Virtual singer Luo Tianyi performs 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.
Visual Group China | Getty Images
BEIJING — From customer service to the entertainment industry, Chinese companies are paying big bucks for virtual employees.
technology company Baidu said the number of virtual people projects he works on for his clients has doubled since last year, with a wide price range from as low as $2,800 to $14,300 per year.
Virtual People are a combination of animation, sound technology, and machine learning that create digitized human beings who can sing and even interact on a live stream. While these digital beings have appeared on the fringes of the American Internet, they are increasingly appearing in Chinese cyberspace.
Some buyers of virtual people include financial services firms, local tourism boards and state media, said Li Shiyan, who heads Baidu’s virtual people and robotics businesses.
As technology improves, costs have fallen about 80% since last year, he said. It costs about 100,000 yuan ($14,300) per year for a three-dimensional virtual person and 20,000 yuan for a two-dimensional person.
Li expects the overall virtual people industry to continue growing at 50% per year until 2025.
Scandal-free icon search
From a business perspective, much of the focus is on how virtual people can generate content.
Brands in China are looking for alternative spokespersons after many celebrities recently faced negative press over tax evasion or personal scandals, said Sirius Wang, Chief Product Officer and Head of Greater China Market. at Kantar.
Dancers perform with virtual digital people at the 2022 Future Life Festival in Hangzhou, China on November 29, 2022. 4, 2022.
Edition of the future | Edition of the future | Getty Images
At least 36% of consumers have watched a virtual influencer or digital celebrity perform in the past year, according to a survey released by Kantar this fall. Twenty-one percent had watched a virtual person host an event or spread the news, according to the report.
Looking ahead to next year, 45% of advertisers said they might sponsor a virtual influencer’s performance or invite a virtual person to join a brand’s event, according to the Kantar report.
Growing development of virtual people
Many major Chinese technology companies have already developed products in the virtual human industry.
Video and game streaming app bilibili was one of the first to incorporate the concept of virtual people.
The company has acquired the team behind virtual singer Luo Tianyi, whose image and sound are entirely created by technology. This year, the developers focused on improving the texture of the virtual singer’s voice using an artificial intelligence algorithm, 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 direct avatars of people using special technology to reach their audience. The company said 230,000 virtual anchors have started streaming on its platform since 2019, and virtual anchor streaming time this year has increased by around 200% compared to last year.
Tencent said in its latest earnings call that Tencent Cloud AI Digital Humans provides chatbots to industries such as financial services and tourism for automated customer support. The company’s Next studios have also developed a virtual singer and virtual sign language interpreter.
Much smaller companies are also entering the industry.
Startup Well-Link Technologies – whose cloud rendering technical support for Chinese video game developer miHoYo has earned it success in the gaming industry – announced this year that it has developed another virtual person model in a joint venture with Haixi Media.
0 Comments