Looks like they are focusing on animated avatars. I expect the realtime photorealistic video to be the main bottleneck, so I agree that removing that requirement will probably speed things up.
Yes, they’re going with a cute Pixar-like style (I gather they hired an ex-Pixar animator). Anime would likely also work for something like this. Both of those might reduce the psychological impact a little by adding an air of unreality, though I suspect a sufficiently interactive conversation would still have a good deal of impact.
Looks like they are focusing on animated avatars. I expect the realtime photorealistic video to be the main bottleneck, so I agree that removing that requirement will probably speed things up.
Yes, they’re going with a cute Pixar-like style (I gather they hired an ex-Pixar animator). Anime would likely also work for something like this. Both of those might reduce the psychological impact a little by adding an air of unreality, though I suspect a sufficiently interactive conversation would still have a good deal of impact.