The most notable feature of VASA-1 is that it allows users to animate any image. They can take a photo of a person and make them move expressively, talk, and sing. What’s interesting about this AI solution is the high level of realism it brings.

The VASA-1 solution focuses on improving accessibility for people with communication difficulties. It seeks to provide companionship or therapy support to those who need it, allowing for the creation of realistic talking faces in real time. The VASA-1 only requires an image of the face of the person they want to add a voice to. It also allows users to add other elements to make things more realistic. Users can also edit the position of the eyes or the movement of the mouth, making the face smile or scream.

Microsoft emphasizes how realistic and lifelike these videos are created from a person's photo, but it's not just the ability to add voice and easy, realistic movements to drawings or art, the VASA-1 has the ability to add emotions, facial expressions, and the ability to add movement to the head.

However, like OpenAI’s Sora, Microsoft warns that VASA-1 will not be accessible as they will not be releasing any demos, APIs, products or services related to VASA-1. It is possible that this is just the first version of this new technology and is still in the development stage, and Microsoft is concerned about the risk of deepfakes being used for malicious purposes. Therefore, it seems to be used only in agreements with specialized centers that work with people with various communication problems.

Perhaps in the future VASA-1 will be deployed, but in a controlled way to avoid problems. The facilities that VASA-A is aimed at are public organizations that can create more user-friendly virtual assistants, and it can also be an additional feature for Copilot, creating a virtual assistant close to Windows.

However, even if that happens, Microsoft is very concerned about security issues to avoid being exploited to use the platform for scams or encourage investment in fraudulent activities.