Google gives Gemini agents a face: Live avatars for businesses

Google has made Gemini 3.8 Live with Live Avatar generally available in Gemini Enterprise, the business version of Gemini. The rollout took place on September 24. The feature gives an AI assistant a face and a voice, so you can talk to it almost as if you were on a video call.

What is a live avatar?

A live avatar is an on-screen character that speaks, moves its lips and shows facial expressions in step with the conversation. According to the sources cited, it can also wait its turn in the conversation. It can retrieve information in the background without the conversation stopping. Google says it can adapt speech and video in 97 languages.

The main audience is businesses, for example for customer service or advisory work, where a chatbot can be given a more human feel. The tech outlet TechRadar calls the avatars "creepy," but points out that they are meant to make support bots feel more human.

Customizable

Businesses can choose from ready-made avatars with different looks and voices. They can look like real people or like cartoon characters. Businesses can also create a fully custom avatar from a high-quality image. It must retain the character's look and style.

That option is not open to everyone. The business must first be approved by Google, which typically happens through Google's sales team.

The trust features

The built-in safety features focus mainly on two things. All audio and video from the avatars receive a SynthID watermark. This is an invisible mark that people cannot see or hear, but that software can use to detect that the content was made by AI. The aim is to limit misinformation and false attribution of the sender.

The other feature is the approval of custom avatars, which Google describes as a safeguard against misuse and identity theft. Businesses that use a custom avatar are themselves responsible for having the necessary rights and consents for face and voice samples.

What does it mean for you?

For ordinary users, it is most relevant as a customer. In the future, you may encounter AI avatars in web shops, at banks or in other service functions. It is still unknown when that will happen in Denmark. The watermark is invisible, so it only helps if someone checks the content with the right tools. As a customer, you should therefore pay attention yourself to whether you are talking to a human or a machine.