Baidu hosted a livestream event featuring AI-generated digital avatars—including a perfect digital double of China’s top livestreamer, Luo Yonghao. The result: over 13 million viewers tuned in, and sales soared past RMB 55 million (USD 7.65 million) in gross merchandise value (GMV)
Luo Yonghao, who is one of the first and most prominent livestreamers in China, and his partner Xiao Mu used a digital version of themselves to engage with viewers live for more than six hours on Baidu’s e-commerce livestreaming platform “Youxuan”, the Chinese tech firm claimed.
Contrastingly, Baidu said that Luo’s first livestream on Youxuan last month, which lasted a little more than four hours, generated fewer orders for consumer electronics, food, and other key products.
Luo said it was his first time leveraging virtual human technology to sell products through livestreaming. On Weibo, a Chinese microblogging and social media platform that is the Chinese equivalent of Twitter, he addressed his 1.7 million followers. He said, “The digital human effect has scared me … I’m a bit dazed.”
Wu Jialu reveals it is time for China’s livestreaming and digital human industry to grow
Luo began livestreaming in April 2020 on ByteDance’s short video app Douyin. His intentions for livestreaming at that time were to repay debts accumulated by his struggling smartphone company, Smartisan. Nearly 24.7 million fans have followed his “Be Friends” Douyin livestream account today.
Concerning AI-made Avatars, Luo and his co-host created their avatars with the help of Baidu’s generative AI model. They were trained on their jokes and style from five years of videos, said Wu Jialu, head of research at Luo’s other company, Be Friends Holding.
AI avatars can significantly slash costs as companies do not have to mobilize a large production team or rent a studio to do a live broadcast. Moreover, the digital avatars, unlike their human counterparts, can stream around the clock without taking breaks.
Wu highlighted that they have always been skeptical about digital people livestreaming, noting the company had tried out various kinds of digital humans over the years.
However, he said that Baidu now provides the best digital human product on the market, far better than the days of livestreaming e-commerce five or six years ago.
Wu said this was a significant moment for China’s livestreaming and digital human industry.
Livestreaming shopping gains traction in China amid AI push
Livestream shopping caught on in China after the pandemic forced the country’s businesses to adopt new approaches to sales. With economic growth slowing, several people are looking to the platform for commission work and virtual gifts that can make them money.
Livestreaming led to more sales on Douyin last year, so that the app overtook the traditional e-commerce company, JD.com, and is now the second-largest e-commerce platform in China.
According to a report from Worldpanel and Bain & Company last week, some of the market share was taken away from the leading company, Alibaba. Both JD.com and Alibaba’s Taobao have their own livestreaming sales portals.
Other Chinese companies, including the tech giant Tencent, have also created tools to build digital people who can serve as news anchors. The companies began experimenting with virtual human livestreamers during the Singles Day shopping holiday in late 2023.
However, analysts have warned that items bought during livestreams usually get returned a lot because people often buy them on a whim.
Wu highlights challenges facing virtual humans in livestreaming businesses
Virtual humans have generated more profits for livestreaming businesses, making their trading activities hit new heights. Despite this, they face certain challenges in their operations. Wu said the significant challenge for virtual humans to live stream is compliance and platform requirements, not technology.
To curb this, he urged that digital humans must be trained to comply with rules about product advertising. However, Wu noted that major livestreaming platforms may have different rules about permitting virtual people to host the sessions.
Douyin, for instance, has introduced limitations on the use of the technology, particularly if the virtual people do not interact with viewers.
Wu said the next appearance of a virtual human is not yet set for Luo, but he speculated it will be soon. Furthermore, in the future, he anticipated that digital humans could use livestreaming to reach users outside China using several languages.
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