Welcome to
Virtual Friend

Virtual Friend pursues the mission to help lonely people reduce their social anxiety by letting them talk to an AI-generated virtual being that listens to them like a good friend.

The woman you see on the right side was does not exist - she was created by deep learning technology. We made this woman talk and listen like a real person, or even like a real friend.

We tested this virtual being in a research project in which participants felt it was unexpectedly empathetic and approachable. On these grounds, we founded a non-profit organization in California that aims to help reduce social anxiety in people.

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Research on Virtual Beings

Natural Conversations with a Virtual Companion

This research investigates the effect of natural conversations with virtual beings on user perceptions with a current conversational AI model (Facebook Meta’s BlenderBot). To this aim, we designed a virtual being from a deep learning-generated face and a conversational AI model acting as a virtual conversation partner in an online conferencing software (Zoom) and evaluated it in 11 perceptions of social attributes

More (coming soon)

Natural Conversations with a Virtual Companion

First Impressions of Virtual Character Faces Depending on the Viewing Angle

This research project investigates the role of the horizontal viewing angle on first impressions of virtual character faces.

More (coming soon)

Attractiveness, Competence and Likeability of Virtual Character Faces

How Face Age Influences the Trait Inference of Virtual Characters' Attractiveness, Competence and Likeability.

More (coming soon)

Attractiveness, Competence and Likeability of Virtual Character Faces

Testimonials

The metaverse is a emerging ecosystem with complete new capabilities. The virtual being is a new way to interact within this space & with machines and opens completely new opportunities of customer experiences.

Lajos Lange

CTO

At a time when loneliness is on the rise Virtual Friend is a much-needed initiative. By combining recent progress in AI and psychology they are doing something that will benefit many lives.

Lars Sjoesund

AI Engineer

I clearly saw a huge potential for a Virtual Friend to improve the life quality of elderlies who are increasingly facing anxiety and loneliness. I thus believe that this organization can help a lot of people suffering.

Rudy Mahlo

CEO, Claims Conference

News

2023-06-02 Conversational AI Conversations Over Fish Tacos 6:30PM

Join us for untethered conversations on conversational AI. Cut the chit-chat, let's chat about conversational AI in only 1h! We cut down the time because we're at Lupita's Tacos which is outside. We’re really hoping to gather anybody with real experience with conversational AI, and share it. After this hour, we will head over to Wurstkueche to digest our input with a good German beer - or two. Register to this event to get the exact location by subscribing to the newsletter below, and ask any question.

Welcome to
Virtual Friend

Demo

Research on Virtual Beings

Natural Conversations with a Virtual Companion

First Impressions of Virtual Character Faces Depending on the Viewing Angle

Attractiveness, Competence and Likeability of Virtual Character Faces