Real-time avatars that change emotions as you talk
Hey HN, we're Ben and Caoimhe, cofounders of Anam. We build interactive avatars and just shipped our latest model, cara-4. This is the first avatar model which can naturally shift emotions and expressions during the conversation; a feature we’re calling “Director Notes”. The way it works is relatively simple: we have an LLM provide cues such as [laughter], [sad], [warm] interleaved with the speech, which we then condition our animation model with. To test it out, we commissioned a blind study from Mabyduck.com with 200 participants, 1,600 rated live interactions across six criteria. Cara-4…
Real-time avatars that change emotions as you talk launched on July 14, 2026 with 12 votes, #1,321 of 24,623 launches that month and more than 90% of that year's launches.
In plain words
Anam has built cara-4, an interactive avatar model that displays changing emotions and expressions during conversations through a feature called "Director Notes." The system uses an LLM to generate emotion cues like [laughter] or [sad] that are interspersed with speech, then conditions an animation model to match these cues. It is designed for applications requiring lifelike avatar interactions. The model achieved top rankings in a blind study across criteria including visual quality, lip-sync accuracy, and perceived naturalness.
written from the facts on this page · September 2026
From the sources
Build real-time interactive AI avatars with Anam
In the maker’s words, at launch
Hey HN, we're Ben and Caoimhe, cofounders of Anam. We build interactive avatars and just shipped our latest model, cara-4. This is the first avatar model which can naturally shift emotions and expressions during the conversation; a feature we’re calling “Director Notes”. The way it works is relatively simple: we have…
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