AI Avatars in Virtual Worlds
Working Group
Advancing interoperable, trustworthy AI avatars through shared architectures, standards contributions and sovereign deployment frameworks.
For VWA members who want to contribute.
About the group
The group explores autonomous and conversational AI avatars that adapt to context in virtual environments. Bringing together generative AI and real-time rendering expertise, it supports industrial metaverse applications, training, customer engagement and public services. Its work combines standardisation, precompetitive research and development, and sovereign deployment in settings where explainability, data minimisation and jurisdictional compliance are essential. Shared frameworks aim to reduce fragmentation and vendor lock-in while strengthening trust and portability across platforms.
AI avatars sit at the convergence of generative AI and virtual worlds. The group connects technical architectures and cross-platform deployment with European sovereignty, public-interest applications and regulated sectors. It supports shared terminology, interoperability and behavioural standards through relevant ISO, IEEE and CEN/CENELEC processes.
What we're working towards
- Develop shared definitions, taxonomies and reference architectures for interoperable AI avatars.
- Contribute to standards for avatar behaviour, identity, transparency and human–AI interaction.
- Develop frameworks for sovereign deployment in regulated industry, public administration and research, with explainability and compliance.
- Advance precompetitive research into cross-environment portability and real-time AI inference at scale.
Leadership
Chair
Steffen Braun
Fraunhofer IAO
Co-Chair
Board liaison
Alain Pagani
DFKI
Member organisations
Expected outputs
- White papers and technical reports on inference architectures, avatar identity and persistence, and affect-aware interactions.
- An interoperability and reference architecture specification covering perception, language, animation and persona management.
- Formal standardisation contributions to ISO, IEEE and CEN/CENELEC.
- A sovereign use-case compendium spanning public administration, healthcare, education and regulated industry.
- Policy recommendations for EU and national policymakers.
- Periodic market and technology landscape analyses.
Results & publications
Outputs and publications will be added here as the Working Group progresses.