The Top 10 Best AI Avatar Tools 2024
AI avatars and deepfakes are getting insanely realistic. You can clone your own voice and likeness, swap faces and even change up the emotion and the clothing of the avatar.
AI-generated avatars and text to speech can save tonnes of time when it comes to creating content. But the problem is there are loads and loads of AI avatar tools out there and so it can be really difficult to know which ones offer the best text to speech features and which have the most realistic avatars.
Luckily I've tried out almost every AI avatar tool out there over the last 3 years when creating virtual humans that power my company's soft skills training scenarios that are used by massive customer like Amazon.
With that said let's get right into it with the first AI avatar tool on the list.
1. VEED.io
First on the list is VEED who are kindly sponsoring today's video and they have integrated text to speech, voice cloning and AI avatars into their cloud-based video production suite.
You can choose over 50 AI avatars of various genders, attires, personalities, and voices. VEED also allows you to upload your own image and turn it into a personalized avatar but this feature is at an additional cost.
How It Works
To use avatars on VEED you need to be on a business plan and then you can head over to the media section, select your avatar, enter your text and then select your voice or use VEEDs voice cloning feature to clone your own voice.
This then adds you avatar with voice to your video and allows you to use VEEDs full suite of video editing tools to update the background and every other aspect of the video.
Why Choose Synthesys AI Studio Avatar Generator?
Unlike many of the other text to speech AI avatar tools on this list VEED is primarily a video editing platform and so you have access to a much wider choice of video editing tools like captions, animations and more powerful editing tools including re-sizing and exporting in a much wider range of formats and resolutions.
Pricing Plans
VEED's AI avatars are available on their business plan which is £49 per user, per month or £588 annually
2.D-ID
If you're looking for the most flexible AI avatar generator out there look no further than D-ID. D-ID comes with their creative reality studio that allows you to create a realistic AI avatar in just a few minutes but the real power comes from D-ID's API interface that allows developers to more deeply integrate AI avatar creation into their own apps.
How To Use
In the Reality studio you can choose from an existing selection of photorealistic or illustrated faces or you can upload an image of your own or you can use text-to-image AI to generate any face you can imagine. You can then add text to speech and export.
I really like D-ID as it goes way beyond many of the other tools on this list that simply provide short video clips of your avatar. For example D-ID offers a Chat system that streams your avatar in real time a bit like conversing with a real human which is great if you want to create an agent or chatbot.
And it also offers some really helpful integrations with Canva and even powerpoint.
Price
The cost of D-ID is one of its potential drawbacks. While the features and realism are high quality pricing can scale up pretty quickly. That being said a free plan comes with 5-minutes of video to try out and then paid plans scale up based on uage.
3. Microsoft Azure TTS Avatar
Microsoft has quietly released a preview version of Azure AI Speech text to speech avatar, a new feature available on Microsoft Azure services that enables users to create talking avatar videos with text input, and to build real-time interactive bots trained using human images.
How To Use
Access is via Azure's AI Speech studio available to Microsoft Azure users. Like other tools you can select you avatar but unlike many others Azure allows you to add gestures and even whether the avatar is seated or standing giving you quite a bit more control than the standard close-up of a head and shoulders.
Pricing
Azure text to speech avatar is currently in preview and pricing is based on usage through Microsoft Azure. The good news here is that Azure has lots of free credit packages available for first time users and businesses.
4. Colossyan
Colossyan has a nice library of realistic looking avatars and a clean, minimalist interface. They have focused on the learning niche and while I don't really agree that watching an AI avatar is going to massively boost learning engagement or outcomes Colossyan have rolled out the ability to add two avatars to a scene to simulate watching a conversation.
How To Use
The creation system works a like a slide deck. You add an avatar to a single scene and then one to the next before exporting.
The focus here is less about the learners and more about saving time and effort for people creating the learning materials and to that end they have a large library of templates to help you to get started.
Pricing
Pricing starts at $28/month based on 10-minutes of video per month and then plans scale up with usage and features with more expensive plans offering more minutes, avatars and editors.
5. HeyGen
HeyGen is probably the most comprehensive AI avatar platform on this list and it also comes with a generous free tier so it's a great place to start experimenting.
HeyGen allows you to choose from an instant avatar, an off the shelf avatar which you can edit or a 2D talking-photo from an image. They also have a realtime avatar which you can chat with in realtime using ChatGPT in the pipeline too.
How To Use
To get started you can choose from some of the existing instant avatars some of which have been fine-tuned to sit at desks and in realistic environments giving a nice alternative to the standard head and shoulders AI avatar view. You can then customize the avatar with some pretty nice features including a face swapping tool and an AI outfit tool that allows you to change the color of an avatars clothes. These are very cool and add more control and variation to your avatar.
In addition to the pre-made options you can also upload a video and create your very own instant avatar. Doing so requires at least 2 min of footage shot using a high resolution camera and it's nice you can do this without needing to upgrade or speak to a sales team.
Pricing Plan
HeyGen's biggest selling point is that it's free forever plan comes with 1 instant avatar and access to over 120 Public Avatars and Voices, face swap, AI outift change and talking photo.
Prices then start at £24/month for the creator plan which offers additional features and creation credits.
6. Synthesia
Synthesia was one of the first movers in the AI avatar space and they have some very realistic looking avatars which allow you to add micro gestures to avatars’ facial expressions, meaning that you can make them nod, smirk, smile, and more to boost realism.
Synthesia does have an API for developers but it is currently still in Beta. That being said they have probably fallen behind some other platforms on this list in terms of features.
How To Use
Synthesia has a similar number of stock avatars and languages and uses a slide-based creation system to add avatars to scenes of your video before exporting. The interface is clean and Synthesia really wins if you are looking for the most realistic looking avatars out there and don't need expanded features seen in other tools liek HeyGen.
Pricing Plans
Synthesia offers a free trial plan and then pricing starts at $20/month for 10 minutes per month. With more expensive plans offering more avatars and video minutes.
7. Elai.io
Elai.io is a convincing, authentic avatar creator that enables users to create engaging content using virtual characters. Elai's avatars aren't as realistic as some others seen on this platform with noticeable lip syncing issues but they do have an API allowing you to use their avatar creation tools outside of the platform.
How To Use
Elai works by using templates and selection from one of 80 available avatars. In addition you can also upload an existing powerpoint document to Elai and then make it more engaging with an avatar.
Pricing Plans
Elai.io offers a free trial plan alongside three paid plans starting at $23/month for 15-minutes of AI avatar video.
8. Vidnoz
Vidnoz offers over 300 AI avatars to choose from and a very accessible voice cloning tool that you can access straight away on their free forever plan that offers 3 mins of video per day. Interestingly Vidnoz also offers a video editing-only pricing plan and a face-swapping pricing plan so if you only need a specific part of their platform you have a choice from the point of sign-up.
How To Use
Vidnoz uses templates and avatar selection within a slide-based editor similar to Synthesia. The avatars realism is okay but there are definitely more realistic tools on this list.
Pricing
That being said with the free tier and pricing starting at $15 for 10-minutes of video per month Vidnoz is an accessible place to start if you're looking for something more affordable.
9. DeepBrain
DeepBrain has become a popular choice for users after teaming up with celebrities including Howie Mandel to show off their personalized AI Avatars.
As well as all the AI avatar features you might expect Deepbrain also has an effortless and reliable face-swapping ability.
How To Use
I found DeepBrain's templates a little messy compared to some of the more minimalist backgrounds and slide layouts of tools on this list but that's just my preference. That being said the avatars themselves are way better than the editor and template design and demonstrate a good amount of realism.
Pricing
One big plus for DeepBrain is that you can jump in right now without even signing up and try it out
10. Synthesys
Synthesys nicely splits up it's creation features into AI humans, AI voices and AI images. It's biggest win however comes from it's free tier and then non-usage based pricing plans.
How It Works
While having many of the features of other platforms on this list like avatar and slide selection and templates Synthesys' editor is a little more unique which may or may not be to your liking.
Pricing Plans
The free plan offers two minutes of AI avatars and 2 minutes of voice per month. Paid plans then start at $49/month for unlimited usage and 5 AI voice clones which is very generous and a lot less complicated than usage-based pricing.
Okay now before I wrap up and talk about which tools I think are best for which use cases I wanted to quickly add in two bonus tools to the list.
BONUS 11: Speechify
First up we have Speechify who have added AI avatars to their suite of AI audio tools.
How To Use
Avatars are housed in the Speechify Studio and as you'd expect from a recent new feature launch there aren't quite as many avatars to choose from as more established tools on this list. That being said the voice options are excellent and the interface allows you to swap between a slides view and a speech view to quickly edit text.
Pricing
You can try out the editor for free and then Speechify Studio starts at $24/month.
BONUS 12: Virti
Okay so the second bonus AI avatar tool is actually one of my companies Virti. Virti is an enterprise tool selling to businesses and it uses both AI video as well as CGI created avatars
How To Use
Virti's virtual human creator allows lots of customization and interaction with computer generated avatars and as Virti is focused on scenario based learning and soft-skills training like sales negotiation each of the interactive scenarios is mapped to an objective or learning outcome that needs to be achieved.
Virti works on desktop and mobile as well as in spatial computing headsets like the Apple Vision Pro where you can actually move around and interact with the AI avatar.
Pricing
The bad news is that Virti is only B2B SaaS although you can play with some of the web based scenarios by heading over to try.virti.com.
So in terms of all of the tools on this list what's my overall opinion? Well we're seeing more and more AI avatar and video tools pop-up as most use the same underlying system. They train an AI model using 3D captured video of some actors who have given permission for their likeness to be used and then they use AI lipsync tools to map the input text to the avatar on screen.
If you are interested many of these platforms use variants of opensource tools like DeepfaceLab and Wav2Lip both of which can be installed and explored through Google Collab Notebook.
For me VEED, D-ID and HeyGen are the standouts from all the tools that I tried in this list and beyond.
As VEED is primarily a video player it offers more flexibility and video export options over the other tools who use a slide-based editing system which I found quite limiting for the price.
D-ID wins for me on features and their developer API and HeyGen has a really nice free tier and features not seen in many of the tools like being able to fine tune avatars and easily swap faces and clothes for added variation.
Overall I'd recommend thinking about how you are going to use these tools and their practical use.
FAQ
Is there a free AI avatar generator?
Yes, Synthesys.io offers users a free plan to tend to their needs quickly. This free plan doesn’t require users to sign up for an account on the platform or input any payment method before use. To further enhance the smooth sailing, Synthesys.io ensures users can access the avatar library, over 140 languages and a few more.
Although creating an account to understand how the platform operates isn’t compulsory, it is recommended. Therefore, make a little time to set up your account and enjoy much more than just free trials.
How do you make an avatar?
This is relatively straightforward. You do not need to have any design skills to generate your own avatar on Synthesys.io. To develop your own authentic avatar, you should send Synthesys AI Studio’s team a video of yourself according to their instructions and in a few weeks your custom avatar will be ready. Very easy.
Can AI make me an avatar?
Of course, yes. Synthesys.io is an AI that works magic by generating human-like avatars that can be used for any case
What is the best AI avatar maker?
Far too many users are constantly faced with the question of the best AI avatar maker among the available ones. Synthesys.io is our pick. This avatar creation solution offers so much more than you can ever imagine. Put your trust in Synthesys.io and have the best experience.
How long does the creation of an AI avatar take?
The generation of any on Synthesys.io takes only a few weeks, after which you can download it on your device for immediate or later use.