How To Create Your Digital Avatar For The Metaverse

HOW TO CREATE YOUR DIGITAL
AVATAR FOR THE METAVERSE

© 2021 Bernard Marr, Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
Digital avatars are our personal representatives in the virtual world and the
emerging domain of the metaverse. Here are some ways to get started
creating your own, as well as a look at where they might take us in the future.
HOW TO CREATE YOUR DIGITAL AVATAR FOR
THE METAVERSE

If you’ve ever seen my TikTok channel, you will have come across Bernard Marr 2.0.
He looks and sounds a lot like me, but he is, in fact, my digital twin – an avatar
powered by AI and machine learning.
Avatars are our digital representatives in the virtual world. The characters we control
in video games can be thought of as avatars, and increasingly we will adopt avatars
to represent us as we shop, socialize, learn and work in the connected online
environments that we are calling the metaverse.
Bernard 2.0 has my face and voice because he was built by Synthesia from images
and recordings and stitched together using machine learning. He presents videos
for me – not necessarily because I couldn't present them myself, but because it's a
cool thing to do, and the technology is a lot of fun.

And one day, in the future, as AI becomes more and more capable, he might do a whole lot
more. He could give talks, teach classes, conduct meetings and seminars on my behalf – and
possibly even write my books!
In fact, it’s possible that one day, everyone might have their own digital avatar that they can
send off into the digital domain to do whatever they need to get done. Even today, we are
seeing them used in a growing number of ways, such as:
A number of companies use digital avatars to carry out customer service – they can either
be directly controlled by one person, for one-to-one interaction, or they could be powered
by chatbots, enabling them to handle many customer inquiries simultaneously.

They can also add a human touch to synthetic video – appearing in content such as
corporate training videos and how-to guides in place of more expensive and unpredictable
human actors.
Digital avatars have also been used in healthcare and therapeutic settings – such as to teach
social and interaction skills to children with autism.
They are also becoming widely used in media and entertainment. Businessman Alan Sugar
appeared as an avatar to set the contestants' tasks in the most recent UK series of The
Apprentice, and Game of Thrones star Maisie Williams appeared as an avatar to promote
her role as a global ambassador for sustainability for H&M.

There are a number of tools and services that anyone can use right now if they want to get
started with creating their own digital avatar.
Traditionally, digital avatars can be as simple as a 2D image used to identify us on social
media or in an online chatroom.
The next step in their evolution came with the arrival of 3D online environments such as
Second Life (in many ways an early prototype metaverse) and later platforms such as Meta
Horizon Worlds.
These days, however, they can also be super-realistic looking – like my own, which was
built from video images and is almost indistinguishable from the real thing.
HOW TO CREATE YOUR OWN AVATAR TODAY

Each has its advantages. More realistic avatars might create more immersive experiences for
viewers or anyone interacting with them. Simpler ones are far quicker and cheaper to create
and can also be more flexible. For example, you can quickly change their clothes,
accessories, or hairstyles to suit different purposes or environments!
A number of providers offer the service. Synthesia allows you to create very realistic, high-
end avatars for use in synthetic video content.
Ready Player Me is a service for creating full-body, 3D avatars that can then be exported
into a range of different metaverse environments, including VRChat and Somnium Space.

Bitmoji is a tool that has been around for a while and lets anyone create cartoon
avatars. Using a software development toolkit, they can then be imported into a
large number of games and apps, allowing users to take their personality with
them as they move between virtual worlds.
You can even use a service like Tafi that lets you dress up and decorate your
personalized avatar with branded items from global names, including DC Comics,
Coca Cola, and Champion. Accessories are sold as NFTs, allowing you to show off
the fact that your digital twin is wearing something authentic and unique!

WHAT’S NEXT?
As the technology used to create avatars improves, we can expect them to start taking on
a life of their own both inside of, as well as outside, the virtual world.
One of the most interesting aspects of the metaverse concept is the ability to blend the
virtual and the real. Soon we won’t just be limited to creating avatars that look and sound
like us – we can expect them to become an extension of our personality that we can use
them to express ourselves in any way we want. It’s not inconceivable that my avatar will
one day appear as a hologram to give a presentation or teach a class in the real world.
Looking further ahead, the words that it speaks might not even be anything I have ever
said myself – using AI, it could formulate speeches and lessons all by itself! One way to
imagine this is to think of avatars evolving from being puppets under our direct control,
into autonomous beings capable of acting in ways that, though informed by us, are all
their own.

Early steps in this direction can already be seen in projects such as the partnership
between GeeneeAR and Ready Player Me, which lets anyone overlay computer-
generated avatar images over footage of themselves in real-life.
This blending of the real and virtual is where much of the creative value at the heart
of metaverse and web3 lies. We know that even if it’s possible, people don’t always
necessarily want to spend all of their time in virtual worlds. With avatars, we don’t
have to – they can be our representatives in those worlds, leveraging the
convenience, flexibility, and instantaneousness of the digital domain for the benefit
of our real-world selves.

It's also interesting to consider that this "me 2.0" is, unlike the real me, to all intents and
purposes, immortal – meaning it can go on learning, interacting, and teaching long after
the real me has shuffled off this mortal coil. The ethical and philosophical implications of
this are already under discussion.
As the real world and the virtual world grow ever closer, it’s likely that avatars will play an
increasingly important part in our lives. Through them, we will be able to spend more
time with friends and loved ones, even when we are physically many miles apart.
Geography will cease to be a barrier to what we can learn and experience. Virtual reality
and augmented reality will make these experiences seem more real and immersive than
ever before. It’s certainly a future I’m looking forward to seeing!

To stay on top of the latest on the web3 and wider business and tech trends,
make sure to subscribe to my newsletter and have a look at my new
book Business Trends in Practice.
You can also follow me on Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube. And don’t forget to
check out my website.

© 2021 Bernard Marr , Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
Bernard Marr is an internationally best-selling author, popular keynote speaker,
futurist, and a strategic business & technology advisor to governments and
companies. He helps organisations improve their business performance, use data
more intelligently, and understand the implications of new technologies such as
artificial intelligence, big data, blockchains, and the Internet of Things.
LinkedIn has ranked Bernard as one of the world’s top 5 business influencers. He is
a frequent contributor to the World Economic Forum and writes a regular column for
Forbes. Every day Bernard actively engages his 1.5 million social media followers
and shares content that reaches millions of readers.

hello@bernardmarr.com
www.bernardmarr.com

How To Create Your Digital Avatar For The Metaverse

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