IEEE VR 2026 Tutorial

Intelligent Virtual Agents (IVAs), which embody an artificial intelligence (AI) in a humanoid representation, have enormous potential for immersive extended reality (XR) environments to enable natural and engaging human-AI interactions. With the rapid advancements in large language models (LLMs) and visual language model’s (VLMs) capabilities in simulating human-like text responses, interest in anthropomorphic embodied IVAs has grown across extended reality (XR) research and application domains. This tutorial provides a timely opportunity to learn the theories and frameworks needed to start XR research around embodied IVAs. It also offers discussions and networking with attendees who share similar research interests, helping to establish a community for long-term collaboration and exchange.