Sharing the Load Online: Virtual Presentations with Virtual Co-Presenter Agents

BSTRACT The pandemic has caused a significant increase in the use of videoconferencing for oral presentations. Prior work demonstrated that an embodied conversational agent that co-delivers an oral presentation could be used in face-to-face presentations to reduce public speaking anxiety and increase presentation quality. In this work, we evaluate the use of a co-presenter agent in the delivery of virtual presentations given over a videoconferencing system, comparing them to presentations given without the agent. We found that participants were satisfied with the co-presenter agent, and those who liked the agent (scoring above the mean on a composite self-report measure of satisfaction) rated the presentations they gave with the agent as having significantly higher quality compared to those given without the agent. There was evidence the agent helped participants feel less nervous about their talks. Interviews confirmed these findings, and identified additional advantages and disadvantages of using co-presenter agents in virtual presentations.