With the help of AI technology, digital human virtual anchors are rapidly gaining popularity. During this year's Mid Autumn Festival and National Day, many "digital people" anchors quietly took up their posts, broadcasting non-stop 24 hours a day, which attracted many late night party members to "irrationally place orders".
metaverse Digital Human, 2023 Beijing International Service Trade Fair.
So, will live streamers be replaced?
Virtual anchors make a hot debut
With the digital wave triggered by AI technology, using high-quality and low-cost digital human virtual anchors for live streaming sales has gradually become one of the hot phenomena in the live streaming industry in 2023.
Not long ago, a leading MCN organization announced an increase in the digital human live streaming sector, and major mainstream short video and e-commerce platforms have also introduced relevant initiatives and launched official digital humans, demonstrating the industry's enthusiasm for integrating AI into live streaming e-commerce scenarios.
For example, during the "6.18" period this year, JD.com launched the "Yanxi Virtual Anchor" product, which provides 24-hour live streaming. According to the "6.18" battle report of JD.com, after a good start of 10 minutes, the number of merchants broadcasting in digital live streaming rooms increased by nearly 400% compared to last year's "Double 11".
In fact, not only in the field of live streaming sales, virtual digital humans have already frequently appeared in many scenes such as concerts and scenic spots. Data shows that there are currently nearly 140 million live streaming accounts in China, of which virtual live streaming accounts for as much as 40%. From digital front-end and training instructors to live streaming hosts and virtual idols, virtual digital humans embody various roles and assume the functions that real streamers once did.
Daily makeup, quirky expressions, and humorous language style inject the "soul" of "sweet or salty" virtual anchors. They can take the lead in program hosting and interviews, and show off their internet sense in entertainment interaction and online live streaming.
Nowadays, the difference in appearance between virtual digital humans and real people has become increasingly small. Compared to some low-cost virtual anchors with rigid voices and body movements, the "New Digital Human" combines deep learning, digital human rendering and other technologies to present dynamic and realistic interactive performances. Whether it is lip movements, facial expressions or body postures, they all resemble real people. Even some upgraded digital human anchors can recognize netizens' bullet comments, answer questions in real-time and accurately, and simulate the effect of live streaming sales with multidimensional interaction.
The cost is only a few thousand yuan
According to data from iMedia Consulting, the total scale of China's live streaming e-commerce industry reached 1.2012 trillion yuan in 2021, and it is expected to reach 2.1373 trillion yuan by 2025. According to the China Business Industry Research Institute, the overall market size of digital virtual humans in China is expected to exceed 270 billion yuan by 2030, of which identity based digital humans account for approximately 174.7 billion yuan, accounting for 65%; Service oriented digital individuals account for approximately 95.5 billion yuan, representing 35% of the total.
Compared with traditional anchors, the advantage of AI digital humans is that they can conduct uninterrupted live broadcasts for a long time. Due to the rapid growth of the live streaming e-commerce industry in recent years, there have been complications of talent shortage, especially the increasingly severe head effect of anchors.
The report shows that the talent gap for live streaming in China was 8 million in 2021, and this number is expected to increase to 19.415 million by 2025. In the face of a huge talent gap, virtual anchors are seen as the best choice to fill the role.
Compared with traditional live streamers with higher operating costs, AI digital human virtual streamers can not only provide uninterrupted information broadcasting and easily obtain scattered natural traffic at various time periods, greatly reducing labor costs and operating expenses, but also have a safer and more stable persona, effectively avoiding the risks of running away and negative news to the brand.
At present, with the expansion of market size and the maturity of technology, the cost of virtual anchors has been greatly compressed. Nowadays, the cost of virtual anchors is only tens of thousands of yuan per year, broadcasting 24 hours a day, and can also clone or customize IP images based on real people's images.
Flexibility and standardization need improvement
At present, the development of virtual digital human anchors is still under exploration, and many problems urgently need to be solved. Although overall costs are gradually being controlled, achieving refinement and differentiation still requires high investment costs.
In addition, compared to real streamers, virtual streamers still have a lot of room for improvement in interactivity and flexibility. As for e-commerce, many businesses have expressed that the conversion rate of virtual anchors is not high and their ability to promote products is far inferior to that of real anchors. Virtual anchors are too fake, with crude language, lack of emotion and personalization, making it difficult to attract users to place orders. With current technology, digital people are definitely unable to replace top anchors with strong personal styles such as Li Jiaqi and Xiao Yangge for the time being, "said an interviewee.
More importantly, although AIGC technology has helped accelerate the evolution of virtual anchors, it has also brought some complications. CCTV Finance exposed in May that some live streaming rooms were using AI face swapping technology, and could purchase a real-time face swapping model for 35000 yuan to impersonate well-known celebrities for live streaming sales, which is applicable to major live streaming platforms. Legal experts have stated that using AI face swapping technology for live streaming sales constitutes intentional disclosure of false information or intentional concealment of true information to consumers, and has already constituted fraud. At the same time, it also constitutes a violation of the celebrity's right to portrait and privacy.
In June 2022, the State Administration of Radio and Television and the Ministry of Culture and Tourism jointly issued the "Code of Conduct for online Anchors". The standard clearly states that "virtual anchors and content synthesized using artificial intelligence technology shall refer to this code of conduct." Virtual humans, who were once rarely targeted by policies, are now receiving attention from relevant departments and need to accept the same code of conduct requirements as real anchors.
On May 9, 2023, Tiktok released the Platform Specification and Industry Initiative on Artificial Intelligence Generated Content. In addition to highlighting AIGC content to users, it will also use unified AIGC data standards or metadata standards to facilitate the identification of other content platforms and help other users distinguish between virtual and real.
As a new technology oriented towards the future, the healthy growth of the virtual human industry relies on the dual drive of technological innovation and regulatory protection. On the one hand, we need to continuously break through in key core technologies such as human-computer interaction, virtual reality, and 3D display devices, transforming from identity based virtual humans that display unidirectionally to service-oriented virtual humans that interact bidirectionally. This will accelerate the large-scale application of virtual humans and create greater value for the consumer market and enterprise services. On the other hand, technological innovation has entered the deep-water and frontier areas, and the rule of law is the most reliable track. As a new business model supported by the new generation of information technology, the rapid development of virtual humans requires simultaneous consideration of data security, personal privacy protection, and ethical risks. Relevant departments may keep up with innovation needs, timely improve compliance systems, and enable the virtual human industry to achieve healthy and standardized development on the track of the rule of law.
