Text/Zhang Congxiang
Editor/Wang Xiaokun
Following the collapse of the reputation of some traffic stars, virtual digital people seem to have become the best choice for business owners to speak out.
What is a virtual digital person? Chinese Intelligent Industry Development Alliance and Zhongguancun Digital Intelligence Artificial Intelligence Industry Alliance released the "2020 Virtual Digital Human Development White Paper" to define this "species":
Virtual digital person refers to a virtual person with a digital appearance, which should have three characteristics: human appearance (appearance, gender, personality and other character characteristics), human behavior (language, facial expression and body movement expression ability), and human thought (recognizing the external environment and being able to interact with people).
Image source: IC photo
Whether it is AYAYI, the digital manager of Tmall Super Brand Day, Cui Xiaopan, a virtual digital employee of vanke headquarters best newcomer award winner, Teresa Teng, who shined at Jiangsu Satellite TV's 2022 New Year's Eve concert, Xiao Yang, the digital host of Hunan Satellite TV's new variety show "Hello, Saturday", or the digital IPs created by technology companies such as Jiyuan Mei, Liu Yexi, Ling _Ling, A-Soul, and even Tsinghua virtual college student Hua Zhibing, Baixin Bank's first virtual digital employee AIYA Aiya, etc. For a time, enterprises have chosen to "create people", and the virtual digital human market has also shown a heating trend. According to incomplete statistics, at least 19 financings have occurred in the field of domestic virtual idols/digital people in 2021.
Based on the application scenarios of virtual digital people, they can be divided into four categories: service-oriented virtual digital people (PGC+functional), virtual idols (PGC+IP value), digital avatars (UGC+functional), and creative carriers (UGC+IP value).
Industry insiders said that service-oriented virtual people provide services in specific scenarios, which can replace the social roles of many service industries, such as corporate employees, hosts, medical consultants, housekeepers, etc.; identity-based virtual people are more inclined to re-establish a new virtual image and land in the field of entertainment games, such as idol virtual people, live virtual people, etc. Relevant reports show that there are about 175 billion identity virtual digital people, and the total scale of service virtual digital people exceeds 95 billion. At present, the market is in the early stage of development and cultivation.
A thriving virtual digital human industry
Virtual digital people are considered to be an important medium for linking the metaverse, under the outlet of the metaverse, due to the ability to pinch faces, customization and other reasons, for a long time, virtual digital people are popular with young people, especially metaverse enthusiasts. In other words, the current market has been trained, and young people are more receptive to virtual digital people.
The "2021 "Generation Z" Cultural and Entertainment Content Consumption Research" released by Yien Data shows that the content consumption phenomenon of the Z generation circle has gradually become prominent, becoming an important consumer group of virtual idols.
At the same time, young people are more willing to pay for virtual idols, and the richness of peripheral products drives the ability to monetize. Brands are also looking at this trend, and they have also launched their own virtual idol industries.
This is because, compared with traffic stars, virtual idols will no longer have "collapsed houses" caused by damage to the brand image after the creation of appearances and human settings. In addition, virtual idols will generally be closer to the idol appearance in the minds of fans, and the customization of virtual idols will also meet the needs of fans.
With the continuous development of the virtual idol industry ecology, handmade, records and other peripheral products have become the best channel for virtual idols to monetize their traffic, and fans are willing to spend more money and energy to support virtual idols. According to Ai Media Consulting data, 80% of netizens spend less than 1,000 yuan per month on virtual idols, and 37.6% of netizens are willing to spend more money to support virtual idols.
According to the "2021 Virtual Digital Person Industry In-depth Report", in 2030, the overall market size of virtual digital people in mainland China will reach 270 billion. The expansion of the market scale is inseparable from the support of policies. Since the epidemic, policies on 5G, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, virtual reality and augmented reality have been introduced and implemented, encouraging the construction of a number of software and hardware facilities related to digital people.
At the same time, in the "14th Five-Year Plan for the Development of Radio, Television and Online Audio-visual Science and Technology" released on the website of the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, it is mentioned that the application of artificial intelligence, big data and blockchain in content selection, material integration, editing and production, content review, media asset management, subtitle production and other links is strengthened to promote the intelligent production and broadcasting process. Promote the production of virtual anchors and animated sign languages widely used in news broadcasting, weather forecasting, variety science and education and other programs, innovate program forms, and improve the efficiency and intelligence of production and broadcasting.
Therefore, in addition to the virtual IP created by the brand owner himself, the virtual digital person also appeared in the live broadcast room of the central media as the anchor. On December 16, 2021, Xinhua News Agency's AI synthesis anchors "Xin Xiaohao" and "New Xiaomeng" and virtual animators "TV Chicken" and "Infinite Girl" conducted an unprecedented news connection and rushed to Weibo's hot search.
All of the above are the best practices for virtual digital people. So, behind the vigorous virtual digital human industry, what technologies are there to support?
Upstream and downstream players involved
The existence of virtual digital people is inseparable from technical support, and now major manufacturers are involved, such as iFLYTEK, Baidu, Microsoft, Douyin Liu Yexi, Blue Label Su Xiaomei, etc., and even now the banking industry has begun to "create people" for their own digital transformation. But each virtual digital person has a different starting point and plays a different role.
For example, Liu Yexi, who is crazy to suck 4.28 million fans a week, the technology behind the company Chuangyi Technology wants to "build Disney in the meta-universe" through virtual digital people. Liang Zikang, CEO of Chuangyi Technology, said that Chuangyi Technology will "build an interactive meta-cosmology across media by taking interactive videos, short dramas, movies and other media content as a starting point, interact with the dynamic IP of real time and space, and use the flexible platform of short videos to establish a Chinese-style Marvel meta-cosmology that is closer to the audience."
The purpose of Cui Xiaopan, the winner of the Outstanding Newcomer Award of Vanke Headquarters, is to "write off the prepaid receivables/overdue documents that are urged". With the blessing of deep neural network technology rendering, Cui Xiaopan has played a role in various receivable/overdue reminders and work anomaly detection with an efficiency of thousands of times higher than that of humans, and the verification rate of prepaid overdue documents has reached 91.44%.
In fact, the virtual digital human industry seems to be hot, and the industrial chain behind it is mainly composed of: technical solutions (basic layer, platform layer) and content application (application layer, operation layer).
From the perspective of upstream and downstream links, the upstream of virtual digital people is mainly a service provider that provides basic software and hardware facilities for virtual people to produce. For example, NVIDIA, a manufacturer that can provide related technologies such as modeling, motion capture and rendering, etc. Midstream is a manufacturer that provides software and hardware systems, production technology service platforms and AI capability platforms for virtual digital people, such as iFLYTEK and Baidu. Downstream is for virtual digital people to operate and monetize manufacturers, such as NetEase, Tencent, etc.
Taking Baidu as an example, Baidu recently released the digital human generation platform Baidu Intelligent Cloud Xiling. This is a platform-level product integrating digital production, content creation and business configuration services, providing one-stop virtual hosts, virtual employees, virtual idols, brand spokespersons and other industries for radio and television, interactive entertainment, finance, government affairs, operators, retail and other industries.
At present, Baidu Intelligent Yunxiling has created a series of digital people such as CCTV News AI Sign Language Anchor, Space Agency Mars Rover Digital Person, CCTV Virtual Host Xiao C, Baidu Group Digital Person Xijia, Mobile Phone Baidu Spokesperson Gong Jun and so on based on the Digital Star Operation Platform.
A little worry behind the madness
After the emergence of virtual digital people, some voices said that the work of virtual digital people has been encroached on from the simple and repetitive mechanical labor in the past to the emotional highlands such as idols, after being endowed with emotions, can the next step of virtual digital people really replace human beings?
The American science fiction drama "Westworld" may give us some wake-up call. In the paradise made of high technology, when these high-tech makers awakened, they began to rebel and enslave mankind.
Due to the lack of relevant industry standards and legal policies, the development of virtual digital human technology will also raise some legal issues and ethical risks. Industry insiders believe that because virtual digital people are "injected" with emotional elements, users are easily immersed in the virtual world, unable to distinguish which is the real world and which is the virtual world, and even easily cause some ethical problems.
Therefore, at the level of standards and safety ethics in the virtual digital human industry system, not only is there a lack of unified technical standards and requirements in the industry, but the quality of products is also uneven, and relevant laws and regulations and ethical norms have yet to be improved, and there are certain potential risks.
The imperfection of the talent supply system is also the main bottleneck restricting the development of virtual digital people, and the industry urgently needs a perfect talent supply system, especially the cross-border talent system, in order to ensure the benign operation of the industry.
But to be clear, virtual digital human technology is a further empowerment and exploration of real life, but virtual reality technology is still in the early stages of development, lack of overall industry standards, not only engineers to build wheels, but also the need for all human beings to build highways in all directions.