Alibaba Group has unveiled TaoAvatar, a new technology that brings photorealistic, full-body talking 3D virtual humans to augmented reality.
These aren’t just static models – they’re responsive digital counterparts that can listen, speak, express emotions, and act naturally in three-dimensional spaces.
Meet Your Digital Twin
TaoAvatar creates lifelike 3D avatars that look just like real people and can carry on real-time conversations in AR environments.
For businesses, this opens up fresh possibilities:
- Remote team collaboration where colleagues appear as life-sized 3D figures in your workspace
- Customer service representatives who can guide clients through complex processes with natural gestures
- Training scenarios featuring instructors who can demonstrate procedures with appropriate body language
According to reports, the system dynamically generates facial expressions and gestures based on audio content, creating natural synchronization between lip movements, expressions, and actions.
Technical Prowess Without the Headaches
What makes TaoAvatar particularly suitable for enterprise deployment is its remarkable balance of quality and efficiency:
- Smooth performance at 90 frames per second, even on high-definition stereoscopic displays like Apple Vision Pro
- Low storage requirements that won’t burden your IT infrastructure
- Cross-platform compatibility for deployment across various mobile and AR devices
This balance comes from innovative engineering approaches, including personalized clothing extension SMPLX mesh with aligned Gaussian texture, knowledge distillation techniques, and learnable Gaussian mixture shapes for enhanced detail.
In plain English? They’ve packed premium-quality virtual humans into a package that won’t overwhelm your devices.
Transform Your Business Communications
Picture your next product launch with a virtual presenter showing off features in a customer’s actual environment.
Imagine technical support staff appearing beside users to guide them through troubleshooting steps. Consider training programs where virtual instructors demonstrate complex procedures right next to employees.
For e-commerce, TaoAvatar could turn flat product presentations into immersive demonstrations with virtual hosts showing how items work in 3D space. Customer service could become more personal, with representatives appearing as if they’re in the room with clients.
The Secret Sauce: Expression and Movement
What separates TaoAvatar from previous virtual human attempts is its investment in natural movement and expression.
The integration of the Audio2BS model means these virtual humans don’t just talk – they communicate with appropriate eye contact and body language.
During virtual meetings, this means participants can read the room through natural social cues. For presentations, it allows speakers to emphasize points with gestures that feel authentic rather than robotic.
Bridging Distances in Enterprise Settings
The potential of TaoAvatar in modern distributed workplaces is particularly noteworthy.
As remote and hybrid work becomes standard practice, the technology offers a middle ground between video calls and in-person meetings. International teams might benefit from cultural nuances preserved in full-body communication that get lost in traditional video conferences.
For industries like healthcare, architecture, or manufacturing, TaoAvatar could enable specialists to guide procedures remotely with a level of presence not possible through current technologies.
Imagine a medical consultant appearing virtually beside a rural doctor, able to point and gesture at specific areas while discussing a case, or an engineer guiding maintenance staff through complex repairs with hands-on demonstrations that appear in the actual work environment.
Technical Magic Behind the Scenes
TaoAvatar employs 3D Gaussian splatting technology for high-quality real-time rendering, maintaining smooth operation even under demanding conditions. The system processes lip movements, facial expressions, and body language simultaneously, creating virtual humans that feel present and engaged.
For IT departments, the good news is that TaoAvatar was designed with resource constraints in mind. The technology can run effectively on mobile devices, making deployment across your organization more feasible than previous-generation virtual human systems.
Th Future of AR in the Workplace
As AR headsets and glasses become more common in workplace settings, technologies like TaoAvatar will likely shape how we collaborate, train, and communicate. The ability to have realistic virtual humans appear in physical spaces opens possibilities for remote work, distributed teams, and customer engagement that weren’t previously possible.
TaoAvatar represents Alibaba’s latest advancement in creating virtual humans that can communicate and express emotion effectively in AR environments. Whether for collaboration, education, customer engagement, or entertainment, this technology offers businesses new ways to connect with employees and customers in digital spaces that feel increasingly natural.
Picture credit: Alibaba
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