Digital people, real impact: where they fit in products today

The future of digital people—AI humans—has arrived as a practical reality woven into today’s products.

What was once the domain of demos and speculative tech is now powering real-world onboarding, customer support, learning, and sales. Why? Because conversation is the fastest path between intent and action. When users can speak face-to-face with a digital person who listens, understands, and responds in real time, friction disappears and outcomes accelerate.

From scripted bots to emotionally intelligent AI humans

Unlike the static avatars or scripted chatbots of the past, today’s digital people are built to connect. They don’t just deliver information—they perceive context, read nonverbal cues, and respond with emotional intelligence. This leap in capability raises the bandwidth of trust, making every interaction feel more authentic and human. Deloitte’s Tech Trends 2025 highlights how AI is now being embedded deep within product experiences, while McKinsey’s digital insights point to a new baseline: users expect real-time, personalized engagement, not just answers.

Two big shifts stand out:

• Digital people are moving from demos to daily product surfaces—onboarding, support, learning, and sales—because conversation is now the fastest path between intent and action.
• Unlike scripted bots or static avatars, digital people connect face-to-face, perceive context, and respond with emotional intelligence—raising the bandwidth of trust.

Why now? The technology and trends converging

What’s unlocked this Cambrian moment for digital people? It’s the convergence of sub-second latency, advanced perception models like Raven‑0, and photorealistic rendering engines such as Phoenix‑3. These breakthroughs make natural presence possible, allowing AI Humans to see, hear, and respond just like we do. For marketing and learning teams, this means delivering scalable, humanlike interaction—without the headcount spikes or operational bottlenecks of traditional approaches. The result is a new class of product experiences that feel alive, adaptive, and always on.

What’s powering this moment:

• Deloitte’s Tech Trends 2025 notes AI is being woven into the fabric of products; McKinsey’s digital insights and consumer reports highlight rising expectations for real‑time, personalized experiences.
• Sub‑second latency, perception models like Raven‑0, and rendering like Phoenix‑3 unlock natural presence; marketing and L&D need scalable humanlike interaction without headcount spikes.

This piece offers a practical map for where digital people fit today, how to build and measure them, and what to ship first. For a deeper dive into the technology powering these experiences, explore the definition of conversational video AI and see how platforms like Tavus are shaping the future of face-to-face digital interaction. As digital adoption accelerates globally, as shown in the Digital 2025 Global Overview Report, the question is no longer if digital people belong in your product, but where you’ll deploy them first.

Where digital people create value in products right now

From chat to face-to-face: what digital people are

Digital people—AI Humans—are no longer a futuristic concept. Today, they’re being delivered through conversational video interfaces (CVI) that see, listen, and respond with humanlike presence. Powered by models like Raven‑0 for perception, Sparrow‑0 for natural turn-taking, and Phoenix‑3 for photorealistic rendering, these AI Humans enable two-way, real-time interaction that feels remarkably lifelike. Unlike static avatars or scripted bots, they interpret context, adapt to user cues, and build trust through face-to-face engagement.

High-impact product surfaces to start with

Use cases to consider:

• Onboarding walkthroughs and customer education
• Embedded product coaches for in-app guidance
• Learning and development role-play (sales, negotiation)
• Recruiter screens and HR interview automation
• Healthcare intake and triage assistants
• eCommerce live shopping and support
• Kiosk or concierge for hospitality and public spaces
• Knowledge-base video explainers for self-service support

These use cases are already transforming how organizations scale expertise and deliver personalized experiences. For example, ACTO Health leverages perception models to adapt during patient interactions, while Final Round AI uses digital people for immersive mock interviews and role-play, driving higher engagement and retention.

Metrics that matter to prove business value

The impact of digital people is measurable across the product lifecycle—from awareness (interactive landing pages) and activation (guided setup), to adoption (in-product help) and expansion (account reviews, upsell education). Digital twins of subject-matter experts can be embedded wherever nuanced, humanlike interaction is needed most.

Key metrics and proof points include:

• Sparrow‑0 delivered a 50% engagement lift, 80% higher retention, and twice the response speed in mock-interview scenarios (Final Round AI)
• Tavus Knowledge Base retrieval clocks in at ~30 ms—up to 15× faster than typical retrieval-augmented generation (RAG)—keeping conversations frictionless and natural (learn more about Knowledge Base speed)
• Sub-one-second pipeline latency sustains a sense of presence, making interactions feel truly live
• Support for 30+ languages expands reach and accessibility across global markets

Organizations like ACTO Health and IgniteTech are already scaling sales coaching, onboarding, and expert knowledge delivery with Tavus AI Humans, demonstrating how digital people can relieve bandwidth constraints and elevate user experience. For a deeper dive into the future of conversational video AI, visit the Conversational AI Video API overview.

As the digital human market accelerates—projected to reach $117.71 billion by 2034—real-time, emotionally intelligent AI Humans are fast becoming the bridge between intent and action, setting a new standard for product engagement and customer connection.

How to build them: architecture choices and guardrails

Pick your path: API integration vs no-code studio

Building digital people starts with a fundamental choice: deep product integration with the Conversational Video Interface (CVI) API, or rapid deployment via AI Human Studio.

The CVI API is designed for teams that want full white-label control, deep customization, and the ability to embed lifelike, face-to-face AI directly into their product experience. This path is ideal for organizations with engineering resources and a need to own every aspect of the user journey—from branding to data flow.

In contrast, AI Human Studio empowers business teams to launch digital people in days, not months, with a no-code builder that handles knowledge base integration, persona design, and deployment. Choose your approach based on your priorities for time-to-value, customization, and UX ownership.

For a deeper dive into the technical distinctions and use cases, see the Conversational AI Video API overview.

Choose between these paths:

• API (CVI): Full white-label, deep branding, and custom integrations—best for teams seeking to platformize digital people and scale to millions of users.
• AI Human Studio: No-code, fast deployment, and moderate branding—ideal for business units needing to launch onboarding, support, or training flows without engineering lift.

Ground knowledge, remember context, enforce behavior

To make digital people truly useful, you need to ground them in your own knowledge and ensure they act with continuity and compliance. Connect a Knowledge Base—supporting formats like CSV, PDF, TXT, PPTX, images, and URLs—and choose a retrieval strategy that matches your flow: speed for instant support, balanced for general use, or quality for regulated or high-stakes scenarios.

Persistent Memories can be enabled for conversations that require context retention across sessions, making every interaction feel more human. Objectives and Guardrails are essential for outcome-driven, compliant conversations, ensuring your digital people stay on track and on brand. For more on building safety into AI systems, explore how FinLLM approaches safety by design.

Plan the following configuration choices:

• Where does face-to-face add the most lift today?
• Embedded widget vs full-screen experience
• Data sources to upload or tag for the Knowledge Base
• Retrieval strategy (speed vs quality) per conversation flow
• When to enable persistent Memories
• Required guardrails and escalation logic
• Analytics to instrument (CSAT/NPS, conversion, resolution time)

Scale, security, and brand control

Enterprise readiness is built in: support for 1080p video, over 30 languages, concurrency controls, conversation recordings, and transcripts. You can bring your own LLM or integrate custom models, and for regulated environments, SOC2 and HIPAA compliance are available. Start with a no-code onboarding assistant to validate impact, then graduate to API-embedded product coaches for a richer, branded UX. For a complete breakdown of integration options and developer resources, visit the CVI documentation hub.

Designing digital people that feel human—and stay on brand

Presence that earns trust

To create digital people that truly resonate, presence is everything. The difference between a lifelike AI human and an uncanny avatar often comes down to micro-details—subtle facial cues, natural pacing, and a sense of warmth that invites trust. Tavus’s Phoenix‑3 rendering model is engineered to capture full-face micro-expressions and preserve identity fidelity, ensuring every interaction feels authentic and alive. This level of realism is essential for building trust and emotional connection, whether your digital person is a sales coach, healthcare consultant, or customer service agent.

To get presence right:

• Use Phoenix‑3 for full-face micro-expressions and identity fidelity
• Align tone and persona to your brand voice
• Keep intros short and warm
• Avoid uncanny backgrounds
• Maintain natural eye contact and human pacing

These best practices are not just cosmetic—they’re foundational to the Tavus approach, which prioritizes presence over process. As highlighted in our platform overview, the goal is to make every digital interaction feel unmistakably human, not just functional.

Conversation that adapts to users

Human conversation is fluid, and digital people should be no different. With Sparrow‑0, you can tune turn-taking and pause sensitivity to match your use case—whether you need the quick tempo of a sales development rep or the reflective cadence of a tutor. Role-play scenarios benefit from quick meta-signals, such as “I’m switching to skeptical CTO,” which help users orient themselves and keep the experience grounded in reality. This adaptability is key to delivering personalized, emotionally intelligent interactions that drive engagement and retention.

Grounded accuracy and brand guardrails

Trust also depends on accuracy and safety. Digital people should ground their responses in your Knowledge Base, referencing source material with subtle callouts or citations. Tavus enables you to choose a retrieval strategy—prioritizing speed for support flows or quality for compliance-sensitive scenarios.

To keep digital people on brand and on task, define clear guardrails and objectives. This means specifying off-limits topics, escalation paths, and fallback behaviors, as well as monitoring transcripts and emotion signals to continuously improve scripts and reduce drift. For a deeper dive into how objectives and guardrails work in practice, see our Knowledge Base documentation.

To operationalize guardrails and accuracy:

• Define off-limits topics, escalation paths, and fallback behaviors
• Add objectives to keep multi-step workflows on track
• Monitor transcripts and emotion signals to improve scripts and reduce drift

Real-world examples include a sales coach persona delivering actionable feedback, a healthcare consultant following strict intake objectives, and a customer service agent constrained by policy guardrails. These use cases illustrate how digital people can deliver value while staying true to your brand’s standards and voice. For more on the psychology of personalization and how digital personas shape user experience, explore the psychology of personalization in digital environments.

Ship face-to-face: a 30–60–90 plan to go from pilot to product

Start small, prove fast

Launching digital people in your product isn’t about boiling the ocean—it’s about focused, measurable progress. In the first 30 days, pick a single high-impact surface such as onboarding or customer support. Connect your core documentation to the Knowledge Base, which enables your AI persona to reference accurate, up-to-date information in real time. Tavus’s Knowledge Base supports a range of file types and retrieval strategies, letting you balance speed and quality for each use case. Define clear guardrails to ensure safe, compliant, and on-brand conversations, then launch a limited beta.

The goal: achieve sub-one-second latency and capture your first CSAT or NPS feedback, validating that the experience feels truly human.

In the 60-day phase, focus on:

• 60 days: Enable persistent Memories for continuity in recurring or multi-session use cases, so digital people remember context and improve over time.
• A/B test turn-taking and persona tone to optimize for your audience—whether you need a fast-paced SDR or a reflective tutor.
• Add Objectives to drive outcomes, such as completed onboarding or resolved support tickets, and instrument key metrics like conversion rate, time-to-value, and containment rate.

Scale what works, deepen integration

By day 90, it’s time to move from pilot to product. Transition to API-embedded experiences for full brand control and open up additional use cases—think L&D role-play, recruiter screens, or eCommerce assistance. Expand language support to reach new markets and ensure your digital people meet users where they already engage, whether that’s in-product, on social platforms, or via real-time video. Industry leaders like Deloitte and McKinsey highlight that AI is becoming native to the product fabric, and social platforms are rapidly adopting AI assistants—so the opportunity is now.

By day 90, take these steps:

• 90 days: Move to API-embedded experiences with full brand control.
• Open additional use cases (L&D role-play, recruiter screens, eCommerce assistance) and languages for new markets.

Measure, learn, and expand

Future-proof your deployment by preparing for action beyond dialogue—such as tool or function calls, multimodal perception, and enterprise-grade analytics. This ensures your digital people can not only connect with users but also complete real tasks, driving measurable business outcomes. For a deeper dive into the technical and strategic steps, see this guide to creating a 30/60/90-day plan for new product launches. And for a hands-on look at building dynamic, real-time conversational agents, explore the Conversational Video Interface documentation from Tavus.

Ready to get started with Tavus and bring face-to-face AI into your product? We hope this post was helpful.