“Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily”, April 16 (Reporters Huang Xinyi and Zhu Ling) At 6:18 this evening, Liu Qiangdong's “Digital Man” made his live broadcast debut on the JD marketing live broadcast room.

“Jingdong supermarkets are just cheap, so brush up on Dongge's reviews!”

“Link to 500 single cent popcorn...”

“Get ready to grab the red envelopes!”

During the live broadcast, Liu Qiangdong's digital counterpart fluently introduced products such as corn and steak, and carried out physical raffles such as Maotai and red envelopes.

Industry analysts told the “Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily” reporter that the traditional e-commerce model is already facing growth bottlenecks, and JD is already lagging behind when it comes to live streaming e-commerce tracks. Using virtual live streaming e-commerce as an entry point is an opportunity for JD to surpass live streaming tracks such as Douyin and Kuaishou.

It is worth mentioning that recently, JD has applied for registration of trademarks such as “Lao Liu Special”, “Youjing Household Products”, and “Round Head Price”. The international classification involves advertising sales, clothing, shoes, hats, etc. The current state of the trademarks is awaiting substantive review.

▍ The cost of a digital person is less than 1/10 of a live broadcast

At 6:18, the “Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily” reporter saw on the two live broadcasts of Jingdong Supermarket Sales and JD Home Appliance Sales that Liu Qiangdong's digital split was online at the same time.

On the JD supermarket procurement live broadcast, Liu Qiangdong's “Digital Man” recalled when starting his business, “Sitting here today, I have to admire how fast time has passed. In a blink of an eye, JD has been established for over 20 years. When JD first started e-commerce, online shopping was just on the rise. There were very few products to choose from, and there were still many fakes and poor quality products. I founded JD to make the products everyone can buy convenient, fast, and cheap, and to guarantee the quality of the products.”

Next, he began to bring the goods. “Today's live broadcast mainly I want to talk to everyone about my diet adjustments over the past few years, and also recommend some healthy foods that I eat myself and usually make at home, and share with you a healthy way to eat.”

He first recommended a cereal, “When it comes to cooking at home, we have to start talking about three meals a day. First, Brother Dong talked to everyone about breakfast. As the saying goes, eat enough early, eat well in the afternoon, and eat less in the evening. The status of breakfast is self-evident. I usually choose milk cereal and add blueberries. This is nutritious, low in calories, and very comfortable to eat.”

Meanwhile, during the JD Home Appliance and Home Furnishing Sales live broadcast, Liu Qiangdong's “Digital Man” greeted everyone “Long time no see, I'm your sales manager” and said he is looking forward to the European Cup with everyone.

The first thing he introduced was a 75-inch television. He said, “This TV is a new product that just went on sale in March of this year. Not only does it look great, but it is also full of content. Whether it's picture quality, sound quality or intelligent configuration, they are the best in the industry.”

Liu Qiangdong's “digital person” also operates a mobile phone from time to time during the delivery process to respond to messages.

According to the Jingdong Yunyanxi team, this time, the AI digital person “purchased and sold” is an AI-driven digital person with a large posture. The types include audio-visual material for speeches and daily conversations.

Judging from the live broadcast results, the big model of Yan Sai captured and presented Liu Qiangdong's habitual expressions and movements, such as occasionally rubbing his fingers while speaking, coordinating with larger hand movements when emphasizing something, and nodding his head from time to time.

In terms of voice training, Dongge Digital Man also restored his pronunciation habits, such as speaking fast, spitting words lightly, and continuous reading of some words.

However, compared to real people, Dongge's digital voice tone is relatively bland and less emotional. After noticing the anomaly, an unaware audience popped up and asked: Is this AI? Is it a robot?

▍ JD boosts content e-commerce behind “Dongge” delivery

This is not the first time that Digital Man has brought goods live on JD. During the Spring Festival this year, Yanxi Digital People brought more than 40 million yuan in total GMV, and the idle time conversion rate increased by more than 30%.

According to JD, compared to live anchors, the cost of JD Yanxi Digital Human is less than 1/10. The fastest broadcast is two hours, and the live broadcast can be broadcast 24 hours a day without interruption. Currently, JD Yunyanxi Digital People has served more than 4,000 brands.

This time, Liu Qiangdong's digital image appeared on the JD procurement and marketing live broadcast room, which to a certain extent attracted a larger market popularity for digital people to bring goods live. At the same time, it also further paves the way for JD's content e-commerce strategy.

Last week, JD announced that it will increase the construction of a content ecosystem, invest more than 1 billion yuan in cash and 1 billion dollars in traffic as rewards, and will not be capped, with the aim of attracting outstanding creators and organizations to enter. JD is also actively preparing to incubate leading talents, and plans to select the top 100 talents by the end of the year. However, the amount of money spent on the reserve expert stage alone is already hundreds of millions of yuan.

Zhang Yi, CEO and chief analyst of Ai Media Consulting, told the “Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily” that JD has been working on the digital live streaming circuit for many years and has been working secretly. However, Liu Qiangdong's live streaming debut this time was an important opportunity for him to enter the live e-commerce business and catch up with Douyin and Kuaishou.

“For JD, traditional e-commerce molding is already facing growth bottlenecks. How to break through the bottleneck next? There is no doubt that from the perspective of the entire market, live e-commerce is the newest model. However, from an objective point of view, if JD does live e-commerce like Douyin and Kuaishou, then it is following suit; there aren't many opportunities. In this context, JD must not only catch up with each other, but also surpass each other. The point of catching up with each other is live e-commerce. The move to surpass the other party is to do virtual live e-commerce. This may be an opportunity for JD.”

▍ Virtual human-driven industrial market size is expected to exceed 600 billion

In addition to JD, Baidu, TikTok, etc. have also seen opportunities for digital live streaming. Baidu e-commerce has launched the self-developed “AI full-stack digital live streaming solution” Huibao Star. Ping Xiaoli, vice president of Baidu and general manager of Baidu e-commerce, believes that digital people have become a new variable in the live e-commerce industry. The biggest advantage of digital people compared to real people is that they have drastically reduced the operating costs of live streaming for merchants, and can start broadcasting 24 hours a day, leading to incremental GMV.

According to foreign media reports on April 12, TikTok is also developing an AI-based virtual digital human function to better help e-commerce platform merchants promote and sell. Sources said that TikTok has tested this AI feature internally, but it is still in the early stages, and it is uncertain when it will go live.

According to iiMedia Research (iiMedia Consulting) data, in 2022, China's virtual human-driven industry market size and core market size were 18.61 billion yuan and 12.08 billion yuan respectively, and are expected to reach 640.27 billion yuan and 48.06 billion yuan respectively in 2025. There is a large commercial space in the virtual anchor industry, including sales of derivative products, brand endorsements, work appreciation, live streaming delivery, etc. In the future, 36.7% of respondents will be more willing to spend on virtual anchors. With the release of ChatGPT and “A Word from the Heart”, it is possible to combine natural language generation technology based on deep learning with virtual humans. It is expected that the level of intelligence of virtual humans will be greatly improved, and it will be effective in applications in various fields, such as the field of live streaming delivery, which can help achieve 24-hour barrier-free communication with customers.

“Looking at the industry as a whole, there aren't many barriers to digital human applications anymore.” Zhang Yi said, “Especially after experiencing multiple waves of market education such as the metaverse and AI empowerment, the entire industry has the opportunity and space to explode both at the technical level and in terms of market acceptance. “Currently, there are still many application scenarios for digital people. Digital entertainment, corporate endorsements, digital employees, live e-commerce, etc. are all widely used.”

Editor/jayden