Building Real-Time AI Video Agents with LiveKit and Tavus (NEW)

Video agents are no longer just a “nice to have.” They’ve become one of the most natural and intuitive ways to interact with real-time AI agents. With Tavus video agents now integrated into LiveKit, you can add humanlike video responses to your voice agents in seconds.

Overview

LiveKit is a powerful open-source WebRTC platform for real-time voice and video. With this integration, developers can add Tavus avatars to LiveKit agents using just two lines of code. No custom pipelines. No complex orchestration. No compromise in responsiveness.

The result is interactive video agents that feel like real conversations, powered by the Tavus Conversational Video interface (CVI) and LiveKit’s low-latency audio streaming.

How the Integration Works

The LiveKit and Tavus integration was designed for both developer simplicity and natural user experience. Here’s what happens behind the scenes:

• Live audio streaming: When a user joins a room, LiveKit immediately subscribes to their audio.
• Tavus procedural visual generation: That audio is sent to Tavus, which generates a perfectly synced avatar video stream in real time.
• Interruption handling: If the user interrupts the avatar, LiveKit automatically drops any buffered video frames so the avatar doesn’t keep talking over them.
• Synchronized delivery: Tavus returns the video, synced with audio, directly into the room for seamless playback.
  

No custom code required to manage state or buffering. Just clean, real-time conversation.

What It Enables

This integration unlocks lifelike, emotionally engaging AI agents across a wide range of use cases:

• Interactive tutors that walk students through flashcards, quizzes, and real-time feedback
• AI sales reps that pitch, demo, and respond to objections like a real human would
• Onboarding specialists that greet new users and guide them step-by-step
• Healthcare guides that deliver sensitive information with empathy and clarity
• Virtual hosts for livestreams, events, or training sessions with a consistent face
• Internal assistants that help teams navigate tools or knowledge bases with a visual touch
  

Whether it’s education, support, sales, or internal tools, if it speaks, it can show up on screen.

In the LiveKit launch demo, we created a Roman history tutor who delivers interactive lessons, quizzes, and flashcards. When you get a question wrong, it immediately generates a custom flashcard to reinforce the correct answer. It shows how human a video-first AI experience can feel.

Getting Started

You can add a Tavus avatar to your LiveKit agent in a couple lines of code:

from livekit.plugins import tavus‍

avatar = tavus.AvatarSession(
	replica_id="your_replica_id"
	persona_id="your_persona_id")

await avatar.start(session, room=ctx.room)

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This joins your Tavus avatar to the room, automatically publishing a synced video stream.

To see the full setup, head over to the docs.

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Looking Ahead

With Tavus now supported on both LiveKit and Daily, developers have more flexibility than ever when building video-based AI.

This integration was built in direct response to LiveKit developer feedback. From educators creating engaging lesson plans to companies replacing static voice bots with AI faces that actually connect, everyone wanted a more human way to interact with AI. Check out the docs and start building!

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