing his digital twin, JK said he hoped that technology would help millions around the world with their daily mental well-being.

“It is well known that there is a great need for mental wellbeing support and using digital solutions is one of the most effective and efficient ways to reach as many people as possible,” said the former coach of Japan, Italy and the Blues.

“Digital humans are not a replacement for real therapists, but AI is a really important part of the future of mental wellness and Mentemia is at the forefront of that technology.

“We hope that through DJK our users will see the potential for how AI can support their mental well-being in the future. As additional digital support, we believe it is a valuable new option for people to consider.”

Kirwan said that the first iteration of his virtual self would continue to develop as he had more interaction with users and learned how to behave and respond.

“You can chat with DJK and help him grow,” Kirwan said.

“As you learn more over time, DJK will be able to offer more personalized advice and cover many more areas of wellness. We need to talk more about mental health, and DJK offers people a different way to access information.”

The creators of Kirwan’s digital twin used 180 cameras to take hundreds of photos of the rugby legend’s face from multiple angles.

Along with a variety of expressions and minute details of Kirwan’s facial features, they created a 3D rendering of the character used to sculpt DJK.

“Wrinkles have to look like your actual wrinkles and doing things like DJK’s smile is essential because the difference between creepy and natural is much finer than you think,” said Shehan Bala, product manager at the human specialist digital Uneeq.

DJK would be available as part of Mentemia’s new premium subscription service for workplaces and businesses in New Zealand and Australia.

The free version of Mentemia became available to all Kiwis in April to help support mental well-being during the first Covid-19 crash. It was downloaded more than 110,000 times.

Kirwan said that more digital humans were being developed for the platform to provide advice and assistance in other areas of mental wellness.

“DJK is just the beginning, paving the way for a variety of expert digital humans who will be able to help a user with stress and anxiety, for example,” he said.

DB Breweries, a founding partner of Mentemia, participated in consumer trials to help bring DJK to life.

“I’ve seen DJK in action and he’s very reactive, much more realistic than I expected,” said CEO Peter Simons.

“I felt comfortable opening up about my sleeping habits and getting tips to try from a digital human.”