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With the continuous development of artificial intelligence technology, virtual digital human anchors have appeared on some live streaming platforms. During this year's 618 Shopping Festival, digital people began to enter everyone's vision and received more attention. The vast company is empty, with only one computer and AI digital person in the live broadcast screen telling us that the 618 Shopping Carnival has arrived! These digital anchors can flexibly choose their image and style according to the needs of merchants, and conduct uninterrupted 24-hour live broadcasts to promote products, filling the time gap of live streaming. According to MRT, currently, the minimum monthly cost of customizing an AI digital human anchor is only a few hundred yuan, which can be said to be very cost-effective. In order to meet the needs of various businesses, virtual anchors have shown great potential in the live streaming field.

According to data from iMedia Consulting, the total scale of China's live streaming e-commerce industry reached 1201.2 billion yuan in 2021 and is expected to grow to 2137.3 billion yuan by 2025. According to the prediction of China Commercial Industry Research Institute, the overall scale of China's digital Virtual humans market will exceed 270 billion yuan by 2030. Among them, identity based digital people account for approximately 65% of the market share, estimated to be approximately 174.7 billion yuan; And service-oriented digital people account for about 35% of the market share, estimated to be about 95.5 billion yuan. It can be seen that this market has broad development space. These data show the great potential of China's live broadcast e-commerce and digital Virtual humans, providing strong support for future development.

What is the effect of using digital people instead of live streamers to bring goods? Will live streaming rooms become the era of AI in the future? How is their delivery performance? From this perspective, many businesses still hold a wait-and-see attitude towards digital live streaming.

According to the person in charge of Guotai Liquor, a liquor merchant, after the introduction of virtual anchors, the transaction conversion rate reached 1.93 times that of live anchors, and the average daily GMV increased by 7.5 times. Due to this performance, they decided to cancel the live broadcast of the live streamer after collaborating with the virtual anchor for a month.

This person in charge further revealed the direct advantages of virtual anchors, one of which is reducing live streaming costs. Compared to live streamers, virtual streamers do not require systematic training and consume a large amount of resources for cultivation. At the same time, virtual anchors also solve the problem of venue and scene, providing diverse style live streaming rooms through online simulation, without the need to establish physical live streaming scenes. In addition, virtual anchors can also achieve uninterrupted live streaming 24 hours a day, which is difficult for live streamers to achieve.

The relevant person in charge of another industrial product merchant, Delta, stated that since the use of digital live streaming in January this year, the transaction volume of live streaming has increased 99 times, and the transaction conversion rate has reached 11%, which is a significant improvement compared to a 31 times increase in live streamers. Previously, when the company used live streamers, the number of viewers and GMV did not meet expectations due to industrial products not falling into the popular live streaming category and a lack of professional live streaming appearance and operator support.

Although virtual anchors have significant effects on some businesses, industry insiders admit that the conversion rate of virtual anchors is not high at present, and their ability to bring goods is far inferior to that of live anchors.

A person in charge of the Tiktok Head Studio said frankly: "The current virtual anchor's pictures of taking goods are very rough, and the script is also very simple, even the primary school students can't stand it."

He explained that as live streaming is an industry that requires endorsement from anchors, virtual anchors are difficult to attract people to place orders unless the product has a particularly attractive price. He said, "For example, a mobile phone that was originally priced at 6000 yuan is now directly reduced to 5000 yuan, with a price reduction of 1000 yuan, so that someone can place an order. However, this is not because of the attractiveness of the anchor, as it is no different from promotional activities on e-commerce platforms

Another person in charge of a beauty brand stated that the current application of digital people in store broadcasting is not widespread, mainly used between 11pm and 12pm at night. However, in important holiday promotions and prime time periods, live streaming is still used.

The person in charge revealed: "The main reason for using digital people currently is that the cost of live streaming is too high." In recent years, the cost of digital live streaming has significantly decreased, from several thousand yuan per hour to several hundred yuan, and the overall cost is much lower than that of live streaming. Therefore, live streaming during periods with low audience numbers is beneficial in compensating for the disadvantage of live streamers who struggle to live 24/7 without interruption.

The development of digital people is in its early stages, and it is expected to reach a mature stage in 5-10 years

According to the person in charge of the live streaming company 'Make Friends', it takes at least 5 to 10 years for digital broadcasters to mature and develop. Firstly, digital human anchors need to have the ability to create content and interact and communicate with the audience. Secondly, high requirements are also required in terms of drawing pixels and algorithms, and a mature industrial environment is needed as the foundation.

In recent years, both ChatGPT and Virtual humans technologies have become more and more mature, and Li Jiaqi has also realized the advantages of virtual anchors in data analysis and flexible switching display scenarios. However, the relevant person in charge of the head live streaming company Meijing stated that live streamers are more emotional and personalized in interacting with users, which virtual digital streamers cannot replace.

On November 2, 2022, a virtual anchor in the AI digital reception hall in Bijie, Guizhou. With the rapid development of large-scale models, new possibilities have emerged for the development of virtual anchors. Cao Juntao, CTO of Dream Pay Technology, stated that the application of digital anchors in the e-commerce field is still in its early stages. In the past, it was difficult for digital humans to accurately understand user intentions and communicate effectively with users, but with the emergence of large-scale models, smooth human-computer interaction will definitely be achieved in the future. Only by combining large-scale models with digital live streaming can we truly replace live streaming with digital live streaming. At present, digital live streaming can only serve as a supplement to live streaming.

Angel investor and artificial intelligence expert Guo Tao believes that as many technology companies enter the digital human field, the cost of using digital human live streaming has significantly decreased. The digital live streaming all-in-one machine or software on the market only costs a few thousand yuan. However, although the cost is not high, it is not easy to make money through digital live streaming.

In the discussion of digital people, Guo Tao stated: "Not only do digital people themselves have certain limitations, but they also need to face a series of prominent problems such as high online traffic, high customer acquisition costs, fierce market competition, low conversion and retention rates, and high return rates." This indicates that digital people face some challenges and limitations in their application.

In addition, many live streaming companies also mentioned relevant policy and regulatory issues in their interviews. The relevant person in charge of Meijing believes that new technologies such as artificial intelligence and digital humans have brought opportunities to the live streaming industry, but at the same time, they have also brought regulatory challenges. At present, there is no clear regulatory guidance and definition for virtual anchors, which poses certain risks.

The regulation of virtual anchors has attracted the attention of the platform and some measures have been introduced. For example, Tiktok released the Platform Specification and Industry Initiative on AI Generated Content on May 9, which requires publishers to clearly identify AI generated content, help users distinguish between virtual and real, especially confusing scenarios, and provide a unified AI generated content identification capability. In addition, Virtual humans needs to register on the platform, and Virtual humans technology users need to conduct real name authentication. The platform will provide Virtual humans registration capability and protect the registered Virtual humans image.

However, Zhang Yi, CEO of iMedia Consulting, said: "There is no need to worry too much about the regulation of virtual anchors." He believes that the difficulty of regulating virtual anchors is relatively low because the operating entities behind them should be responsible for them. He also pointed out that the main risk faced by future virtual anchors can stem from the high maturity of artificial intelligence, which may bring uncontrollability to intelligent expression.