What is a hyperrealistic avatar and what is it used for?: Torremolinos will have one

The Torremolinos City Council has initiated a contract for the design, creation, and customization of a hyper-realistic avatar powered by artificial intelligence.

In the documentation of this tender file, with a budget of around 100,000 euros before taxes, it is expressly stated that companies bidding for the contract must demonstrate that the product they offer has been successfully implemented. For this, verification is requested in at least three previous projects developed for a public organization or private company, "in order to assess the quality of understanding, training, and responses provided that is intended to be achieved".

The AI will need to be trained to be aware of issues such as ways to get to Torremolinos, aspects like air and water quality, or the location of ATMs and emergency services

Indeed, what the City Council wants to incorporate into its tourist flow management plans is a virtual assistant, with a human appearance, capable of providing useful information to residents and visitors in multiple languages. For this, the AI will need to be trained to be aware of issues such as location, characteristics, data, topography, neighborhoods and areas, transportation, parking, ways to get to Torremolinos, knowledge of surrounding municipalities; aspects such as air and water quality, beaches and their services; festivals; routes and activities; dining venues, indicative prices; accommodations or essential issues like hospitals or health centers; banks and ATMs, and details of the local administration itself.

To answer all these types of questions, the avatar will need to communicate with the user naturally, with gestures and movements according to the conversation and in various languages

To answer all these types of questions, the avatar will need to communicate with the user naturally, with gestures and movements according to the conversation.

A benchmark of this type of technology is Victoria 'La Malagueña', an avatar that, at the Malaga Film Festival of 2025, was one of the highlights of the program, due to its ability to address any question related to the event and that was developed by the Higher Technical School of Computer Engineering of the UMA.

WhatsApp

This new tool joins others promoted by the City Council for 24-hour attention to residents and visitors through WhatsApp. It will do so, as announced, in various languages and quickly and easily from a mobile phone, in addition to being integrated into the municipal website, through a chat, so that users can make inquiries directly from the page.

Its role will be to clarify doubts about services, mobility, official communications, cultural agenda, and events of the municipality, always with official sources and up-to-date information.

Both this project and the implementation of a "citizen digital identity", which will allow secure and personalized access to various municipal services for registered citizens as well as residents, visitors, and tourists, are included in the Sustainable Tourism Plan in Destination "Torremolinos, Smart Paradise", within the framework of the Recovery, Transformation, and Resilience Plan (PRTR), funded by the European Union through the Next-GenerationEU funds.