HeyGen has revealed that its AI avatar technology is being used in Telemundo's coverage tied to the FIFA World Cup 2026. Without using a green screen, it made a broadcaster appear to be reporting "live" from in front of the Hollywood Sign.
July 10, 2026 · HeyGen × Telemundo
No Green Screen: An AI Avatar "Reports Live" from the Hollywood Sign
Telemundo's World Cup 2026 coverage featured an AI-generated digital twin of anchor Adriana Monsalve — appearing at an iconic location with no physical studio or on-site shoot.
15sec
of video reference is enough to build a high-fidelity digital twin
40+
languages supported, with voice cloning
5
-stage training built on diffusion transformers & sparse attention
0
physical studios or chroma-key green screens needed
Traditional Shoot vs. AI Avatar Pipeline
Relative production steps — the AI approach collapses the on-location workflow.
On-site travel
Studio + green screen
Crew & lighting
Chroma-key compositing
Edit & render
Traditional
15-sec reference
Text or audio input
AI Avatar
Takeaway: The AI generates facial expressions, mouth movements and gestures directly — cutting production time and cost while placing presenters at iconic locations virtually.
Who Handles What
Avatar V
Digital twin from a 15-sec video · 40+ languages→ Video generation
LiveAvatar
Low-latency real-time streaming API→ Live appearances, dialogue
3D Player Avatars (Lenovo)
3D reproduction of players — separate project→ Video review (VAR)
Praise
Builds a digital twin from just a 15-second video
Greatly reduces production time
Growing use in multilingual localization & marketing
Caution
Subtle unnaturalness can remain in extreme movements
Long real-time streams may show artifacts
Deal scale & pricing undisclosed
The Competitive Play
Amid rivals like Synthesia and D-ID, HeyGen differentiates on real-time delivery and fidelity.
Telemundo — the Spanish-language NBCUniversal broadcaster holding World Cup 2026 rights (June 11–July 19, hosted by the U.S., Canada & Mexico) — must produce content efficiently across many languages and regions. AI avatars enable remote and virtual-location appearances at lower cost.
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