How to Make a Custom Talking Avatar

Creating talking head videos used to be a time-consuming and costly activity. You had to have some notion of how to use professional video recording and editing tools, and it took dozens of takes to get your dialogue perfect.

Now, thanks to powerful AI video creation tools, you can make these informative videos in a matter of seconds using a talking avatar. Some solutions even allow you to clone your own face and voice to create talking avatar videos with a digital twin of yourself.

In this article, we’ll dive deep into the world of talking avatars and explore what they look like, when and where to use them, and how to create your own custom avatar for talking head videos.

But first, let's take a quick step back and look at what talking avatars are.

What is a talking avatar, and how does it work? 

A talking avatar is typically an AI-generated character or digital representation that generates speech from text input. They often display facial movements and hand gestures as well.

A talking avatar may be entirely a computer algorithm generation, or it may use a combination of photo and video to portray a realistic digital representation of a living human being. The best talking avatars tend to be the latter.

AI video generators use this powerful modern technology – including  AI protocols like natural language processing – to interpret and understand text, convert it to speech, and add natural inflections and expressions based on its interpretation.

What does an AI talking avatar look like?

AI talking avatars look just like real people. Well, the good ones do.

Here’s an example of one of Colossyan’s AI avatars, to give you an idea:

An AI avatar can show a full body, an upper body (as in the above screenshot), or just a head and shoulders. The presentation entirely depends on the software solution you’re using and your own preferences.

Your avatar presentation options will depend on the AI video tool you use. For example, Colossyan allows you to create scenario-based videos with avatars in conversation mode. Additional features like gesturing and customizable clothing allow your talking avatars to feel extra humanlike.

Why might you need a custom talking avatar? 

Many platforms offer pre-designed talking avatars you can choose from to help get your projects off the ground quickly. However, even with tools that offer plenty of options (Colossyan has over 150 AI avatars, for example), you may want a talking avatar that is even more personalized. 

If you’re in need of a custom talking avatar that looks a certain way, you may want to create a custom avatar of your own. This can be a great option for those creating corporate videos, as a custom avatar of a recognizable brand representative will allow you to scale your content creation efforts while still ensuring your videos feel personalized. 

There are a few uses cases where this may come in handy:

• Internal announcements from the CEO
• Customized sales messages
• Scalable YouTube video creation

With Colossyan, you have two options for creating a custom avatar. If you have access to a film studio with a green screen, you can create your own professional-quality AI avatar that can be used with any background. If not, our Instant Avatar feature allows you to create a dynamic custom avatar quickly using just seconds of footage.

Additionally, many tools – including Colossyan – support voice cloning, meaning your custom avatars will not only look like the real-life version of the person, but sound like them too. And, even if you clone your voice in English, you’ll still be able to translate it into 29 different languages. 

Where to use AI talking avatars 

The benefits of using AI avatars are far-reaching and extend to a number of different workplace settings. Here’s an overview of some of the top use cases. 

Employee training and onboarding 

Studies show that great employee onboarding programs boost long-term retention by as much as 82%.

The problem? Most onboarding processes are clunky, poorly documented, or non-existent.

Employee training videos using AI avatars are a good solution for this problem since they’re fast and easy to produce. They’re also easy to update when processes or reporting lines change. In other words, you won’t suffer the common problem of out-of-date training materials.

Marketing content 

Video is a powerful format to use as part of a content marketing strategy, and talking avatars enable you to produce these videos at scale.

Here are a few examples where AI avatars are useful in marketing videos:

• Product demo videos
• Scenario videos that discuss customer problems and solutions
• Side-by-side comparisons of your product and a competitor’s 

Sales enablement 

Sales enablement is another great use case for AI talking avatars.

You can use AI to create custom outreach messages for target prospects or support sales with product explainer videos.

Additionally, talking avatar videos are an engaging way to deliver sales training content because they move beyond the written word to provide contextual examples that help your salespeople develop skills.

Check out this sales training created using Colossyan: 

Customer education and support 

AI-powered video content can simplify complex concepts, encourage feature adoption, and boost user satisfaction.

You can use AI avatars to create a variety of customer education content, such as:

• A video-based onboarding sequence that introduces new users to your product
• A series of use case-specific videos to help customers in particular industries get the most out of your product
• Personalized customer support videos for better ticket resolution, especially when communicating with customers in a language that your support team doesn’t speak

Internal communications 

Finally, a talking AI avatar can be an effective way to distribute internal communications to your team.

You can use these communications to announce business updates, develop upskilling and training videos, or distribute messages in multiple languages.

If your talking avatar app allows you to build your own custom avatar, you can create videos for internal distribution that use your own voice and face for a more personal touch.

How to create a talking avatar with Colossyan 

With Colossyan, you don’t have to create video avatars from scratch. We have over 150 high-quality AI-generated avatars ready to help you craft engaging content.

Since we’ve based our avatars on real actors, you can’t customize aspects like facial features, but you can change their voice, language, and accent. Some avatars come in multiple versions, allowing you to use them in different contexts. 

Take our avatars Lisa and Ryan, for example. They both have multiple outfit variations – including more casual and formal options – available so you can use whichever option suits your use case best. 

But if you’d like to create an avatar based on yourself or one of our brand spokespeople, you can use our new instant avatar feature. Here’s how it works:

1. Record a 20-second video clip of yourself 
2. Clone your voice, or select the stock voice you’d like your instant avatar to have  
3. Preview your avatar and add it to your video scenes
4. Generate your final video product

Use your AI talking avatar to make your first video 

Now that you’ve chosen and personalized your AI avatar (or created a custom avatar), it's time to generate your first AI video.

Here are the general steps to follow to put your avatar to use:

1. Pick a template: The best AI video creators come with pre-built templates to help you get off the ground quickly.
2. Write a video script: You can either draft a script from scratch or use an AI script assistant to write one based on prompts. Some tools also offer prompt-to-video and document-to-video workflows to help automate this process as well. 
3. Generate a voice over: Your AI video generator’s text-to-speech function will allow you to generate a realistic voice over without having to touch a mic. 
4. Edit as required: You can review your video and make edits to the script, voice and accent, and AI prompts until you’re happy with the result.
5. Generate: Once you’ve successfully generated your new AI video, it’s time to share it with your audience. 

11 top features to prioritize in an AI talking avatar platform 

To effectively use talking avatars to create compelling training, sales, and marketing videos, you’ll need a quality AI video creation platform.

There are a few great ones out there, but they don’t all provide the same features and functions. Some offer basic functionality and quality, while others are incredibly realistic and offer many helpful features beyond simple video generation.

Here are 11 of the top features we’d recommend prioritizing when searching for an AI talking avatar platform:

1. Multiple avatars, voices, and accents: The most effective platforms provide dozens of different characters to choose from, as well as the ability to customize their voices and accents.
2. Languages and translation features: Instantly translating your video into multiple languages is a huge benefit for creating sales and marketing collateral that targets several regions.
3. Pre-built templates: More is better here. Templates help you avoid starting from scratch each time you want to produce a new video.
4. Support for multiple documents: You should be able to import a PDF or PowerPoint file to use as the background for your video. 
5. AI script assistant: You should look for features that allow you to answer a few simple prompts for a generative AI engine to create a full script.
6. AI prompt-to-video: Some solutions take prompts a step further and allow you to craft the whole video by answering a few questions about what you want it to look and feel like. This can save you a lot of time when creating a video draft from scratch. 
7. Side-view avatars: Most talking avatars are front-on only, but some tools like Colossyan have side-view avatars available, which allows you to create a realistic conversation between characters. This is crucial when creating scenario-based videos. 
8. Screen recording: Being able to record your own screen and overlay it with an avatar is invaluable for creating product demo videos.
9. Collaboration features: You should keep an eye out for platforms that offer shared workspaces, custom permissions, and commenting and tagging features.
10. Custom avatars: The ability to create your own AI avatar is a great way to align with branding.
11. Subtitles: Adding subtitles to your talking avatar videos improves accessibility.

Colossyan: Your source for AI avatars for training and onboarding

Talking avatars are a powerful modern way to create videos at scale. A good talking avatar looks and sounds fairly realistic but doesn’t come with the costs and time investment that traditional video shoots and edits entail.

Colossyan, our AI video generation platform, supercharges workplace learning content creation processes by helping learning leaders boost engagement while ditching the cumbersome old-school video production methods. 

Try it out for yourself today.