Meta (Facebook) has announced that people can now present themselves as their Meta Avatar in video calls on Instagram and Messenger. According to the company, this feature will come in handy when you are “not quite camera-ready”, giving you a “third option between camera-off and camera-on to let you feel a little more present on the call”. The new feature is available with the latest version of Messenger and Instagram on Android (and iOS).
Meta Avatars in video calls on Messenger and Instagram will also render a person’s facial expressions and mouth movements, which gives these graphical representations a more personal touch. Plus, you can change your avatar in a video call to a number of characters, including animals such as a cat, dog, or llama. Meta also said, “We’re standardizing the look of our avatars across all our platforms, so the way you show up in VR will match how you show up on Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp.”
Along with it, Meta is releasing animated avatar stickers. These animated stickers are a representation of your Meta Avatar. For example, you can create a sticker of your Meta Avatar waiving hello and post it in the comments section of a post. According to Meta, you can use animated avatar stickers on “Instagram and Facebook Stories and Reels, Facebook comments, and 1:1 message threads on Messenger and Instagram.”
Meta, which owns Facebook, Facebook Messenger, Instagram, Threads, and WhatsApp, has been standardizing a lot of features across its various platforms, including account syncing, cross-platform sharing, privacy and security, stickers, and now, avatars.
