Text | Koi Finance
At the end of the year, everyone is sighing, please cherish the days when you and your colleagues are rolled in, at least they are still real people. Because there are already a number of virtual digital employees who have entered the workplace and grabbed the performance with you.
Recently, it was brushed by a circle of friends by Yu Liang, chairman of Vanke's board of directors, and the first thing that caught the eye in the screenshot was a high-value girl, which was very in line with the public's aesthetics, and then found out that she was a virtual digital employee - "Cui Xiaopan".
Virtual digital people, as the name suggests, refers to virtual characters with digital appearances, relying on display screens, holographic projections and other devices, and virtual people have similar human appearances, identities and even emotions, and can interact with the real world.
It will take time to have virtual digital people who can sense human emotions. As far as the current development is concerned, virtual people with identities and appearances were once optimistic about capital, and a series of virtual digital person concept stocks shined in the capital market. According to the data, since July 2021, the core investment and financing events related to virtual people in the domestic primary market have reached 18 times, and it is expected that the overall market size of virtual digital people in mainland China will reach 270 billion yuan in 2030.
But the good times are not long, and virtual people without hardware support are eventually going downhill.
At noon on January 20, 2022, as of 13:15, the virtual digital person sector fell. On Saturday (002291.CN), it fell 9.21% to 17.85 yuan, Netta Software (603189.CN) fell 8.70% to 20.36 yuan, Fangzhi Technology (300235.CN) fell 7.96% to 14.11 yuan, Chinese Online (300364.CN) fell 7.21% to 12.61 yuan, etc.
Virtual digital people enter the workplace, the road is actually not so easy to walk. After all, the workplace is like a battlefield, and the virtual digital people of the "newborn calves" are bound to experience the beating of society.
Virtual digital people are not welcome in the workplace
An inevitable topic every year is employment, and "employment difficulty" has become a word that graduates hang on their lips for many years. According to the survey, the number of college graduates in the country is expected to reach 10.76 million in 2022, exceeding 10 million for the first time, a record high. At the same time, the mainland economy is also facing the triple pressure of demand contraction, supply shock and weak expectations, and the employment pressure in 2022 is relatively large.
While college graduates are busy submitting resumes and looking for jobs, a group of virtual digital employees are slowly taking their places and performing their duties.
Virtual digital people who also have names, positions, and job numbers have now penetrated into various industries. In the case of major companies constantly "rolling in", there is no doubt that there is a "high-value" and "high-efficiency" virtual digital employee who is proud. For example, since the end of 2021, Baixin Bank has launched the "AI virtual brand officer" AIYA, and major banks have begun to lay out virtual digital human tracks in order to seize the opportunity to create an immersive service experience in the financial consumption scenario.
As early as September 2021, Tmall officially announced that AYAYI had become the first digital employee of Alibaba Group, serving as the digital manager of Tmall Super Brand Day. To date, AYAYI has published a total of 91 notes in Xiaohongshu, with 121,000 followers, 256,000 likes and collections. As of the end of September 2021, AYAYI has reached commercial cooperation with more than 35 brands, including international first-tier brands such as Porsche, Guerlain of France, Givenchy, and Disney.
Obviously, in this case, the hitper is not welcome to this strong opponent, after all, the virtual digital person occupies the "pit" of the hit worker, which undoubtedly aggravates the employment anxiety of young people. However, from the current point of view, the scope of work of virtual digital people in the workplace is very limited, and they can only replace real people for content production and simple interaction.
Shenyang, executive director of the New Media Research Center of the School of Journalism of Tsinghua University, also said that because the meta-universe industry is still in the early stage of development, it has the characteristics of immature and unstable emerging industries, and there are multiple potential risks. At present, the meta-universe industry as a whole is in a "sub-healthy" state, and there are at least ten major risk points, and it is urgent for the industry and market to return to rationality.
On the contrary, from the perspective of the enterprise, the virtual digital people who cannot produce more than their own manufacturing value are actually burning money. From modeling, AI, motion capture, rendering, the cost of virtual digital people is undoubtedly huge. Among them, at present, 3D digital human modeling still requires a lot of manual production participation, and the overall production efficiency is relatively low.
A simple example, according to the understanding, to build a motion capture site of about 300m, it is necessary to be equipped with more than 40 limb capture equipment, as well as facial expression capture equipment, as well as motion capture suits, cameras, televisions, etc., with an overall cost of more than 2 million yuan.
In this way, the characteristics of "high cost and low service" make virtual digital employees less confident in the workplace. Obviously, as a new worker in the workplace, virtual digital people still have a long way to go to truly integrate into the workplace.
Capital is promising, but it is difficult for young people to buy it
From the report released by Qubit, it can be seen that the workers who enter the workplace, according to the different application scenarios, virtual digital people can be divided into two types: service type and identity type.
Identity-type virtual digital people, namely virtual idols, VR Chat, avatar construction applications, etc., representative characters include Liu Yexi, AYAYI, Hua Zhibing, etc. The service-oriented virtual digital person is defined as the virtualization of the social role of the service industry, with the purpose of replacing manual work such as hosts, tour guides and shopping anchors.
This has to mention the virtual host "Xiao Yang" in "Hello, Saturday", and Xiao Yang's introduction also appeared in Baidu Encyclopedia, known as "the first digital host of Hunan Satellite TV". Of course, this is not the first time that variety shows have joined virtual people, and there has been a virtual player "Hertz" in "Children of Tomorrow". Unlike virtual idols, service-oriented virtual digital people have to accept public evaluation once they add professional attributes.
As the main service object of virtual digital people, the young people of Generation Z have almost strict standards. For example, some netizens commented, "There is no need for virtual hosting, which not only increases the workload and difficulty of all the staff of the program group, but also makes the stage have a strong sense of separation." "There are also some netizens who are more sharp, "hardware without cross-generation progress software do not want to think, not to mention that now the software can not understand." ”
Of course, from the ratings of the program, it can also be seen that even if there is a virtual host to join, it has not changed the status quo of dismal ratings. Judging from the broadcast effect of the first three episodes, the popularity of the ratings gradually declined, only breaking 1 when the first episode was premiered, and the follow-up was continuous, from 0.67 to the third period to 0.65.
In fact, it is not that this session of netizens has become harsh, but the public no longer buys the emerging technology easily.
Although the heat of the Huazhibing incident has passed, its impact continues to ferment. In essence, Huazhibing Video is just a figurative display of Xiaoice framework X Studio and X Avatar technology, with the purpose of letting the public better understand the Xiaoice three-dimensional virtual person hyper-realistic short video production line. However, due to the high expectations of the public for AI technology, cognitive bias has occurred.
It is worth noting that although young people do not buy into virtual digital people, it does not prevent virtual people from entering the workplace. For example, carrying Shenzhou XII, a digital astronaut and digital journalist who arrived at the space station with three astronauts, took users to roam the three major space stations. In addition, Shang Xiaomei, the first virtual employee of Shangmei Life, "Chief Digital Manager", is responsible for exploring how to "let everyone live in a good hotel in any time and space".
In essence, the explosion of virtual digital people is certainly indispensable to the vigorous pursuit of capital. With the entry of startups and large factories, financing events continue to occur, and virtual digital people will become the next outlet. In fact, although capital is optimistic, it is not easy for virtual digital people to gain the favor of young people.
Virtual digital people can't go abroad?
Compared with the small fights of domestic virtual digital people, foreign countries have even built "digital kitchens".
At the GTC held on the 2nd time in 2021, the international graphics technology giant Nvidia once again used fake technology to deceive the eyes of everyone. It was reported that this time, not only the speaker CEO Huang Jenxun was a virtual person, but even the kitchen behind him was fake. From marble counters, to neoclassical niche ovens, to signature spatula bouquets, none of them are real.
The dynamic virtual environment "Digital Kitchen" created through the Omniverse platform is eye-catching. In the documentary, it can be seen that Huang Jen-hoon "disintegrated" with the kitchen and turned into a digital module, and then "restructured" Huang Jen-hoon appeared in another background to continue his speech.
But in fact, according to NVIDIA's blog, at the 1-hour and 48-minute press conference, the "digital person" only appeared for 14 seconds. And according to the understanding, in just a dozen seconds of video, a total of 34 3D artists and 15 software engineers participated in the collaboration, a total of nearly 1,000 man-hours, and a total of 21 versions were produced before and after. Obviously, the presentation of this effect consumes a lot of manpower and material resources, and it takes a long time, but from a technical point of view, it is indeed a huge breakthrough in the field of images.
In recent years, the global virtual technology market has increased significantly, but in the layout of virtual people, the focus of countries is also different.
According to data from the Head Leopard Research Institute, the virtual digital person market size will reach 200 billion yuan in 2022 and is expected to reach nearly 300 billion yuan in 2025, of which identity virtual people will dominate in the future development. According to Research And Markets research, the global virtual technology market size is expected to reach $504.76 billion by 2028.
Judging from the development status of virtual digital people, compared with service-oriented virtual people, the identity virtual people with stronger monetization ability are more mature. Especially in the United States, the focus is on creating virtual IP in terms of application. There are also Asian countries such as Japan and South Korea that are mainly in the field of culture and entertainment, mainly to create two-dimensional and entertainment idols. European countries are more about serving the emotional aspect, and the scene focuses on medical rehabilitation, care and companionship.
The most popular virtual market in China is also a virtual idol, whether from the technical focus or business tendencies, it is clear that virtual IP is still the focus of development. Dating back to 2001, the appearance of Qingna was recognized by the public as the earliest virtual idol in China. But for a long time afterwards, the development of virtual idols did not make significant progress, until the emergence of Luo Tianyi, which broke the deadlock.
But it is clear that it is too late, and the development of foreign virtual idols has been far ahead. The situation of virtual IP is obviously not good, but it does not prevent domestic virtual IP from mushrooming. At the same time, identity-type virtual people are also vigorously promoted by major platforms, and virtual anchors, virtual customer service, virtual teachers, navigation guides, etc. have appeared.
Behind the seeming prosperity, in fact, it cannot escape the industry differences brought about by the technological gap. Identity-type virtual digital people can only be used for content production and simple interaction features, and it is not yet possible to realize virtual digital people to provide services such as consultants, care, companionship, and transaction processing in specific care scenarios or even generalized interactions.
All in all, whether it is a virtual idol or a service-oriented virtual digital person, there is still a lot of room for development, and nowadays, it is still too early for virtual people to want to mix well in the workplace.