The humans of China have just proved that they are better influencers

Beijing – Based on cooperation between Chinese technology companies Baidu There is also a popular live streamer.

Chinese tech companies say that Luo Yonghao is one of China’s earliest and most popular live streamers, and his co-host Xiao Xiao MU all used his own digital version to interact with the audience, which lasted for six hours on Baidu’s e-commerce lifestyle script platform “Youxuan” (Youxuan) on Sunday. Session RMB 55 million (USD 7.65 million).

By comparison, Luo’s first live broadcast attempt to Youxuan last month lasted more than four hours, with fewer orders for consumer electronics, food and other key products, Baidu said.

Luo said this is his first time using virtual human technology to sell products through live streaming.

“The digital human effect scares me…I’m a little drowsy.” Tell him 1.7 million followers According to CNBC Translation, on the social media platform Weibo.

Luo started live streaming on Bytedance’s short video app Douyin in April 2020 to try Pay off debts Accumulated by his struggling smartphone company Smartisan. His “Be Friends” Douyin Livestream account has nearly 24.7 million followers.

Luo and his co-host’s avatars were built using Baidu’s Generative AI model, which learned to mimic their jokes and styles from five years of videos, Wu Jialu, head of research at another Luo company, Become a friend and hold ittold CNBC on Wednesday.

“For China’s entire live broadcast and digital human industry, this is a profound moment for China’s entire live broadcast and digital human industry,” CNBC translated Mandarin said. DeepSeek, the Chinese version of Openai version, In January, global investors took their demands to compete with Chatgpt at low cost and Using open source methods.

AI avatars can significantly reduce costs because companies do not need to hire large production teams or studios to stream live. Digital avatars can also be streamed continuously without rest.

“We have always been skeptical about live streaming of digital characters,” Wu said, noting that the company has tried various digital humans over the years.

But he said that compared to the early days of e-commerce five or six years ago, Baidu now offers the best digital human products available.

Live shopping takes off in China after the pandemic Force businesses to find alternative sales channels. With slower economic growth, more and more people are turning to live streaming to make money from commissions and virtual gifts.

Last year, the app surpassed traditional e-commerce companies JD.com Become China’s second largest e-commerce platform and enters the market share of major players Alibabaaccording to Reports from Worldpanel and Bain & Company last week. JD.com and Alibaba’s Taobao both offer live sales portals.

Meanwhile, other Chinese companies (including tech giant Tencent) have developed tools to create digital personnel that can be used as News anchor. In the second half of 2023, several companies began Try a virtual human live streamer On a single day shopping holiday.

But analysts warn that the product will be sold through live streaming There are often high returns Because they are usually impulse purchases.

Wu said the biggest challenge of using virtual humans to live streaming is no longer technology, but compliance and platform requirements. He said digital humans need to be trained to comply with regulations on product advertising, while major live streaming platforms may have different rules that allow virtual people to hold meetings.

For example, Douyin has Restrictions were introduced use technologyespecially if the virtual person does not interact with the audience.

Although Wu has not set up Luo’s next virtual human appearance, Wu says he hopes it will be soon. In the future, digital humans can easily survive in multiple languages ​​to attract users outside China, he said.