Create Your Own Characters

Create Your Own AI Character in Minutes (Yes, Really)

Have you ever wished you could spin up your own digital character, one that looks the way you want and speaks the way you’d like, without weeks of training or complicated setup? I remember the first time I tried building something like this. I expected friction. Instead, it felt surprisingly smooth.

With Runway’s developer tools, you can create your own character using just one image and have it ready for a live video call inside a React app in about five minutes. If you want to follow along, here’s the official guide:
https://docs.dev.runwayml.com/characters/create-your-own/

Let’s walk through it together.

Step 1: Create a developer account
Head over to dev.runwayml.com and sign up. Once you’re inside, you’ll see a “Characters” tab. Click Create a Character and you’re already halfway there.

Step 2: Design your character
Upload a single image. That’s it. No model training, no dataset wrangling.

Then you choose a voice. You can preview each one, which honestly feels a bit like casting a voice actor. You can also define instructions, for example, “You are a customer support agent for X.” If you want your character to greet users in a specific way, add a starting script. You can even upload a .txt file with knowledge, like product info.

When you click Create Character, you’ll get an Avatar ID. Copy it. You’ll need it.

Step 3: Plug it into your React app
Inside your app, update the avatar ID and set the avatar type to “custom.” Restart the app… and there it is. Your character. Live. Ready to talk.

It’s kind of wild when you see it working for the first time.

From virtual tutors to onboarding assistants, the possibilities are wide open. And we’re just at the beginning of what personalized AI characters can become. If you’ve been waiting for a sign to experiment with this, maybe this is it.