The tool has been developed in collaboration with leading AI experts from Imperial College London and uses webcams to measure participants’ attention the same way a human would – using a set of subtle behavioural cues that the human brain instinctively processes to make up its mind about whether someone is paying attention or not through their body language.

Marketers cam measure the likely attention their content will generate by using consumers’ webcams to monitor behavioural cues such as eye movements, blinking, yawning and head movements.

The tool will give brand advertisers metrics showing the volume and quality of attention their content managed to attract, plus an analysis of when attention rises or falls, allowing them to make edits prior to launch. It can also be used to compare ads with the rest of their sector or their competitive set.

Mihkel Jäätma, CEO and co-founder of Realeyes said: “For advertisers, the cost of going unnoticed is a price too high to pay. After all, for consumers to be affected by advertising messages, they need to be paying attention in the first place.

“The average human attention span now down to just 8 seconds, meaning brands need all the help they can get to be heard above the din of an increasingly noisy internet.”

The company said the new metric is 4% off being as good as human annotators at telling whether someone is paying attention or not and its accuracy is improving.