Realistic digital personas: The demand for more human-like avatars

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  Quantumrun Foresight
• September 27, 2022

Insight summary

The metaverse, a rapidly expanding virtual world, is becoming a central focus for major tech companies, each striving to enhance digital experiences with more realistic avatars and immersive environments. Concerns are rising over the impact of these hyper-realistic avatars on mental health, particularly among young people, as they might lead to issues like low self-esteem and body image disorders. These developments are also fueling debates on the need for government regulation to protect users, especially the younger demographic, and are influencing industries like beauty, fashion, and workplace communication technologies.

Realistic digital persona context

The metaverse is a virtual environment where people may engage in an infinite diversity of digital experiences, oftentimes engaging with others through the use of digital avatars (digital representations of users). Many tech companies are heavily investing in metaverse technologies. For example, NVIDIA, a leading digital environment creator, is developing an ‘Omniverse’ platform to replicate real-world buildings and factories.

Roblox, a video game platform, is investing in 3D digital worlds and is building a metaverse designed for gamers. Snap Inc. released 3D Bitmojis (personal emojis) for Snapchat as a precursor to its metaverse. Meanwhile, Tencent, one of China’s primary big tech companies, has filed numerous metaverse-related trademarks. Furthermore, when Facebook rebranded as Meta in 2021, the firm also debuted its Codec Avatars, which employ 3D capture technology and artificial intelligence (AI) to produce avatars for use in metaverse environments. 

Key to all of these metaverses is the ability for individuals to connect and share experiences. And since these metaverses prioritize visual and immersive experiences, the use of personal avatars will experience greater prominence among consumers. For some consumers and in select metaverses and use cases, there will also be a demand to create hyper-realistic-looking personal avatars instead of typical avatars that look cartoonish. The goal of these hyper-realistic avatars is to allow users to replicate themselves in the digital world and simultaneously occupy multiple virtual spaces. These hyper-realistic avatars bridge the perceptual gap between remote and in-person communications.

Disruptive impact

In 2022, the 3D creation platform Unreal Engine (UE) unveiled its improved MetaHuman tool powered by the Unreal Engine 5 (UE 5), offering mesh, animations, and characters. The platform includes MetaHuman Creator, a cloud-based app that enables users to design photorealistic digital humans in minutes. The app allows users to customize their characters by choosing from several templates, resulting in highly customizable, hyper-realistic figures for use in games and virtual experiences. MetaHuman renders everything with the most detailed textures available, including lighting, hair, and clothing.

However, researchers are concerned that the growing popularity of hyper-realistic 3D avatars in virtual worlds could lead to negative body image issues, especially in youth. In a study conducted by Colorado State University and Seoul National University, women who viewed hyper-realistic avatars of themselves almost always experienced low self-esteem. Additionally, even though the participants had undergone a body positivity program, they still related negatively to their avatars.

Researchers recruited eighteen young women for the study; all indicated that they ha’d experienced body image difficulty before participating in the research. According to University of Western Australia researcher Noelle Martin, the ability for users to make their hyper-realistic virtual avatars could have concerning impacts such as eating disorders and body and selfie dysmorphia (a condition where someone obsesses over their perceived physical flaws).

Implications of realistic digital persona

Wider implications of realistic digital personas may include: 

• Increased incidents of mental health conditions, such as anxiety, depression, and eating disorders, as more people get bombarded with distorted and unreal images.
• An increase in the exploitation of users through micro-transactions to buy different avatar features (e.g., different colored eyes, hair, or clothing).
• Increased innovation and revenue for the beauty and plastic surgery industries and more people invest in reshaping their physical appearance to look like their idealized digital avatars.
• Workplaces More workplaces transferring to the metaverse and requiring employee authentication and hologram communications using virtual and augmented realities.
• Critics demanding their respective governments regulate metaverse apps to protect youth from becoming addicted to these platforms.
• Intense competition among tech companies to develop the most hyper-realistic metaverse platforms.

Questions to consider

• What would be the other benefits or risks of hyper-realistic avatars? 
• How can governments regulate the metaverse to moderate young people’s exposure to the technology?