Liu Qiangdong's AI live broadcast debut virtual digital human is a "superhead" alternative?

In order to do a live broadcast, Jingdong invited Liu Qiangdong. On April 15, JD.com announced that Liu Qiangdong, founder and chairman of the board of directors of JD.com, would "become" an AI digital human "Procurement and Sales Dongge" live broadcast on JD.com. Nowadays, many "clones" of celebrities and head anchors are active in live broadcast rooms and live broadcast slice accounts, and the "substitutes" created by technology are not rare. Compared with real people, digital humans have low cost, fast replication, 24-hour "standby", and can continue the anchor traffic. On the contrary, it is difficult for digital avatars to establish an emotional connection with users like real people, and live streaming requires anchors and consumers to communicate and connect. How big is the imagination space of the AI live broadcast format?

The boss "doppelganger" live broadcast

After throwing money at it, Jingdong moved in to rescue the soldiers. On the evening of April 15th, JD.com announced that JD.com's "No. 1 Procurement and Sales" Dongge AI digital human will start a live broadcast. It is understood that at 6:18 p.m. on April 16, the AI digital human "Dongge" based on Liu Qiangdong will make its debut in the Jingdong procurement and sales live broadcast room. At that time, "Procurement and Sales Dongge" will appear in the live broadcast room of Jingdong Home Appliances and Jingdong Supermarket. According to JD.com's public content, the video is powered by JD.com.

Not long ago, JD.com announced that it would invest 1 billion yuan in cash and 1 billion traffic as rewards to attract more original creators and high-quality content institutions to settle in and increase the layout of short videos. Specific to content creators, Jingdong revealed that the platform will subsidize talents in multiple subdivisions such as 3C digital and home appliances, and also plans to select the "Top 100 Talents" at the end of the year.

In fact, from increasing short videos to the founder's "clone" personally going live broadcast, JD.com's thirst for content is becoming more and more obvious. Especially in the case of live broadcast veterans such as Douyin and Kuaishou, and Taobao and Pinduoduo making efforts to segment traffic through short videos, JD must change the passive situation of the content ecology. Last year's "Double 11", the Jingdong procurement and sales live broadcast room of "no pit fees, no talent commissions" was played, and in the public opinion field of shouting Li Jiaqi, the cost-effective character was established. Now Liu Qiangdong's AI clone will be broadcast live in the live broadcast room of JD's procurement and marketing, which once again delays the trend of JD's procurement and marketing to create popularity.

E-commerce analyst Lu Zhenwang believes that the trick of "Liu Qiangdong's AI doppelganger live broadcast" may not be just a move of JD.com, but may be part of JD.com's content ecological combination. Jingdong has a large number of self-operated products, it is difficult to hire a large number of anchors to explain, and the cost is also high.

Who is "liberated" by digital people

With the blessing of technology, digital humans have grown from scratch, and there is a trend of liberating manpower in individual industries. Who has been liberated, and how much benefit can it bring? Users are still sorting out the answers.

According to a reporter from Beijing Business Daily, in 2022, Taobao, Douyin and other platforms have used AI intelligent live broadcast as a marketing tool, and even set up ports for AI intelligent live broadcast alone.

In the eyes of industry insiders, digital human live broadcast is indeed a "good business that saves time and effort". Li Miao (pseudonym), the person in charge of Douyin's local life service provider "Big Fish Life", told a reporter from Beijing Business Daily that although the conversion efficiency of digital humans is very low, it is better because the threshold for replication is low. "We sell a system to merchants that has features such as fixed speech settings, unlimited background switching, and real-time interaction. ”

In Li Miao's view, the live broadcast of digital humans has long working hours and covers a wide range of fields, even if the transaction rate in the live broadcast room is lower than that of the real anchor, but once it is rolled out to form a matrix-style large-scale communication, the income is still considerable. "Digital people don't need to rest, and they are very cheap, and many businesses will use them in self-broadcasting. Li Miao said.

Compared with the high cost and lack of stability of high-quality live anchors, digital humans can fill the blank time of live broadcast after the live broadcast of real people, realize the continuous exposure of the brand on the platform, accelerate the weight increase of the live broadcast room, and increase sales. At the same time, digital humans can also avoid negative public opinion caused by slips of the tongue during live broadcasts.

In July last year, Taobao's head anchor Lie'er Baby appeared in the live broadcast room with 6 digital people in a live broadcast to bring goods, although the makeup and styling of the digital people are different, they are all based on Lie'er Baby. In May last year, Douyin released the "Douyin Platform Specification and Industry Initiative on AI-Generated Content (hereinafter referred to as the "Digital Human Industry Initiative"), which clearly opened up AI-generated pictures, videos, and derived virtual human live broadcasts.

Zhao Zhenying, a researcher at the National Engineering Laboratory for E-commerce Transaction Technology, pointed out that to a certain extent, digital twins can effectively reduce the risk of live broadcast for merchants and reduce the cost of live broadcast for merchants. "The most important thing is that the digital human fits the anchor himself in terms of image, tone and speech, and to a certain extent, it is also continuing the anchor's traffic. ”

Unlimited Copy≠ Unlimited Wealth

Replicating real anchors requires technology and addresses the psychological expectations of consumers.

Similar to AI digital human live broadcast, live broadcast slicing and other methods also take advantage of the IP effect of the anchor, by copying the anchor's real body, editing the live broadcast footage, and opening an account with the anchor's name to grab traffic and seek conversion. Live broadcast organizations represented by Three Sheep Network and Wuwu Media have also started the business of authorizing live broadcast slice accounts. According to public information, in 2022, the slicing and delivery revenue of the Three Sheep Network will reach 170 million yuan, and a total of more than 11,000 people will be authorized.

The drawbacks of content replication are already beginning to emerge. When more and more authorized people pour into the slicing track, most of the accounts that can earn "overhead" traffic dividends are a group of accounts that entered the game earlier. Short videos seem to be simply copied and edited, but in fact, there are many requirements and few conversions. In addition, the platform also does not want to see a large number of non-original videos piled up, which affects the user's perception. Large and small slice accounts have also exacerbated the difficulty of managing live broadcast institutions. Taking the current situation of live streaming as a reference, the content setting, account management, traffic monetization, and even profit sharing of AI digital human live broadcast are all starting from scratch, and they will also face similar problems. Low-cost leverage traffic can quickly start from scratch, but long-term needs to rely on supervision and mechanism.

These business models built with low-cost replication logic, although they are fast in efficiency, do not mean that every consumer buys it. In March this year, Zhu Zixiao did not say a word in the live broadcast room, and "chicken feet gnawed from morning to night" was on the top of the Weibo hot search. The cutout technology can embed the eating and broadcasting videos of Internet celebrities into the live broadcast room, although it liberated Zhu Zixiao himself, but it made many users feel deceived and mistakenly thought that Zhu Zixiao was a live broadcast.

"Compared with the self-broadcast of merchants, the live broadcast of talent emphasizes more on character design and content, and forms a spiritual and emotional connection with fans, so it can explain why some talents are not highly converted, but fans are very sticky. A business executive of a leading live broadcast platform pointed out to a reporter from Beijing Business Daily.

To a certain extent, this also means that whether it is an AI digital human or a copy of the live broadcast screen of the talent in the form of a slice, it is difficult to truly replace the emotional identity generated by real people when they interact with fans in real time in the live broadcast room, and the incremental basis of the "replica" is based on the long-term precipitation of the talent and the live broadcast organization.

In addition, not all categories are suitable for robot live broadcasting, and it is still difficult for AI live streaming to achieve large-scale popularization. Lu Zhenwang believes that for example, 3C digital and other highly functional products, AI live broadcast can solve the consultation needs of some users, but the attraction of live broadcast lies in the interaction between real people and fans.

"The most unknown thing about AI digital human live broadcast is how many people will be able to accept this format. Imagine when people buy headphones and see AI Liu Qiangdong introducing, buying TV is also AI Liu Qiangdong live broadcast, and it is inevitable that you will get tired after watching it for a long time. Lu Zhenwang said.

Zhao Zhenying also mentioned that in order to get stable traffic in the live broadcast room, the interaction of real people is still indispensable. Although Liu Qiangdong's personal image is a traffic bonanza, for JD Live, this live broadcast IP needs a richer core.

Beijing Business Daily reporter He Qian Qiao Xinyi