Erhan Ciris is the founder and chief executive of 4D Sight, an artificial intelligence company based in New York City. His work sits where computer vision, real-time graphics, and live broadcasting meet: 4D Sight makes a live video feed understand the three-dimensional space inside it, so a sponsor message can be placed into the picture as if it were physically on set. The goal Erhan Ciris set for the company is advertising that respects the broadcast instead of interrupting it, built on a platform that understands every frame it touches.
Building 4D Sight
Erhan Ciris founded 4D Sight in 2017, after years of watching digital advertising grow more interruptive while the product placements he admired in film stayed invisible and faithful to the story. That lesson from cinema is something he has spoken about directly. The company started in esports, where it learned to insert sponsor content into fast, visually complex gameplay without modifying the game itself, with no engine integration and no dependency on the source.
That approach proved the platform could handle almost any environment. By 2019 the same technology was running on combat-sport footage shot with handheld cameras and heavy motion, and 4D Sight grew into a virtual signage platform now used across live sport, esports, and streamed entertainment. Its mission is to make every frame of a broadcast addressable, so a sponsor surface can change depending on the region that is watching, with no venue hardware and no rights friction for the partners it serves.
The vision: every frame monetized, every frame understood
The thesis Erhan Ciris built 4D Sight around is that a live broadcast is not just something to watch. It is a rich, structured signal, and a platform that truly understands the space inside each frame can do two things at once.
The first is commercial: once every frame is addressable, fixed signage becomes flexible inventory, and the same event can carry different sponsors for different audiences around the world.
The second is perceptual: the same frame-level understanding that makes precise placement possible also produces a real-time, structured account of what is happening on screen. Erhan Ciris sees this as the platform's second act, turning the broadcast itself into a live source of verified, frame-accurate information for the partners who work with it.
Both come from one capability, sitting inside the live feed and understanding it as it happens, and that is the foundation he continues to build the company on.
The technology behind the platform
At the core of 4D Sight is what the company calls its Perception Layer, a deep-learning system Erhan Ciris led the research on beginning in 2020. Instead of laying flat graphics over a video, it builds an understanding of the real space inside the frame and renders content into that space so it reads as part of the scene, holding up under camera motion, occlusion, and live broadcast conditions.
Ciris refined the technology through UC Berkeley's SkyDeck accelerator and continues to lead the computer-vision and rendering engineering teams behind it. He holds a firm standard for the output: a placement that looks fake breaks trust with the audience, so the team treats broadcast-grade, pixel-accurate rendering as the floor rather than the finish line, and builds compliance and measurement into the platform by design. That refusal to ever show the seam has become a defining trait of how he runs the company.
Partnerships and milestones
4D Sight has put its feed inside some of the largest live broadcasts in the world. In 2022 the company signed a multi-year agreement with the UFC to swap sponsor logos onto the canvas of the octagon, which opened more than 170 territories with region-specific sponsors, including categories that older hardware-based systems could not handle safely.
Under Erhan Ciris, the company has built relationships spanning TKO, the parent company of the UFC and WWE, along with Riot Games and Activision Blizzard. In 2026 it shipped an independently audited measurement methodology aligned with IAB standards, plus a programmable API that lets partners pipe impression-level data into their advertising and analytics systems.
Background and recognition
Before founding the company, Erhan Ciris was a published researcher in real-time graphics and artificial intelligence, and he is the author of "Game, Set, Match: When AI Watches Sports, Everybody Wins." He writes regularly about spatial intelligence, live-video understanding, and the case for respectful advertising in live media.
His perspective has been covered across business and technology press, including Forbes, which reported the UFC partnership, along with BOSS Magazine, MediaPost, and SVG Europe. Based in New York City, Erhan Ciris is active in the local technology community and counts martial arts and his Siberian Husky among the interests that keep him grounded outside the company.
In the press
Selected coverage of Erhan Ciris and 4D Sight:
- He's Never Once Thought of This as an Ad Business · MetaPress
- Erhan Ciris and the Decision to Never Show the Seam · CEO Weekly
- How 4D Sight Chose the Hardest Broadcast Environment on Earth to Prove Their AI · BOSS Magazine
- What Film Taught the Founder of 4D Sight About the Future of Advertising in Live Sports · TechBullion
- 4D Sight: Innovating Native Monetization of Sports with AI · Daily Scanner
- UFC Taps In-Swappable Logo Ads With 4D Sight Technology Deal · Forbes
- New Platform Invites Creators to Monetize Their Content With 4D Sight · MediaPost
- 4D Sight Enters Virtual Ad Insertion Market With Activision Blizzard as Key Client · SVG Europe
- Why Spatial Intelligence Will Matter Long After the AI Hype Fades · The European Business Review
- Before the AI Boom, Real-Time Perception Technology Was Already Taking Shape · Good Men Project
- Erhan Ciris, Founder of 4D Sight · North Penn Now
You can follow the latest work from Erhan Ciris on his official website and read his essays on Medium, both linked from this profile.
Frequently asked questions
Who is Erhan Ciris?
Erhan Ciris is the founder and chief executive of 4D Sight, an AI company in New York City that makes live sports, esports, and streamed broadcasts understand the space inside the frame so sponsor content can be placed into the picture naturally. He is also a published researcher in real-time graphics and AI and the author of a book on AI in sports.
What is Erhan Ciris known for?
Erhan Ciris is known for founding 4D Sight and pioneering frame-aware live broadcasting: the idea that a live video feed can be understood in three dimensions in real time, making every frame both addressable advertising inventory and a source of structured information about the event itself.
What is 4D Sight?
4D Sight is an AI-powered virtual advertising and live-video understanding platform founded by Erhan Ciris in 2017. It inserts and swaps sponsor content inside live video without modifying the original broadcast or game, which lets the same broadcast show different, region-specific sponsors to different audiences.
How does 4D Sight's technology work?
Its Perception Layer is a deep-learning system that understands the three-dimensional space inside a live frame and renders content into that space so it reads as part of the scene, rather than overlaying flat graphics on top of the video. Erhan Ciris led the research behind it and refined it through UC Berkeley's SkyDeck accelerator.
What companies has 4D Sight partnered with?
4D Sight signed a multi-year deal with the UFC in 2022 to place sponsor logos on the octagon canvas across more than 170 territories, and the company has worked with partners including TKO (the parent company of UFC and WWE), Riot Games, and Activision Blizzard.
Where is Erhan Ciris based?
Erhan Ciris is based in New York City, where he leads 4D Sight and takes part in the local technology community. The company also notes a presence in Turkey, where it hires engineering and research talent.