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Every facet of AI feels like it's advanced by a decade in the last year, and in the whirlwind of new releases and capabilities, you may have missed something important: interactive video chatbots that can see, hear and converse with you in real time.

Even if you don't know the songs, you'll likely recognize the look. After 50 years in the music business, rock band Kiss has just ended its End of the Road world tour at New York's Madison Square Garden by introducing digital avatar replacements.

Motion capture guru Remington Scott supervised the performances of Gollum, Spider-Man and many other breakthrough digital film and game characters. Now he's creating hyper-realistic "digital twins" – including a fascinating conversational AI project.

China’s state-run news agency has revealed it will deploy new digitally generated newsreaders to report the news. The artificial anchors have been designed to reduce news production costs and increase efficiency, however, the use of the technology brings a new definition to the term "fake news."

​Until recently, if you wanted to create an animated full-body computer avatar of a specific person, the process would take several days to complete. Thanks to a new system, however, it's reportedly now possible to whip one up in just 10 minutes.

A fascinating study led by King's College in London has shown success in rapidly reducing auditory hallucinations in people with schizophrenia using a novel form of avatar therapy which essentially allows a person to talk to a visual representation of the voice in their head.

A new service is promising to end the uncertainty of how clothes will look or fit when shopping on the web. Fitle aims to provide users with a 3D avatar of themselves with which to "try on" clothes online. The company says it will eventually offer the world's largest clothes database via partners.

Have you ever wished you were an alien or a shark? Well, sorry, but you're never going to get to be one. The free Nito app, however, does let you appear as those characters or others, in recorded 15-second videos.

A new service promises to create virtual versions of its users that their loved ones can interact with after they have died. Eterni.me plans to collect as much data as possible about its users on which to base computer-generated avatars.

Scientist are using interactive avatars to help schizophrenics gain control of their auditory hallucinations.

A robotic avatar that connects people in new ways will go on sale later this year.

The software necessary for mind-controlled robot avatars is being developed by an international team of researchers in Japan.