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Runway Characters

Real-time conversational video agents, made from a single image.

Build expressive characters with custom voices, knowledge and tools — ready for live interaction in the places your customers already are.

Try it nowContact sales

Real-time video agents that drive action

AI Characters for Education and E-Learning

Bring personalized tutors to life. Generate AI tutors and virtual instructors that explain concepts, react to questions and hold extended conversations with natural expressions and gestures that make learning feel like a real dialogue.

Scenario
What's the difference between a simile and a metaphor?
Scenario
What does the mitochondria do?
Scenario
How do I say 'where is the nearest train station' in Spanish?
Scenario
What's the difference between a stock and a bond?

AI-Powered Customer Support Characters

Deploy lifelike AI avatars for customer service that listen, react and guide users through issues with natural expressions and gestures — at any hour, at any scale. Built for e-commerce, SaaS, travel and telecom.

Scenario
What is your return policy?
Scenario
How do I reset my password?
Scenario
Can I request a late checkout?
Scenario
Why is my bill higher than usual this month?

Lifelike Simulations with AI Characters

Build skills in a safe environment with lifelike AI characters that respond naturally and react in real time. Sales coaching, interview prep, management training and employee onboarding at scale.

Scenario
Give me a one-line response to a prospect who says your price is too high
Scenario
What's a strong answer to 'what's your biggest weakness'?
Scenario
What's the right way to open a difficult feedback conversation?
Scenario
What's the first thing you say to an upset customer?

Interactive AI Characters for Gaming and Entertainment

Generate responsive game characters, digital companions and interactive hosts that listen, react and hold real conversations. Bring NPCs and virtual performers to life with generative AI characters.

Scenario
Where do I find the shrine to complete this quest?
Scenario
What's the best formation to use against this opponent?
Scenario
How do I get past the locked door in the second level?
Scenario
What inspired you to write your most recent album?

Performance

Real-time isn't a claim. It's a number.

Characters respond in seconds and stream video at 24fps, so conversations feel live — not generated. Fast enough for back-and-forth coaching, support and other interactive experiences.

Read the technical breakdown
37ms

Effective model time per frame, fast enough to keep Characters moving at 24fps.

1.75s

Server-side turnaround from when you stop speaking to when the character starts responding.

End-to-end turn-around latency chart

One platform. Every character.

Expressive generation across any visual style. Below are 720p clips showing Characters animating a single reference image across styles—from photorealistic humans to cartoons, creatures and brand mascots—with natural, expressive conversation.

Product Features

From model to product ecosystem.

Real-time video is only part of the system. Ground characters in your domain, connect them to apps and deploy them where conversations happen.

Camera & screen sharing

Vision

Characters can see your webcam or shared screen during a session for tutoring, demos, games and design feedback.

Learn more

Text-to-voice & cloning

Custom voice

Design a voice from a prompt or clone instantly from a sample, then assign it for consistent tone across every session.

Learn more
Tool calling

Native action surface

Tool calling

Define the tools a character can use, from UI actions to trusted backend RPCs and let results feed back into the conversation.

Learn more

Grounded responses

Knowledge base

Ground characters by attaching your own docs so they answer with real knowledge of your company, products and policies.

Learn more
Embeddable widget

One line of code

Embeddable widget

Drop a real-time character into any web app with one line of code. The widget handles everything else.

Learn more

Zoom, Meet and Teams

Meeting integration

Bring characters into real meetings so they see and hear the room and respond in real time, from standups to customer calls.

Learn more

For Developers

Integrate real-time avatars into your app.

Add Characters to the stack you already use: connect through LiveKit Agents, build custom interfaces with the React SDK or drop a hosted widget into your site with a single script tag.

Open dev portalRead docs
JavaScriptView docs 
import { AvatarCall } from '@runwayml/avatars-react';
import '@runwayml/avatars-react/styles.css';

export default function App() {
  return (
    <AvatarCall
      avatarId="music-superstar"
      connectUrl="/api/avatar/connect"
    />
  );
}
Get startedReact SDKIntegrate with LiveKitTool calling

Build a character in minutes.

Drop an image. Pick a voice. Talk to it.

Create a characterSee preset characters

1. Drop an image of your character.

Drop an image of your character.

2. Pick a voice, or clone from a sample.

Pick a voice, or clone from a sample.

3. Start chat.

Start chat.

Customer Proof

Powering real work in production.

“The Runway team was great to work with. They helped us iterate on the look, the feel, the response mechanism and the knowledge base quickly. My personal view, when it was done: I was impressed it worked so well in that short space of time.”
Andy Corp, Head of Product at BBC Studios
“Dick’s son came up and asked the avatar, ‘Who’s your favorite family member?’ The model responded immediately: ‘Well, that’s easy. Obviously it’s my brother Dick.’ It was such a genuinely human moment, we all teared up.”
Eli Mavros, Executive Creative Director at R/GA

Frequently asked questions

How does Characters pricing work?
Characters uses Runway API credits. Characters cost 2 credits upfront, then 2 credits per 6 seconds of active session time. Credits are purchased in the Developer Portal. One credit is $0.01 before any applicable taxes. See the pricing docs for more details.
How many characters can I create?
You can create as many Characters as you want. Creating a Character does not start billing by itself; credits are charged when you start a realtime call session with that Character.
Can I use Characters with LiveKit?
Yes. Runway provides a LiveKit Agents integration for fully custom conversational experiences. Your LiveKit agent can handle speech-to-text, the language model and text-to-speech, while Runway provides the visual layer: audio in, avatar video out.
What is the fastest way to add a Character to my site?
Use the embedded widget. It adds a Character with a single script tag, does not require a backend and is configured in the Developer Portal. For custom app experiences with full control over the UI and session lifecycle, use the React SDK instead.
What can I customize?
Characters can be generated from a single image and configured with voice, personality, knowledge and actions. You can use photorealistic or animated styles, human or non-human characters, custom voices, knowledge bases and tools that let a Character trigger UI changes or call trusted backend services.
How real-time is it?
Characters generates expressive video at 24fps in HD, with fast turn-taking designed for live conversation. Learn more in the Building Runway Characters technical breakdown.

Build with Characters

Talk to sales

Tell us what you're building and we'll follow up on pricing and enterprise terms for production deployments.

Contact sales

Read the docs

SDKs, quickstarts and the ecosystem reference for Vision, Tool Calling, Knowledge, Voice, Widget and Meetings.

Open docs

Apply for a grant

Working on something ambitious with Characters? Join the builders program for direct access to the team, early features and credits.

Builders program