That is, today the company is rolling out a low-cost version of its intelligent virtual agent, affectionately-dubbed Sarah by some of the institutions that use it.

FORBES: It's the Attack of the Sales Bots

MyCyberTwin, which has developed an avatar-based virtual agent for financial institutions that boasts a three-second response time and an astonishing 94% accuracy rate (better than many human reps), is moving downstream.

FORBES: It's the Attack of the Sales Bots

Called AVATAR (Automated Virtual Agent for Truth Assessments in Real-Time) and developed by the US government and the University of Arizona, an official figure (a man nicknamed Elvis) projected onto a screen conducts the interviews and can detect small changes in movement and behaviour to see if a traveller is telling the truth.

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In October, Excite, which is evolving from the second-largest Internet search site to a fully fledged online service, bought NetBot in order to acquire the firm's shopping-agent technology, with which it hopes to create a virtual megastore.

ECONOMIST: Internet shopping: The once and future mall | The

Those virtual personas can be completely customized, allowing girls to fully embrace their secret agent fantasies.

ENGADGET

The firm will have to program the agent to find its way through hundreds or thousands of stores, each of which is constantly rearranging its virtual aisles.

ECONOMIST: Internet shopping: The once and future mall | The