Kaltura, an Israeli video technology company, has launched a new capability for its Agentic Avatars that allows AI-powered digital characters to interpret a user’s tone, conversational intent, and emotional cues during an interaction, and respond with synchronized facial expressions, vocal changes, and adaptive behavior. The avatars dynamically adjust their behavior throughout a conversation, displaying empathy, concern, enthusiasm, surprise, or skepticism depending on context. The technology is designed for customer support, sales, and training, where avatars can detect frustration, adapt to a buyer’s interest, or provide encouragement. Kaltura is also using the technology in roleplay simulations for employees to practice conversations with AI characters acting as skeptical customers or demanding executives. The underlying technology is based on Kaltura’s proprietary diffusion rendering architecture, which uses predefined emotional reference points and blends between them in real time. Dr. Alan Bekker, CTO at Kaltura, said that by enabling avatars to respond to tone, facial expression, and emotional context in real time, conversational AI can feel significantly more natural. The launch follows Kaltura’s acquisitions of conversational avatar company eSelf.ai and AI-powered content intelligence platform PathFactory.