Meta Offers $50 Per Hour for Training Avatars for Smart Glasses and VR

What does a smile signify? For those helping train Meta’s virtual reality avatars, it could mean earning $50 an hour.

The tech giant is enlisting adults via the data-collection firm Appen to spend hours in front of cameras and sensors to “amplify the virtual reality of tomorrow.”

Meta’s avatars have evolved significantly since being widely ridiculed online almost three years ago.

With 2025 deemed as Meta’s “most crucial year” for their metaverse goals, the company hopes that hyperrealistic digital avatars will drive its next generation of virtual and augmented technologies, from Quest headsets to Ray-Ban smart glasses.

However, to achieve this, Meta requires more data.

Inside Project Warhol

The company is compensating freelancers to capture their smiles, movements, and casual conversations as part of a data-gathering initiative known as “Project Warhol,” managed by Appen, which lists Meta as its client in consent documents.

Meta has confirmed to Business Insider that Project Warhol is part of its mission to develop Codec Avatars—a research initiative publicly introduced in 2019 that aims to create photorealistic, real-time digital representations of individuals for use in virtual and augmented environments.

Codec Avatars are a pivotal innovation for Meta’s vision of “metric telepresence,” which the company claims enables social presence that is “indistinguishable from reality” during virtual interactions.

A Meta spokesperson informed BI that the company has been conducting similar avatar data collection efforts for several years. Project Warhol seems to be the latest phase of this initiative.

Recruitment advertisements call for anyone aged 18 and over to participate in paid sessions to “contribute to the enhancement of avatars.” The project is divided into two studies—”Human Motion” and “Group Conversations”—both set to commence in September at Meta’s research facility in Pittsburgh.

In the Human Motion study, participants will be filmed “mimicking facial expressions, reading sentences, and making hand gestures,” while cameras, headsets, and sensors record their movements from various angles.

The Group Conversations study will gather two or three participants to “engage in discussions and light improv activities.” Researchers aim to capture natural speech, gestures, and microexpressions to create avatars that are more “realistic and immersive” in social scenarios.

A high-stakes year for Meta

This project arrives at a critical moment for Meta Reality Labs, the division responsible for avatars, headsets, and smart glasses. The division has faced over $60 billion in losses since 2020, including an unprecedented operating loss of $4.97 billion in the last quarter of 2024.