Join a meeting as an avatar in Microsoft Teams

Notes:

If you don't have access to the Avatars for Microsoft Teams app, contact your IT admin or see Set up avatars for Microsoft Teams.
Avatars for Teams are currently available on the Teams desktop app for Windows and Mac, and are view-only on the Teams mobile app. For more information, see Avatars for Teams release notes.

Avatars for Microsoft Teams adds a new layer of choice to your meetings. By customizing your avatars the way you want to look, you can be yourself and let people get to know you in a conversation, even with your video turned off.

Jump to a section:

Install the Avatars app
Create a new avatar
Create avatar from photo
Join your meetings as an avatar
Use TTS with the Avatars app
Troubleshooting

Install the Avatars app

On the left side of Teams, select Apps .
Search and select Avatars.
Select Add.

If you don't find Avatars in Apps, select More added apps Microsoft Teams more options icon on the leftmost side of Teams and search there instead.

Tip: To pin Avatars for easy access, right-click the app and select Pin.

Create a new avatar

For each of your Teams accounts, you can create up to three distinct avatars. A wide selection of base avatars is available to help you get started and choose the representation that best fits you.

Your browser does not support video. Install Microsoft Silverlight, Adobe Flash Player, or Internet Explorer 9.

Select Apps .
Search and select Avatars.
Select + > Create new to start from scratch with creating an avatar.
Choose a base avatar to get started creating and select Use Avatar to customize it.
To copy one of your existing avatars and use that to customize further, first select the avatar you would like to duplicate, then select + > Duplicate.

Create an avatar from a photo

Note: Creating an avatar from a photo is currently in private preview and not available in public preview or general availability.

When you use a photo of yourself to create an avatar, an avatar will be recommended to you based on what most closely resembles your facial appearance in the photo you submit.

To make the avatar recommendations, the Avatars app analyzes your submitted photo by detecting points on your face, such as eyes, nose, mouth, and overall face shape and matches it to options available in the avatar builder. It also uses machine learning to predict the most likely style and color of hair, facial hair, brow and eyewear.

You can continue customizing your avatar before finalizing your avatar.

Biometric use information

Your photo is not retained or used for any other purpose. The create avatars from photo feature doesn't make any other predictions outside of your facial features.

Join your meetings as an avatar

To join a meeting as an avatar:

Join a meeting from your Teams calendar.
Turn off your camera and select Effects and avatars .
Choose your avatar or select Create More to create a new avatar.

Once you’re in a Teams meeting, you can join an immersive space.

Turn on your avatar while in a Teams meeting

Select the dropdown arrow next to Camera.
Select Avatars.
Under Avatars, you'll have up to three different avatars to choose from. If you haven't yet customized an avatar, select + to start creating or customizing your avatars. Once you've selected an avatar to represent you in the meeting, select Turn on avatars.

Use TTS with the Avatars app

Activate the in-app text to speech (TTS) system in the current version of the Avatar customizer. With operating screen readers such as Windows Narrator, you'll be prompted to turn on the TTS system as you enter the application. When you open the Avatar customizer app, focus inside of it. When loading is complete, the system will announce "Press Ctrl + b to activate the TTS system", and at this point TTS will be enabled. The TTS system behaves similarly to screen readers.

To ensure that the self-voice TTS system reads out in the correct language, download the appropriate language package in your operating system:

Mac: Change the language your Mac uses

Windows: Language packs for Windows

For the TTS to read in the proper language in Windows, the text-to-speech support must be downloaded for the language pack of choice. You can see the downloaded language features under the language name.

Troubleshooting

To use avatars for Teams, the minimum hardware spec requires a two-core processor with 6GB of RAM. For the best experience, we recommend a hardware spec of a four-core processor and 8GB of RAM. To learn more, see Hardware requirements for Microsoft Teams.

Common low-bandwidth issues

You may experience the following when using avatars with low bandwidth:

Loading your avatar can take up to 10 seconds or more.
Avatar wardrobe items might not be saved to your avatar after being selected. If this occurs, try saving again.
Selected backgrounds might not be applied to the Avatar preview. If this occurs, try selecting a background again.
Avatar video stream might flicker green when the Teams video resolution changes.

Frequently asked questions

Can guests in a meeting use Avatars?

Yes, any user who has Avatars enabled can use an avatar in the meeting. If they don't, they won't be able to use an avatar even if other people in the meeting can.

Can you use Avatars outside of your tenant?

Yes, if you join a Teams meeting as guest in a different tenant, you can use your avatars as long as you have Avatars enabled in your tenant.

Why don't my avatars have legs?

Avatars add a new layer of choice to your meetings, both in 2D and 3D immersive spaces. We are continuously researching and collecting feedback on ways to best represent yourself in Mesh and Teams whether it's improving your likeness, adding options for clothing, creating more realistic avatars, or including full body representation. Driving improvements in each of these areas comes with its own set of challenges. In particular, representing legs today is a surprisingly complex engineering challenge - inferring leg position without any data that helps describe actual leg position.

Our goal is to use the latest technologies to their fullest to represent users likenesses in Mesh and Teams and we will continue to drive toward that goal. Please continue to share your feedback with us so we can evolve how people can visually represent themselves in meetings.