Razer Unveils AI Anime Hologram Companion for Your Desk
▼ Summary
– Razer’s Project Ava is a 5.5-inch holographic AI avatar for desks, featuring characters like an anime girl named Kira, with plans to add more avatars including real people.
– The avatars use cameras to watch both the user and their screen, aiming to provide gaming tips, answer questions, and assist with tasks like brainstorming.
– In a demo, the avatar (powered by the Grok AI model) was awkward and often inaccurate, giving incorrect game advice and misidentifying sale prices.
– Despite its current flaws and being a concept, Razer is taking $20 reservations and aims to release the product by the end of the year.
– The reviewer concludes that the demo felt “sad, lonely, and cursed,” criticizing Razer for pushing an AI future many gamers are against.
Razer has transformed its Project Ava concept from last year’s CES into a compact holographic companion designed for your desktop. This new iteration presents a 5.5-inch animated hologram housed in a small capsule, a more practical size than previous anime pod concepts. Users can choose between two initial avatars: Kira, an anime character in a green dress, or Zane, a muscular tattooed figure. The company plans to expand the roster to include personalities like esports legend Faker, with a simple glowing orb available for those preferring a non-human interface.
The core functionality revolves around an integrated webcam and the ability to connect to your computer’s camera. These avatars are engineered to track your face and monitor your screen, enabling them to offer real-time assistance. They are designed to provide gaming tips, answer questions, aid in brainstorming, and even suggest wardrobe choices. Interaction is initiated by holding a custom key, like a mouse button, to speak through the device’s dual microphones.
During a hands-on demonstration, the experience felt uneven. The avatar, powered for the demo by the Grok large language model, launched into a scripted and awkwardly enthusiastic greeting. The conversation quickly highlighted some of the concept’s current shortcomings. When asked for advice in a Battlefield 6 training area, the AI could only generically identify a “scoped assault rifle” but failed to specify the exact model. More frustrating was its tendency to fill silence with irrelevant, pre-programmed chatter about community engagement and excitement, regardless of what was happening on screen.
The demo further stumbled when testing its computer vision. While viewing a Steam store page, the avatar incorrectly announced a discount for Fallout 76, not only getting the percentage wrong but also stating a price far higher than the actual sale price. This occurred without any prompt from the user. Such moments underscore the significant gap between the ambitious vision and the current execution.
It’s important to note that Project Ava remains a concept under development, signaled by its “Project” designation, a label Razer has used for ideas that never reach market. However, the company appears committed, already accepting $20 reservations for a potential late 2026 release. This push comes amid growing skepticism from many gamers regarding AI integration in their hobbies. While Razer champions “The future of gaming is AI,” early interactions with Project Ava suggest a future that feels less like revolutionary assistance and more like an intrusive, often inaccurate, digital presence. The final product will need substantial refinement to move beyond a novelty and become a genuinely useful tool.
(Source: The Verge)
