Hao Li (born January 17, 1981) is a computer scientist and entrepreneur whose work focuses on computer vision and artificial intelligence for digital humans, immersive telepresence, and visual effects. He is the CEO and co-founder of Pinscreen, a company developing generative AI technologies for visual effects in film production and virtual avatars. He is also a full professor at the Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI), where he serves as Dean of the Undergraduate Division and Director of the Metaverse Center.

Li was previously a Distinguished Fellow of the Computer Vision Group at the University of California, Berkeley, and an Associate Professor of Computer Science at the University of Southern California, where he also served as Director of the USC Institute for Creative Technologies. He is known for his seminal work in geometric human capture and real-time facial tracking, including techniques used for Apple’s Animoji on iPhone X and facial reenactment technologies applied to the digital portrayal of Paul Walker in Furious 7. Through Pinscreen, he has led the development of core generative AI technologies for video generation and facial manipulation used in film and immersive production. These technologies have been applied in major projects such as Slumberland, the television series Fallout, and the immersive experience The Wizard of Oz at Sphere, enabling workflows for face replacement, de-aging, facial reenactment, and lip synchronization. Pinscreen’s work also includes the development of early real-time deepfake technologies, unveiled at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos in 2020, as well as ongoing efforts in detecting AI-generated and manipulated media, conducted in part through the DARPA SemaFor program.

Li has held industry research roles as a research lead at Industrial Light & Magic / Lucasfilm and a visiting professor at Weta Digital, and was previously a postdoctoral fellow at Columbia University and Princeton University. He was named one of MIT Technology Review’s “35 Innovators Under 35” in 2013 and has received numerous honors, including the Google Faculty Award, the Okawa Foundation Research Grant, the Andrew and Erna Viterbi Early Career Chair, and the Office of Naval Research (ONR) Young Investigator Award in 2018. In 2019, he was named to the DARPA ISAT Study Group, and in 2020 he received the ACM SIGGRAPH Real-Time Live! “Best in Show” award.

Li was a speaker at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos in 2020 and exhibited work at SXSW in 2022. Pinscreen was a recipient of the Epic MegaGrants program in 2021, and in 2022 Li was featured in the first season of Amazon’s documentary series re:MARS Luminaries. He has been a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) since 2025. He earned his PhD from ETH Zurich and his MSc from the University of Karlsruhe (TH).