Meta previews hologram avatars for Meta VR Glasses and Ray-Ban Display that feel more natural than Apple's persona avatars, available in early access this fall

Hologram avatars can now appear on Meta's VR glasses and Ray-Ban Display, improving virtual presence in calls this fall.

Meta is releasing holographic avatars for its new VR glasses and Ray-Ban Display frames, with early access beginning this fall. The avatars are powered by Meta's Muse Realtime Avatar model and aim to provide a more natural and realistic representation than previous iterations. For the Ray-Ban Display, users create avatars via the Meta AI app, a process involving capturing facial angles and voice characteristics through a series of prompts, taking approximately five minutes. These avatars can be used in video calls on platforms like WhatsApp and Zoom. For Meta VR glasses, the avatars utilize more advanced sensors to capture facial expressions in real-time, creating full-body representations. Initial previews suggest these avatars are a significant improvement, feeling more lifelike than Apple's persona avatars, though some limitations like frontal-only views and occasional distortion are present. Meta plans to add a transparent watermark to all avatar video calls.

Meta's push for more realistic holographic avatars signals a competitive response to Apple's Vision Pro personas, aiming to capture the emerging market for immersive digital interactions. By focusing on real-time expression capture and a more naturalistic rendering, Meta intends to differentiate its hardware ecosystem and encourage adoption of its social VR and AR platforms.

The early access rollout across two distinct hardware form factors, VR glasses and smart glasses, suggests Meta's strategy to integrate these advanced avatars across its product lines. This move is critical for building out the foundational elements of the metaverse, enabling more engaging and authentic communication for remote work, social calls, and future metaverse applications.