Transform your onboarding with a lifelike AI assistant that guides, supports, and personalizes every new hire’s journey using conversational video intelligence.
Picture your newest team member logging in on their first day and being greeted by a friendly digital face—one that remembers their name, guides them through each step, answers questions in real time, and adapts to their needs.
This is the experience you can create with an AI onboarding assistant powered by Tavus’s Conversational Video Interface (CVI). By combining a custom persona with a hyper-realistic digital replica, your AI onboarding assistant becomes an always-available, approachable, and genuinely human-like teammate.
The CVI pipeline uses perception to read the room, speech-to-text (STT) for accurate listening, a large language model (LLM) for smart responses, and text-to-speech (TTS) for natural, engaging conversation. As a result, every new hire feels welcomed, supported, and ready to thrive from day one.
Understanding AI onboarding assistants and their impact
Think of an AI onboarding assistant as your company’s digital welcome committee. Instead of relying on a basic chatbot, you have a virtual teammate—a digital persona—who can talk, listen, and even appear on video to help new hires settle in.
A digital persona is simply a virtual character with a personality and a face, sometimes even a voice and video, that interacts with people as if it were a real human. Imagine a super-friendly tour guide who never gets tired, never forgets a detail, and is always ready to answer questions—no matter the time.
AI onboarding assistants do more than answer common questions. They can walk new hires through paperwork, explain company culture, and check in to see how things are going. This approach creates a more engaging and supportive onboarding experience.
Why use AI for onboarding?
AI onboarding assistants can take care of routine tasks, such as collecting documents or setting up accounts, which means less paperwork for you. New hires get answers instantly, so they can become productive more quickly. Every new hire receives the same high-quality experience, ensuring consistency regardless of who manages onboarding. Whether you’re hiring five or 500 people, your AI onboarding assistant scales effortlessly.
These assistants don’t replace your HR team—they free them up to focus on building real connections and handling more meaningful interactions.
How does this help your team?
When you use an AI onboarding assistant, new hires feel supported from day one, which leads to happier employees. People who feel welcomed are more likely to stay, improving retention. AI personas can also be available in multiple languages and adapt to different needs, making onboarding more inclusive for everyone.
Start imagining how an AI onboarding assistant can streamline your onboarding process and elevate your team’s experience.
What sets an AI onboarding assistant apart?
A standout AI onboarding assistant does more than provide scripted answers. With conversational intelligence—the ability to understand and respond naturally—your assistant can chat with new hires just like a real person.
Conversational intelligence allows the AI to pick up on what you’re saying, remember context, and respond with empathy. It’s like having a super attentive friend who remembers your favorite coffee order and checks in on your first day.
Tavus’s Conversational Video Interface lets you create personas that use video and voice, making interactions feel even more personal—almost like a real face-to-face welcome. The CVI pipeline brings together perception to observe engagement and environment, advanced STT for seamless listening, LLM for context-aware responses, and TTS for lifelike speech. This combination ensures every conversation feels natural and engaging.
Automating the busywork
Nobody enjoys filling out forms or chasing down signatures. Your AI onboarding assistant can gather and organize documents, set up accounts, send reminders, and schedule meetings or training sessions. Think of your AI onboarding assistant as the world’s most organized personal assistant—one who never takes a lunch break and can handle routine tasks like collecting documents or setting up accounts.
Always on, always ready
Unlike a human, your AI onboarding assistant is available 24/7. It can answer questions in multiple languages, adjust for accessibility needs such as audio or visual support, and provide instant help no matter where your new hire is located. This flexibility means your onboarding process works for remote, global, and diverse teams—eliminating the need to wait for business hours.
Start exploring how conversational video AI can deliver a more human, responsive, and accessible onboarding experience.
Designing your ideal AI onboarding assistant persona
A persona is the character your AI onboarding assistant embodies. This includes tone of voice, appearance, and communication style. For example, your persona might be friendly, formal, playful, or anything in between. The appearance could be a digital human, a cartoon, or just a voice. Communication style might range from quick and to-the-point to chatty and supportive.
Choosing the right persona is like selecting a mascot for your team. Do you want a wise mentor, a cheerful buddy, or a calm guide? The right persona helps new hires feel at home from the start.
With Tavus, you can build lifelike digital humans (replicas) that look and sound just right for your brand. The CVI combines persona and replica to add a truly human layer to your AI onboarding assistant.
Customizing for your company culture
Your onboarding assistant should feel like part of your team. This means reflecting your company’s values and diversity, adapting to different departments or roles, and using language and examples that make sense for your industry.
You can create different personas for different roles. For instance, a creative agency might use a playful, energetic persona for designers and a more structured, professional one for finance hires.
Adaptive personalization: Growing smarter over time
Your AI onboarding assistant can learn from new hire feedback, adjust onboarding steps based on what works best, and recommend resources or learning paths tailored to each person. It’s similar to having a personal trainer who tweaks your workout plan as you get stronger—your onboarding assistant helps each new hire grow in the way that suits them best.
Start designing personas that truly reflect your company’s culture and adapt to every new hire’s needs.
Step-by-step: Creating your AI onboarding assistant persona
Building your AI onboarding assistant persona with Tavus is straightforward and powerful. Here’s how to get started:
Define your persona’s identity
Decide on the core characteristics for your assistant. Give your persona a relatable identity, such as “Alex, your onboarding guide.” Specify if your assistant is a mentor, buddy, or HR specialist. Choose a tone and style—friendly, formal, supportive, or playful—that fits your company culture.
For example, a tech startup might create “Sam,” a casual, energetic onboarding buddy who uses informal language and emojis. A financial firm might choose “Morgan,” a polished, professional guide with a calm, reassuring tone.
Configure behavioral layers
Tavus’s CVI lets you fine-tune how your persona interacts. Use perception models like “raven-0” to detect if the new hire is distracted, nervous, or needs extra support. Adjust STT sensitivity for pauses and interruptions to ensure the assistant listens naturally. Enable smart turn detection for smooth, real-time conversations.
For high-touch onboarding, you might set high participant pause sensitivity and enable ambient awareness queries to check if the new hire is engaged.
Set up conversational guidance
Define how your assistant greets, explains, and supports new hires using system prompts. Choose whether your assistant gives concise instructions or detailed walkthroughs. For instance, a “Mary” persona might open with, “Welcome! I’m here to guide you through your first week. Let’s get started together.”
Enable full pipeline mode
Activate all layers of the Tavus conversational pipeline. Perception monitors visual cues for engagement, STT transcribes speech in real time, LLM generates context-aware, empathetic responses, and TTS delivers replies in a natural, human-like voice. This creates a seamless, lifelike interaction that adapts to each new hire’s needs.
Create and join your conversation
Use the Tavus API to start your onboarding assistant. Replace your credentials in the API call to receive a conversation URL, then join and test your assistant in action.
Iterate and personalize
Gather feedback from new hires and refine your persona’s settings, prompts, and behaviors for continuous improvement. Experiment with different configurations and watch your assistant evolve to fit your team perfectly.
Exploring the possibilities: What your AI onboarding assistant can do
Your AI onboarding assistant can send friendly reminders and check-ins, run quick pulse surveys to gauge how new hires are feeling, and spot early signs of disengagement to offer help. A proactive assistant can make the difference between a new hire who feels lost and one who feels supported.
Data-driven insights: Improving over time
AI onboarding assistants can gather and analyze feedback, helping you see what’s working and what’s not. You can spot trends in new hire satisfaction and make improvements in real time. It’s like having a dashboard that shows exactly where your onboarding process shines and where it needs a tune-up.
Connecting with your digital workplace
Your AI onboarding assistant can integrate with HR systems for paperwork and compliance, collaboration tools like Slack or Teams, and learning platforms for training and development. When your onboarding assistant works with your other tools, new hires enjoy a seamless, all-in-one experience.
Start integrating your AI onboarding assistant with your workplace systems to unlock even more value for your team and new hires.
Beyond onboarding: The future of AI humans at work
Your AI onboarding assistant doesn’t have to stop at day one. It can help with role changes, promotions, or returns from leave, guide employees through reboarding after a break, and make offboarding smooth and supportive. Think of your AI onboarding assistant as a helpful guide who’s there for every twist and turn in your career—not just your first day.
Building a culture of learning and belonging
AI personas can act as ongoing learning coaches, share company news and updates, and encourage participation in company culture and events. It’s like having a friendly camp counselor who keeps everyone connected and in the loop.
The future: AI as your digital coworker
Looking ahead, AI personas could become trusted digital colleagues who support every stage of the employee experience, culture ambassadors who help everyone feel included, and creative problem-solvers who adapt to your team’s needs. With Tavus, you’re not just building an onboarding tool—you’re shaping the future of digital teamwork. Start exploring how AI personas can support every stage of your employee journey.
Next steps: Build your AI onboarding assistant today
AI onboarding assistants are transforming how companies welcome and support new hires. With Tavus’s CVI, you can create a personalized, engaging, and truly human experience for every employee—without adding to your workload.
Imagine the welcome you’d want for yourself, then design your persona to fit your company’s style and values. Use Tavus’s tools to bring your digital teammate to life, and integrate your assistant with your workplace systems for maximum impact.
Your next digital teammate is just a persona away—start building your AI onboarding assistant and unlock a new era of onboarding excellence.
Getting started with Tavus
Ready to bring your AI onboarding assistant to life? Here’s how you can get started:
- Create your Tavus account to access the platform.
- Explore the tools for developing your AI onboarding assistant.
- Experiment with Conversational Video Interface (CVI) to personalize your onboarding experience.
- Start building and testing your AI onboarding assistant to see the possibilities in action.
