Zoom’s new virtual avatars let you become a dog or a bunny

Zoom will let you show up to your next meeting as a rabbit, fox, dog, or another type of animal, using its new Avatars feature that replaces you with a virtual character that copies your expressions, Memoji-style, tell us The Verge . Zoom says this feature, which is included in the Zoom 5.10 update, will only let you become an animal at launch, but that new avatar options will be added in the future.

Zoom sees this feature as useful for a lot of different scenarios — in its press release, it mentions showing up with an avatar filter on could “bring some fun to your team-building meetings” or help pediatricians seem less intimidating to young children. There’s also the idea that it could help alleviate Zoom fatigue. At least one study has indicated that constantly looking at yourself to make sure you’re presentable and reacting appropriately is part of what makes being in video calls all day so tiring. If your Zoom box is showing a giraffe that’s mirroring your facial expressions, that’s a lot harder to scrutinize than your actual face.

To turn on Avatars, Zoom instructs users to click the ^ button next to the Start / Stop Video button, then click Choose Video Filter. Then, pick the animal you want to show up as from the Avatars tab — apparently, you can even decide whether your avatar will be wearing a hoodie or T-shirt (it’d just be immersion-breaking if you showed up as a fox not appropriately dressed for the weather). You can also optionally choose to always apply the filter whenever you enter a meeting — if you want.

The video conferencing app already has a variety of Snapchat-like filters and effects that you can use to change your appearance — you could already add bunny ears or a mustache to your face or use Snap’s camera app to give yourself a cartoonish appearance. Avatars take it one step further by completely replacing you. Zoom does say that it won’t “store any data regarding your face or facial features” if you use Avatars.