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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."

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.

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

The Motus system allows users to enter any digital 3D environment, and look around in it as if they were using a camcorder.

Hammacher Schlemmer is selling a $65,000 robot that acts as an avatar for its user.

It smashed Box Office records worldwide to become the highest grossing film in history, now James Cameron's Avatar is setting new benchmarks in the Blu-ray market.

Surrogate robots - like those in the movie starring Bruce Willis - might be closer than you think. Two experts give their opinions on what we can expect in the future.