{
  "id": 9753105,
  "title": "Google's creepy new Gemini Live Avatars want to try and make online support bots feel more human",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/09/25/googles-creepy-new-gemini-live-avatars-want-to-try-and-make-online",
  "topic": "ai",
  "section": "AI",
  "published": "2026-09-25T10:25:00.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "TechRadar",
    "slug": "techradar",
    "url": "https://www.techradar.com/pro/googles-creepy-new-gemini-live-avatars-want-to-try-and-make-online-support-bots-feel-more-human"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "Google's latest Gemini 3.8 Live model introduces customizable avatars designed to enhance the human-like experience for online support bots. These avatars, combined with Gemini's real-time speech capabilities and low-latency video generation, create a visual presence that makes the AI interaction feel more personal. Gemini 3.8 Live can seamlessly switch between 97 languages, streamlining multilingual conversations.\n\nThe avatars, tailored for enterprise users, can be used for customer service, training, and more. Businesses have access to a library of preset avatars, as well as the option to create custom avatars that align with their branding, such as incorporating their logo into the avatar's uniform. To ensure transparency, Google has implemented SynthID watermarking on avatar videos to distinguish them as AI-generated, helping to prevent misinformation and misattribution.\n\nGoogle also announced that Gemini 3.8 Live can understand and seamlessly switch between 97 languages, improving the overall user experience. Additionally, the more advanced version of the model, 3.8 Live Extended Thinking, outperformed other competitors in multiple benchmarks while being more cost-effective to run per hour of input audio.",
  "summary": "Gemini wants its business users to add avatars to customer experiences to make interactions feel more... human?",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 10,
    "also_reported_by": [
      {
        "outlet": "Android Police",
        "title": "Google Docs now pulls your Gemini Notebook research without the tab switching",
        "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/09/24/google-docs-now-pulls-your-gemini-notebook-research-without-the-tab",
        "published": "2026-09-24T11:34:17.000Z"
      },
      {
        "outlet": "9to5Mac",
        "title": "Adobe expands creative tool access to Google Gemini, brings Acrobat to Claude",
        "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/09/24/adobe-expands-creative-tool-access-to-google-gemini-brings-acrobat-to",
        "published": "2026-09-24T13:00:00.000Z"
      },
      {
        "outlet": "XDA Developers",
        "title": "Google’s new experimental Gemini Intelligence feature makes the phone calls you’d rather avoid",
        "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/09/24/googles-new-experimental-gemini-intelligence-feature-makes-the-phone",
        "published": "2026-09-24T16:00:17.000Z"
      },
      {
        "outlet": "Techmeme",
        "title": "Google is testing Call for Me, which lets Gemini call businesses on behalf of users, initially for Pixel 11 users with a Gemini subscription in the US (Sarah Perez/TechCrunch)",
        "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/09/24/google-is-testing-call-for-me-which-lets-gemini-call-businesses-on",
        "published": "2026-09-24T16:10:01.000Z"
      },
      {
        "outlet": "The Verge",
        "title": "Gemini 3.8 Live with Live Avatar gives Google’s AI a face",
        "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/09/24/gemini-3-8-live-with-live-avatar-gives-googles-ai-a-face",
        "published": "2026-09-24T19:59:26.000Z"
      },
      {
        "outlet": "Android Authority",
        "title": "Google’s new Gemini Live Avatars want to make support bots feel more human",
        "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/09/24/googles-new-gemini-live-avatars-want-to-make-support-bots-feel-more",
        "published": "2026-09-24T21:03:59.000Z"
      },
      {
        "outlet": "The Register Science",
        "title": "Google Gemini can present cartoon or lifelike avatars to lip-sync generative chatter",
        "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/09/24/google-gemini-can-present-cartoon-or-lifelike-avatars-to-lip-sync",
        "published": "2026-09-24T23:57:01.000Z"
      },
      {
        "outlet": "The Indian Express",
        "title": "Google’s Gemini AI assistant can now call businesses for you: Here’s how it works",
        "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/09/25/googles-gemini-ai-assistant-can-now-call-businesses-for-you-heres-how",
        "published": "2026-09-25T03:46:21.000Z"
      },
      {
        "outlet": "Haaretz",
        "title": "Netanyahu's media adviser used Claude to vibe code a monitoring tool for PM, wife - exposing media priorities and risky data",
        "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/09/25/netanyahus-media-adviser-used-claude-to-vibe-code-a-monitoring-tool",
        "published": "2026-09-25T07:10:13.000Z"
      }
    ]
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}