Development of a Responsive Virtual Audience for Public Speaking Training in Virtual Reality

Public speaking is a common activity in many areas of daily and professional life. However, communication skills are often difficult to master, and opportunities for practice remain limited, as the presence of an audience is difficult to replicate. To address this need, Virtual Reality training systems have been developed. Once immersed in the environment, users can practice in realistic conditions and in front of an audience, albeit virtually. However, to further improve fidelity and training outcomes, audience responsiveness is essential. A framework for integrating Artificial Intelligence (AI) is therefore proposed. The underlying objective is to enrich the experience through AI-driven virtual agents that, over time, respond appropriately to the speaker’s performance and emotional state. This framework is presented along with the main design choices of the application.