Here's how to turn yourself into an amusing animal avatar on Zoom to make your friends laugh during a video call.

Video conferences can get boring. Whether you're hanging out with friends on a quiz night, studying with fellow students remotely, or sitting through another work meeting, you might get tired of seeing your face on a Zoom call.

To help spice things up, Zoom offers an avatar feature. This turns your face into a fun 3D cartoon animal, which mirrors your head movements and facial expressions.

Zoom avatars mean you can be visually represented in a meeting without showing your real face, and it's a good way to have a laugh with others on the call.

We're going to explain how Zoom avatars work and how you can enable the feature.

Avatars are a feature that Zoom introduced in April 2022. It lets you turn into a 3D cartoon figure in a video call, with your movement and expressions mimicked. You don't need any fancy technology or additional downloads.

With avatars enabled, Zoom uses your camera to detect where your face is on the screen and turns this into the cartoon figure. It means you can be represented in the call, but as a cute animal rather than yourself!

At the time of writing, you can choose from eleven different animals like a cat, fox, polar bear, panda, and raccoon. Each comes in a shirt and hoodie variant.

According to Zoom, this feature doesn't use facial recognition, so it doesn't identify who you are. While it can detect what a face is, it doesn't distinguish between individual faces. This also means the images aren't sent to or stored by Zoom. As such, using an avatar is a nice compromise if you are security conscious and don't wish to appear on camera.

You can use avatars on Windows, macOS, and iOS. For full system requirements, such as supported processors, refer to Zoom Support.

The ability to use avatars should be enabled by default, though this might not be the case if your Zoom account is part of an enterprise or educational team.

To check your avatar abilities, go to the Zoom settings page on the web. Navigate to the In Meeting (Advanced) category and go to the Avatars section. You should toggle this on. If you can't, and you want to use the feature, you'll need to talk to your account administrator.

With that done, ensure you are using the latest version of Zoom. Avatars are available on Zoom 5.10.0 or higher. To update Zoom on desktop, click your profile picture in the top-right and select Check for Updates.

It's easy to start using avatars on Zoom. Once you're in a meeting:

To disable your avatar, click the up arrow next to Stop Video and click Turn Off Avatar.

You can use your avatar in conjunction with virtual backgrounds to create the ultimate fantasy scene. However, you can't use video filters with an avatar.

Using avatars on Zoom is an easy way to keep a video call entertaining. It's hard not to laugh when your friends are represented by an assortment of colorful animals.

Whether you use Zoom to host a watch party, sing karaoke, or play some trivia, there are plenty of ways to have fun on Zoom.

Joe is a Deputy Editor at MUO. He has a BA (Hons) in Business and over a decade of professional writing and editing experience.

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