We Tried 3 Real-Time Streaming Avatar Tools-Here's What We Found

Social media content creators and influencers are looking for effective, user-friendly tools to create high-quality, real-time avatars or face swaps for their live streams and videos. These creators need reliable and customizable solutions to enhance their content without technical hassles.

To do this, they are turning to revolutionary new AI tools, including AKOOL’s Streaming Avatar— a tool that allows users to create and customize personalized avatars to increase the reach of their marketing efforts and reach new audiences.

These tools allow you to create an AI avatar that will speak and interact with audiences in real-time. This is a dramatic expansion of traditional AI avatars, which had to be painstakingly customized and rendered before you could stream a 2-minute pre-recorded clip. 

What Are Streaming Avatars and Their Applications?

Streaming avatars are being used to enhance customer service, boost e-commerce sales, and create educational content for students and professionals. 

In addition, social media content creators are using streaming avatars to better connect with their audiences and to dramatically increase the volume of content. They’re using these tools on all of the popular social media sites, including Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and LinkedIn. 

Content creators are excited to begin using this new tool to create new content, but many are confused about how to properly evaluate platforms to figure out which tool is best for their needs. 

We’ve created this run-down to help you parse through features of the most popular platforms and select the right streaming avatar tool for your business and audience. 

Choosing the Best Real-Time Avatar Tools: Our Experience

We recently pitted three of the industry’s top avatar streaming tools against each other in a benchmark test. We were determined to figure out which platform has the most realistic avatars, the best customer service, and allows companies to interact with their customers through a real-time chat box.

In particular, we are looking for realistic avatar, the number of avatar customization options, and a chat box. This allows content creators to improve engagement during live streams and are the key factors you should look for when choosing a streaming avatar tool. 

Read on to learn which tool is the best option for social media content creators interested in creating a more interactive environment for their customers and audience.

AKOOL

AKOOL’s platform offers the best real-time avatar tool of any company in the industry. We tested three of the world’s top streaming avatar tools against one another in a head-to-head contest—and AKOOL consistently outperformed the competition in terms of customization, it’s interactive chat box, and API support. 

The Streaming Avatar feature allows users to create and interact with personalized avatars through a chat box. These avatars can be customized in appearance, language, voice, and streaming mode (dialogue or repeat). The integration of a knowledge base enriches the avatars, making them more informative and engaging for users.

Key Features:

• Customizable Avatars: Users can change the avatar's look, language, voice, and streaming mode.
• Interactive Chat Box: Enables real-time communication with users, providing a seamless and engaging experience.
• Knowledge Base Integration: Avatars can be defined with a detailed knowledge base, offering more informative interactions.
• API Support: Facilitates seamless integration with various platforms and applications.

Use Cases:

• Customer Support: Enhance customer service with personalized and interactive avatars.
• Educational Tools: Utilize avatars for interactive learning sessions and virtual classrooms.
• Marketing and Sales: Engage customers with dynamic avatars that provide product information and support.
• Entertainment and Media: Use avatars for live streaming and interactive shows, creating a unique viewer experience

HeyGen

HeyGen’s Interactive Avatar is another popular streaming avatar tool that allows companies to engage with potential customers on social media, webinars, and other channels. 

While HeyGen has created an outstanding platform with many of the same features as industry-leader AKOOL, the company is ranked 2nd in our analysis because the avatar’s mouth movements and facial expressions lack the realism of AKOOL. This can take audiences out of the moment when these AI ticks are present. 

Key Features:

• Unlimited Session Length: Unlike many other tools on the market, HeyGen does not have a session limit for your live avatar.
• Avatar Customization: Like many other platforms, HeyGen allows you to customize the look and sound of your streaming avatar. 
• Multiple Avatars: Use multiple streaming avatars during a single social media session. 
• Translation and Language Support: Stream to audiences around the world with real-time language and translation integration into your streaming avatar. 

Use Cases:

• Sales Education: Test your sales team’s skills by putting them up against a streaming avatar that poses as a client. Try out responses in real-time and get used to common objections. 
• Customer Support: Increase the speed and number of customer support calls by using a customizable avatar.
• Improve Customer Engagement: Make content more engaging for audiences by creating custom avatars for personalized customer segments.
• Marketing Campaigns: Increase the reach of marketing campaigns by launching more real-time Q&A sessions for potential customers who are on the fence. 

D-ID

D-ID is an upstart company that has created an innovative streaming avatar tool that allows social media content creators to create engaging social media content that resonates with their audience. 

The platform comes with endless customization options, including over 80 different streaming avatars to choose from. In addition, you can select the avatar’s emotions and facial movements—allowing your team to further refine your brand. 

Despite these many benefits, D-ID is a limited platform that doesn’t provide the same number of diverse tools as AKOOL and HeyGen. While customers prize the company’s streaming avatar, most content creators need a tool like AKOOL—which has all of the tools necessary for content creation (including AI image creation, product background photos, video translation, and many more). 

Features:

• Endless Customization: Comes equipped with over 80 different streaming avatars, giving users an endless amount of customization options.
• Natural Movements & Emotions: Supports 4 emotions and 2 different types of movements (natural and lively) for more engaging presentations.
• Hyper-Realistic: Includes advanced body positioning to enhance realism.
• Seamless Integration: Known for its smooth integration with popular platforms, making it a versatile tool.

Use Cases:

• Marketing: Allows enterprise teams to create high-quality, cost-effective marketing materials.
• Customer Service: AI, synced with large language models, serves as a real-time chat bot for customer service inquiries.
• Education: Create engaging college-level courses using a streaming avatar as the professor.

Ethical Considerations Surrounding Streaming Avatars

When using your streaming avatar, it’s important to make sure customers are aware that this is an AI creation. This helps build trust among your audience and demonstrates your commitment to the ethical use of AI. 

In addition, always use a stock avatar as a spokesperson. If you do use a real person as the basis of your AI model, make sure that you have their permission in writing to remain legal and ethical. 

Conclusion: Which Real-Time Avatar Tool is Right for You?

Streaming avatar tools are the future of social media content creation and marketing. They allow individual content creators and enterprise marketing teams alike to create engaging content at a fraction of the price when compared to using a real model.

We’ve looked through three of the top real-time avatar platforms on the market to help you choose the best tool for your needs. For most creators, this will be AKOOL—which offers the same level of quality as their competitors but also comes with a suite of other generative AI tools.