Virtual singer Luo Tianyi performed with world famous pianist Lang Lang in 2019 at the Mercedes-Benz Arena in Shanghai, China. Launched in 2012, Luo Tianyi has nearly 3 million fans and even performed at the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics in Beijing this year.
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BEIJING – From customer service to the entertainment industry, businesses in China are paying big for virtual employees.
Tech company Baidu said the number of virtual people projects that worked for clients has doubled since last year, with a wide range of prices as little as $ 2,800 to $ 14,300 huge per year.
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The virtual person is a combination of animation, voice technology and machine learning that creates a digital human that can sing and even interact on livestream. As these digital creatures emerge on the fringes of the US internet, they increasingly flourish in China’s cyberspace.
Some buyers of virtual people include financial services companies, local tourism boards and state media, said Li Shiyan, who heads Baidu’s virtual and robotics business.
As technology improves, costs have dropped about 80% since last year, he said. It costs about 100,000 yuan ($14,300) a year for a three-dimensional virtual person, and 20,000 yuan for a two-dimensional one.
Li expects the overall virtual people industry to continue to grow by 50% annually until 2025.
Looking for an icon without a scandal
From a business perspective, much of the focus is on how virtual people can generate content.
Brands in China are looking for alternative spokespeople after many celebrities have recently faced negative press for tax evasion or personal scandals, said Sirius Wang, head of product and Greater China market head at Kantar.
Dancers perform with virtual digital people at the Future Life Festival 2022 in Hangzhou, China, on November 4, 2022.
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At least 36% of consumers have watched a virtual influencer or digital celebrity in the past year, according to a survey published by Kantar this fall. Twenty-one percent have watched a virtual person host a show or break the news, the report said.
Looking ahead to next year, 45% of advertisers say they may sponsor virtual influencer performances or invite virtual people to participate in brand events, according to a Kantar report.
The development of virtual people
Many of China’s big tech companies have developed products in the virtual human industry.
Video and game streaming apps Bilibili was one of the earliest to take the concept of virtual people mainstream.
The company acquired the team behind the virtual singer Luo Tianyi, whose image and voice are completely created by technology. This year, developers focused on improving the texture of the virtual singer’s voice using artificial intelligence algorithms, according to Bilibili.
Launched in 2012, Luo Tianyi has nearly 3 million fans and even performed at the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics in Beijing this year.
Bilibili also hosts many so-called virtual anchors, which are live avatars of people who use special technology to reach their audience. The company said that 230,000 virtual anchors started broadcasting on the platform since 2019, and the time of virtual anchors this year increased by about 200% from last year.
Tencent said in its latest earnings call that Tencent Cloud AI Digital Humans provides chatbots to sectors such as financial services and tourism for automated customer support. The company Next Studios also develops virtual singers and virtual sign language interpreters.
Smaller companies are also entering the industry.
Startup Well-Link Technologies – whose cloud rendering technology support for Chinese video game developer miHoYo brought success in the gaming industry – announced this year that it has developed another model of virtual people in a joint venture with Haixi Media.