Zoom: digital avatars for office videos

The video conferencing specialist Zoom will allow users to communicate with their colleagues via digitally created avatars. The deceptively real-looking figures will initially only be used in the Zoom Clips function, which allows users to record short video notes.

With the new avatars, you would no longer have to record these videos yourself. Instead, it should be enough to write a text – and the software would then animate the digital copy including matching mouth movements and the imitated voice. The function is set to be introduced next year.

The program first creates a digital copy of a person based on a video that has to be recorded. Zoom assured that there will be security measures in place to prevent misuse of the function. One concern with such software is always that it can be used to create deceptively real-looking fake videos.

While the video avatars have so far been limited to clips, Zoom boss Eric Yuan also spoke in an interview with the website “The Verge” in the summer about the possibility of being able to send a digital twin to video conferences in the future, in which you would not have to take part yourself. Instead, you could then go to the beach.

Zoom’s business received a major boost during the coronavirus pandemic, when hundreds of millions of people suddenly had to work and learn via video conferencing. Zoom is now trying to tap into new sources of revenue with functions based on artificial intelligence, among other things.

dpa