A Digital Humans Primer
What, exactly, is a Digital Human?
Digital Humans are a relatively new branch of technology that is rapidly evolving. While there is no clear-cut definition for Digital Human (they can mean different things to different people and different fields), at Quantum Capture we like to define a Digital Human as: a hyper-realistic 3-dimensional representation of a human that is powered by artificial intelligence (AI). Digital humans, as we define them, are sometimes called 'virtual humans', 'AI-powered avatars', or 'embodied conversational agents', among other names.
What is conversational AI?
Today many people interact with Conversational AI systems, whether using a keyboard and a pesky text-based chatbot on a website , or talking to a smart speaker or mobile app with built-in Alexa, Google Assistant or Siri. Digital Humans take this type of interaction to the next level and it's logical conclusion: conversing back and forth with an AI that is a digital representation of a person - using a digital human to get information, to learn a skill, or to be entertained.
Where can you See Digital Humans in action?
We are at the dawn of the digital human era. Digital Humans are becoming increasingly prevalent in video games and virtual worlds and immersive learning experiences, whether on a computer screen or inside Virtual Reality (VR) systems like Meta's Oculus. In some parts of the world, Digital Humans are appearing on kiosks: in airports, retail locations, hospitals and other commercial environments. More recently - and thanks to an enabling technology known as pixel-streaming, digital humans can be made available on the web. The transformative ability of pixel-streamed digital humans cannot be overstated. It means that applications using Digital Humans will soon be available anywhere and everywhere with a fast Internet connection, thanks to another enabling technology - 5G networks.
Who is using Digital Humans?
In the next few years, we predict that Digital Humans will replace a large number of those text-based chatbots on websites (you know the ones, they often pop-up in the bottom left corner of websites, some of which 'pretend' to be real humans). Interactions with Digital Humans on your computer or mobile device will become commonplace - whether seeking information from your employer, government, school, hospital, or any company that counts you as a customer or potential customer. We also predict that encounters with Digital Humans will become increasingly commonplace in environments most challenged to provide information to - and collect information from - a high volume of visitors. Retail environments, airports, hospitals and medical facilities, office buildings are just a few examples of these types of environments. Those that benefit from or require support in many languages and industries or geographies with the greatest staffing and churn challenges will be the fastest to adopt. Digital Humans will become as much a part of our everyday lives as a search engine like Google is today.
What are some early success stories?
Some of the first uses of Digital Humans include:
Spokesperson / Brand Ambassador
Customer Service Agent
Product Specialist
Technical Support Agent