I Can't Join, But I Will Send My Agent: Stand-in Enhanced Asynchronous Meetings (SEAM)

2025-08-25

AI Summary

To address information disconnection and diminished social presence caused by user absenteeism in virtual reality (VR) meetings, this paper introduces SEAM: a novel asynchronous VR meeting framework powered by embodied agents. SEAM is the first system to enable real-time agent-mediated representation of absent users during live sessions and support post-hoc first-person playback of meeting recordings with asynchronous response capabilities. Integrating VR interaction, embodied agent modeling, and the Wizard-of-Oz experimental paradigm, SEAM reconstructs natural social cues and bidirectional participation in asynchronous collaboration. A user study with 45 participants demonstrates that SEAM significantly enhances perceived social presence among co-located attendees (p < 0.01), while absent users report high levels of belongingness and inclusion. Overall, the system improves collaborative efficiency and meeting inclusivity in distributed VR environments.

Technology Category

• Multiagent Systems: Agent Communication
• Humans and AI: Game Design — Virtual Humans, NPCs and Autonomous Characters
• Cognitive Modeling & Cognitive Systems: Social Cognition And Interaction

Application Category

• Search and Retrieval-Augmented AI: Agentic search
• Responsible Web: Machine-in-the-loop, human agency and autonomy
• User Modeling, Personalization and Recommendation: Practical large-scale studies of user experience

Abstract

We propose and explore the user experience of SEAM -- Stand-in Enhanced Asynchronous Meetings -- virtual reality meetings in which embodied virtual agents represent absent users. During the meeting, attendees can address the agent, and the absent user can later watch the recording from its perspective to respond. Through two mixed-method studies with 45 participants using the Wizard-of-Oz approach, we explored both the perspectives of the attendees in the original meeting and of the absent users later re-watching the meeting. We found that the stand-in can enhance meetings, benefiting both present and absent collaborators. Present attendees can easily access information that drives decision-making in the meeting perceive high social presence of absentees. Absentees also felt included when watching recordings because of the social interactions and attention towards them. Our contributions demonstrate a proof of concept for future asynchronous meetings in which collaborators can interact conversationally more akin to how they would if it had been synchronous.

Problem

• Enabling absent users to participate via virtual agents
• Enhancing meeting inclusivity through asynchronous VR technology
• Improving decision-making with stand-in representatives for absent collaborators

Innovation

• Virtual agents represent absent users
• Wizard-of-Oz approach for user studies
• Recording playback from agent perspective