— Six Months After Launch, Tavusโ Phoenix-3, Raven-0, and Hummingbird-0 Are Redefining the Future of Human-AI Interaction
Earlier this year, Tavus quietly rolled out a suite of research models that would go on to reshape how the industry thinks about AI avatars and perception: Phoenix-3, a frontier rendering model; Raven-0, the first contextual perception system; and Hummingbird-0, a zero-shot lip-sync engine.
Now these models are powering a new generation of applications for Fortune 500 companies and startups alike where AI doesnโt just look real, but feels real. From conversational video interfaces to multilingual dubbing pipelines, Tavusโ technology has kicked off a revolution for how humans interact with AI systems.
The Research Team
Behind these advances is a tightly coordinated team of researchers at Tavus: Damian Willary, Eloi du Bois, Karthik Ragunath Ananda Kumar, Minh Anh Nguyen, Mustafa Isik, Jack Saunders, Roey Paz-Priel, Mert Gerdan, Chenglai Zhong, Haiyao Xiao, and Ari Korin.
- Damian Willary has served as the overall research lead for Tavusโ rendering models, steering the Phoenix series to its current state-of-the-art performance.
- Eloi du Bois, who joined from Roblox, spearheaded diffusion modeling research that became central to Phoenix-3 and Hummingbird-0.
- Karthik Ragunath Ananda Kumar has been a driving force across Phoenix-1, Phoenix-2, Phoenix-3, and Hummingbird-0 models, pioneering research in model architecture and implementation in NeRF, Gaussian Splatting, and Diffusion/Flow-Matching models.
- Minh Anh Nguyแป n led the research that pushed Hummingbird-0 into zero-shot, production-ready territory.
- Chenglai Zhong and Haiyao Xiao brought deep expertise to rendering fidelity and systems architecture, ensuring scale and robustness.
- Mustafa Isik and Jack Saunders played a crucial role in introducing novel innovations in Phoenix-3โs rendering architecture, helping push the modelโs realism and expressiveness to new levels.
- Roey Paz-Priel and Mert Gerdan shaped the architecture of Raven-0, making contextual perception a practical reality.
- Ari Korin focused on multimodal integration and systems engineering, helping bridge perception, rendering, and conversational AI.
This teamโs mix of backgroundsโfrom rendering pipelines to perception systems to multimodal AIโwas the catalyst that made the March release possible.
Phoenix-3: Solving the Uncanny Valley
For years, AI avatars struggled with the โuncanny valleyโ in rendered faces that moved, but didnโt emote. Phoenix-3 changed that. Using a Gaussian diffusion backbone, it renders full-face animation in real time, capturing blinks, micro-expressions, and emotional nuance. The result is something that feels less like a simulation and more like a person on the other side of the screen.
Raven-0: From Vision to Perception
Most machine vision systems see the world as pixels and categories. Raven-0 treats it like context. Itโs the first AI perception system that interprets intent, emotion, and subtle cues in real timeโan approach thatโs already proving valuable in healthcare, education, and customer engagement.
Hummingbird-0: Lip Sync That Just Works
Born out of Phoenix-3โs development, Hummingbird-0 quickly took on a life of its own. The state-of-the-art model can align audio and video with zero training or fine-tuning, while preserving both identity and realism. For creators, studios, and enterprises, that means faster dubbing, seamless localization, and entirely new workflows for video production.
Six Months of Impact
Since launch, developers have built on top of Tavusโ APIs to create:
- Face-to-face conversational video AI that actually listens, responds, and emote in real time.
- Multilingual dubbing pipelines where Hummingbird-0 handles professional lip sync jobs without post-processing.
- Context-aware agents that use Raven-0 to perceive and adapt to subtle and explicitl visual signals in their environment.
Benchmarks have confirmed what early adopters are seeing in practice: Hummingbird-0 sets a new bar in lip-sync accuracy, visual quality, and identity preservation, while Phoenix-3 has brought real-time rendering to a fidelity level once thought impossible.
A Turning Point for AI Video
โThe release of Phoenix-3, Raven-0, and Hummingbird-0 wasnโt just about making avatars look realโit was about making them feel present. Itโs a turning point in how AI connects with people, and itโs only the start.โ โ statement from the Tavus Research Team.
Contact Info:
Name: Alex Behrens
Email: Send Email
Organization: Tavus
Website: https://www.tavus.io/
Release ID: 89170287
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