Suddenly A.I. see! The moment KT Tunstall came face to face with her digital double
She has sold millions of records and bagged a slew of major awards. But now KT Tunstall has set her sights on immortality.
By ELYSIA TAYLOR-HEARN FOR THE SCOTTISH DAIY MAIL
Published: 19:46 GMT, 11 January 2026 | Updated: 19:46 GMT, 11 January 2026
She has sold millions of records and bagged a slew of major awards.
But now KT Tunstall has set her sights on immortality.
The Scottish singer has unveiled a hyper realistic avatar of herself in a bid to capture a lasting essence of her live performances.
She explained: ‘The thing that excites me most about that technology is, what does it take to do a performance that is remembered long after you’re dead?
‘What are the ingredients of impressing an audience and the world so much with one live performance that it gets talked about for the rest of time?’
To mark the 20th anniversary of her breakthrough album, the songwriter performed its opening track ‘Black Horse & The Cherry Tree’ as a digital avatar of herself.
Technicians at Unit1 Studio, an avatar concert production company, photographed Tunstall from every angle, including snapping 50 facial expressions, to create a realistic digital puppet of her.
The 50-year-old then donned a motion-capture suit and performed a set, allowing her movements and mannerisms to be recorded and mapped onto the digital puppet.
The real thing... KT Tunstall live and on stage
...and the astonishingly life-like KT avatar
KT said: ‘As a performer, wearing the suit and engaging in this tech, it’s really very similar to when you’re, for example, making a music video. It’s really trying to capture the best essence of yourself as a performer.’
Once her avatar had been fine-tuned, it was synchronized with lights and music to create an immersive concert environment.
Watching her digital alter-ego perform for the first time, she marvelled: ‘You’re always posing when you’re in a film or a video and this is not that: this is me in real time.’
She told the BBC: ‘I’m concentrating on other things other than getting looked at and I think it captures that, makes it feel so much realer.’
The singer’s experiment with digital performances comes after the launch of Abba’s ground-breaking virtual concert residency in 2022 revolutionised the possibilities of live shows.
ABBA Voyage sold more than 1 million tickets in both 2023 and 2024, prompting Liverpool to float plans for a similar Beatles experience in 2025.
Barney Wragg, CEO of Unit1 Studio, explained that the appeal of virtual concerts lies in their ability to preserve ‘this very special moment in time and this very special performance’.
KT added: ‘You could really make some magical experiences with people who are here and people who have passed as well. It’s a real opportunity for being creative I think, with an emulation of the live experience.’