Digital avatars have the potential to make routine interactions more personable and impactful, whether in the metaverse or just as a substitute for big blocks of text.  

Deutsche Bank believes that digital avatars are a “natural evolution of the current self-service user experience” and it’s working with Nvidia to create them as part of a larger partnership to spread artificial intelligence throughout the bank.  

While realistic-looking avatars will eventually appear in the metaverse to make digital interactions feel more human, they’re more immediately useful for efficiency and accessibility purposes, like onboarding new employees without making them slog through pages and pages of text.  

DB will start by using its virtual avatar to respond to HR-related questions and help employees navigate internal systems. In this way, the bank “further improves our ability to respond to requests 24/7, enables our employees to find HR answers quicker, and reduces the number of repetitive tasks,” DB chief innovation officer Gil Perez told Insights Distilled. This allows “employees to focus on more value-added activities with increased work environment satisfaction,” he added.  

Digital avatars are much more “intuitive, warm, and personable than text,” and require less time, effort, and cost than producing traditional videos, according to Natalie Monbiot, head of strategy at AI-powered video firm Hour One, an Insight Partners’ portfolio company. They create “more of a two-way experience that users prefer,” she told Insights Distilled, citing an Hour One pilot for HR interviews. 

In addition to digital avatars, Deutsche Bank will also work with Nvidia on improving its risk management and high-performance computing, among other efforts.