Google launched Gemini 3.8 Live and Live Extended Thinking models last week. The company touted them as its most advanced live dialogue models yet. The goal was to provide developers and enterprises with building blocks for reliable voice agents. The update also made speaking back to Gemini more natural for complex voice tasks.
Google has now added video to that formula with Gemini 3.8 Live with Live Avatar. This feature pairs near real-time visual presence to the live dialogue models. It creates an experience that listens, sees, and speaks with a dynamic visual persona.
These avatars are designed to handle tasks like sales support and customer service. You may find yourself interacting with them in the near future.
Read nextGoogle Gemini Enterprise adds Live Avatar for animated and realistic lip-syncingGoogle published several videos in its blog showing both realistic and cartoon-like avatars. These figures feature precise lip-syncing, natural expressions, and fluid turn-taking.
The company states these elements enable natural, multimodal conversations. The avatars communicate using facial expressions while simultaneously looking, listening, and speaking.
Advanced reasoning from Gemini backs the avatars. This allows Live Avatar to trigger tool calls and fetch data in the background while maintaining an active dialogue.
Google will provide a library of diverse, preset avatars. Alternatively, organizations can build custom avatars from high-quality reference images.
Custom avatars preserve reference likeness, brand styling, or character identity. Google noted that custom options are available exclusively through enterprise allowlisting.
Strict safeguards protect identity and maintain transparency for AI-generated content. Google applies its SynthID watermark to every single avatar.
Live Avatar is intended strictly for Google's Gemini Enterprise customers. Public reaction may vary as these sales and customer service avatars eventually appear on computer and phone screens.
Google will continue rolling out these enterprise features according to its current allowlisting schedule.
