AI Avatars: Meet the Future of Interactions

Being still in an early stage of shoot-promising development, artificial intelligence (AI) is already changing the world in countless ways, from machine-produced art to fully-fledged vehicles. Gartner research predicts that AI-driven machine usage will constitute 20% of the global workforce and 40% of all economic productivity by 2028, which means that further global industry transformation is inevitable.

One of the areas where AI is promptly advancing is the field of virtual assistants. The emergence of AI avatars is about to transform a wide range of industries and extend the horizons of virtual assistants’ usage in general. Below we’ll consider the core features that make AI avatars a genuinely outstanding technology and explore some of the most compelling use cases we will soon leverage in our daily lives.

What Exactly Is an AI Avatar?

Generally speaking, an AI avatar is a virtual representation of a real person or a made-up character, powered by artificial intelligence. Such digital human copy is able to interact with real humans in an intuitive and natural way thanks to a number of underlying principal technologies and features, like:

• Natural language processing: An AI avatar can recognize, understand, and appropriately respond to human speech in a human-like manner. 

• Human-like appearance: With the ability to render a high-quality realistic video, your avatar character will look similar to a real person.

• Speech synthesis: This feature allows AI-powered assistants to generate spoken responses with a genuine-sounding voice.

• Facial and body motion: Avatar’s facial expressions, body moves, and gestures are fully animated and can change according to the speech or in response to user input.

• Character personalization: A digital human copy can be assigned a personality and emotions that may transform and evolve over time, demonstrating them during interactions.

• Knowledge base: Operating a vast data store behind the scenes, AI avatars can seamlessly interpret incoming inquiries and deliver on-demand information to users when answering their questions.

• Interactivity: When holding a conversation with a user, the most advanced human-like avatars can respond to their actions and inputs in real-time mode.

So now that you’re acquainted with the main traits that determine an “AI avatar,“ let’s explore the possibilities this technology brings us. Since AI virtual assistants are already revolutionizing the manner we engage with machines, they have the capacity to revolutionize numerous industry sectors.

Use Cases of AI-Powered Avatars

What are the potential benefits of AI avatars? First and foremost, they can streamline processes leading to reduced business costs and improved outcomes. And with the ability of voice communication, AI avatars can become a great help for people with disabilities (e.g., limited in hand motion or visually impaired), proposing a more inclusive way of interaction with a service.

To be more precise, let’s consider particular use cases in more detail: 

• Personal assistants are probably one of the most obvious options for a digital human copy appliance. Here, they can help to organize a personal everyday routine helping with tasks like scheduling appointments, making travel arrangements, sending reminders, etc. 

• AI avatars can be used to handle virtual customer service, providing client support and processing their appeals, which is especially useful for businesses with a high volume of customer inquiries. Also, AI-driven assistants can ensure more personalized and perceptive interaction with clients by remembering and recognizing their preferences, which results in enhanced customer experience and loyalty.

• Speaking about education purposes, AI-powered digital assistants can prepare and deliver personalized education and training programs, as well as aid a user in solving a certain task. Using AI avatars in this sphere offers the advantage of scaling the limited capacity of a human teacher and providing bespoke study courses tailored to individual students' psychological types, preferences, and learning speed. In particular, a voice-communicative avatar can help language learners to practice their speaking skills by engaging in real-time conversations and providing feedback and corrections to enhance their vocabulary and speaking style.

• One more option is mental health support — human-like avatars can offer psychological counseling to people who may be reluctant or feeling insecure about speaking with a real therapist. They could be programmed to respond to users' emotional cues, listen to their concerns, and propose personalized guidance on coping with these problems based on individual needs and circumstances. 

• In the gaming industry, AI avatars can enhance player experiences and make gameplay more immersive by interacting with players by voice. They can be embodied as an in-game character or game coach, have changeable traits and abilities, and provide improvement tips based on the player's actions and decisions. Likewise, an AI avatar can perform as a player’s visual representation in a game, allowing for more meaningful interactions with both human and artificial participants within the virtual experience.

• AI avatars can also afford customers more personalized marketing and advertising experiences while reducing promo video production costs and improving commerce effectiveness. For example, such a human-like digital assistant could be tuned to suggest personalized style recommendations based on users' preferences, body type, budget, etc., and give real-time feedback during shopping.

• As a key point of contact with a customer, every sales agent should have the skills to understand clients’ needs, stay up-to-date with trends in their specific niche, and ensure excellent customer service. AI-powered digital humans can facilitate these tasks by operating advanced algorithms and analytical tools that help to automate and enhance sales operations. Also, they can boost a company's sales performance by providing precise insights into customer behaviors and anticipating their demands, thus increasing the number of successful deals.

• One more noteworthy application of AI avatars is in informational kiosks located in offices, hotels, clinics, airports, municipal facilities, and other institutions. Being manned by AI-powered assistants, these standalone help desks are capable of providing any required organizational information and handling basic administrative tasks, such as guest check-in, appointing a visit, selling a ticket, etc. The process is seamless and can be conducted through voice or touchscreen interactions. This way, AI avatars allow businesses to expand with an additional inexpensive workforce and give customers a more convenient and smooth experience.

• As for the entertainment sphere, here AI avatars can be used to provide such captivating activities as virtual concerts, interactive storytelling, and live performances. A human digital copy can act as an artist or show host, communicate with guests, or be integrated into the environment as an interactive element. This enables the creation of unique stage designs and special effects that are impossible to achieve in physical reality, providing a new level of spectacle for audiences. Moreover, by incorporating realistic AI avatars, creators can present new performances that feature retired or deceased artists, giving fans the opportunity to discover their beloved entertainers in a new way and introduce them to a new auditory. Altogether, this allows to significantly enhance entertainment experiences, providing novel techniques for artists to engage with audiences and bring their creative visions to life.

These real-world examples demonstrate how AI avatars are already transforming interactions and shaping the course of digital evolution. But with ongoing technological advancement, we can foresee even more innovative use cases emerging.

Conclusion

The technology of AI-driven avatars is thrilling and full of promise, carrying a high potential to transform the way we interact with both machines and each other, thereby casting a more personalized, intuitive, and engaging future.

So make sure to take advantage of this! Get your own AI avatar today and stay ahead of your competitors in this rising trend.