trying to wrap my head around Asset Bundles and what we can do with them

Hello guys n gals so I am about to begin working on code for importing asset bundles at runtime and I just want to make sure I understand the extent of asset bundle functionality enough that I can communicate what has to be done with them to my boss.

so just high concept ( making sure I understand what they are feel free to correct me or further clarify if you'd like ) an asset bundle is almost like a unity package filled with certain assets we designate. these assets can be prefabs, textures, audio what have you . we place this asset bundle on the web and at runtime we can download this package immediately.

Now the way my studio wants to use asset bundles is to download a customizable character who has lots of clothing options and honestly a lot of dependencies as well . Essentially e want to just download this character and use him in the scene but that sounds wayyyyyy too easy to me so really what are the pitfalls of loading a prefab and just this prefab and expecting it to just work out of the box ?

Also when it comes to asset bundles does an instance of the object have to exist in the project to pull the object from the asset bundle ? that may be a stupid question but i just want to make sure if we delete the models , animations, and the character prefab from the project itself and load all of these things into the project together as an asset bundle it will work ? I see an option for keeping dependencies so if i loaded the art necessary for the model before the model itself would that work ?

thanks a ton you guys n gals I apologize for my ignorance this is just the first hour i've ever dealt with asset bundles and want to make sure what I am about to attempt is feasible. thanks!