How Remote-Controlled Avatars Are Accepted in Hybrid Workplace

Abstract

Due to Covid-19 outbreak, more people in workforce started working from home. Especially, hybrid work style is widely accepted at workplace as more flexible and inclusive way. However, a challenge of the satellite side of hybrid meeting has also gradually recognized, namely being easily ignored by co-located participants. Regarding the issues that hinder the participation and collaboration of hybrid participants, only a limited study has been made with no clear solutions. Hypnotizing physical embodiment in hybrid work as one of the potential solutions for avoiding satellite participants being neglected in remote work environment, this work has implemented remote-controlled avatars as physical embodiment of a remote participant and investigated its impact on communication and collaboration in hybrid meetings. Our preliminary analysis of the field experiments indicated that the Avatar with physical embodiment increased satellite participant’s social presence, and interestingly, the subjective satisfaction level of the satellite participant was significantly higher than the remote participation with typical meeting tools, such as Zoom. In this paper, two observed effects of avatars with physical embodiment on participating at remote work are discussed; firstly, acceptance of satellite participants through embodiment and, second, social presence and potential collaboration between AI and Human. Since the hybrid work is expected to increase further in our society, there are a lot of potentials for improvements to design better remote work environment through avatar as physical embodiment.