After days of teasing ahead of CES 2020, Samsung finally unveiled Neon today (January 7), an "artificial human" created by AI designed to interact and show emotions like a real human

Neon is not an omniscient virtual assistant like Alexa, Siri, or Google Assistant Instead, these digital avatars (visualized as eerily realistic humans) are intended to do what people do on a daily basis

"In the near future, you will be able to license or contract NEON as a service representative, financial advisor, healthcare provider, or concierge," Samsung said in a Neon press release

"Eventually, NEON will work as TV anchors, spokespeople, and movie actors

The idea of a digital human replacing an actual human in a real-life job is a little creepy However, whether it is a virtual personal assistant for someone trying to get in shape at home or someone to take care of hospitalized patients when staff is not nearby, it is easy to imagine the practical benefits of Neon being useful

Neon is powered by Samsung's Core R3 (Reality, Realtime and Responsive) platform, which uses "extensively trained" neural networks to mimic real human behavior; Core R3 latency is a few milliseconds or less, allowing Neon to respond to human interactions in real time

Will we live in a world full of digital avatars checking into hotels, taking food orders, and leading yoga classes? That is still a long way off But when we see Neons in action at CES 2020, we would love to see how they behave in the real world

Be sure to check out our CES 2020 hub for the latest announcements and hands-on impressions from Las Vegas