Previously, Vanke Group announced Cui Xiaopan, the winner of the 2021 Best Newcomer Award, and showed off the employee's photos. Once published, it quickly became popular on the Internet and successfully "out of the circle". What made Cui Xiaoshang "famous" was not her handsome and elegant appearance, but her identity - a digital virtual employee.
Coincidentally, at the "2022 Jiangsu Satellite TV New Year's Eve Concert", the live singer and "Terma Teng" presented with virtual technology made a lot of gimmicks. In the two-dimensional circle, virtual idols represented by Hatsune Miku became famous. After experiencing the "house collapse" incident of a group of real idols, they have gained unprecedented market attention. Under this trend, many brands have used virtual human IP as image carriers to give them huge commercial value in consumption scenarios.
The emergence of virtual employees, virtual idols, and virtual brand spokespersons has accelerated the development of the digital industry to a certain extent. What is the significance of these virtual people in reality and to what extent can they replace real people? Will virtual human IPs frequently "out of the circle" be the next trend? Let’s see the reporter analyze it for you.
virtual people are not illusory digital economy blue ocean surging Tsinghua virtual female academic master Hua Zhibing , Douyin beauty expert Liu Yexi, Xinhua News Agency AI virtual female anchor... More and more virtual digital people are entering our lives. Source: People's Posts and Telecommunications Reviewed by: Zhang Zhihua Deng Jinglong Editor: Pei Liyan Liu Ying
In recent years, the virtual digital human industry has shown a rapid growth trend. Qixinbao data shows that from 2020 to 2022, the number of virtual human-related enterprises has shown a rapid growth trend. Among them, 36,080 new virtual digital person-related companies were added in 2020, and by 2021, this number became 66,293. Up to now, the number of domestic virtual digital person-related companies has exceeded 160,000.
At the same time, the economic scale of the virtual digital human industry is also expanding rapidly, showing strong strength to drive the development of the digital economy. At the beginning of 2022, there were nearly 100 financings in the field of virtual digital people, with a financing amount of 411 million yuan. At the "2022 Jiangsu Satellite TV New Year's Eve Concert", virtual digital man Teresa Teng appeared on the stage to sing with popular singers, causing the stock price of Digital Kingdom, one of the virtual reality (VR) experience service providers behind it to rise by 25%. Subsequently, the capital market responded to the news. On the first trading day of A-shares in 2022, the virtual digital human sector set off a wave of daily limit increases.
Take virtual anchors in the sub-track of virtual digital people as an example, the revenue of virtual anchors on Bilibili increased from 7.62 million yuan in January 2020 to over 50 million yuan in November 2021, and the number of paid people increased from 70,000 to over 250,000 during the same period. The "2021 Virtual Digital Human In-depth Industry Report" released by the technology media Quantum Bit predicts that by 2030, the overall market size of my country's virtual digital humans will reach 270 billion yuan.
Virtual digital human refers to a comprehensive product that exists in the non-physical world, created and used by computer means such as computer graphics, graphics rendering, motion capture, deep learning, and speech synthesis, and has multiple human characteristics (appearance characteristics, human performance abilities, human interaction abilities, etc.). It is also commonly referred to as virtual image, virtual person, digital person, etc. on the market. Representative subdivided applications include virtual assistant, virtual customer service, virtual idol/anchore, etc. At present, virtual digital people mainly exist in electronic screens through pictures, videos, live broadcasts, real-time animations, etc., such as APPs, mini programs, and integrated software and hardware display devices. In the future meta universe, VR devices and holographic projection will also become its important way of existence.
Virtual digital humans are a typical multi-technical comprehensive product. The rapid development of computer graphics and AI core technologies, and the common maturity of related technologies such as CG, speech recognition, image recognition, motion capture, etc. have laid the foundation for high-quality, efficient and large-scale virtual digital human content production. In addition to the category of CG modeling﹢ real-person driven, multimodal technology and deep learning are also its core points.
Why can virtual digital people burst out with such powerful development potential energy in a short period of time? On the one hand, it is attributed to the rapid maturity of technology, and on the other hand, it is also a more important reason. The massive demand for the to B and to C ends in the Metaverse era. Virtual digital people are favored by enterprises because compared with the risks that real spokespersons may bring, virtual digital people are safer and more reliable, and virtual digital people are the company's own digital assets. The returns on their output after input will never be lost, and the company's digital assets will continue to increase.
In the to C market, the greatest commercial value of virtual digital people lies in their strong scale and replicability capabilities. With the arrival of the metaverse, virtual digital people will become the "facade" of ordinary users in the metaverse, and the virtual digital people market generated by this demand will show an unprecedented scale.
5G﹢AI breaks the virtual human dimension wall to release multiple IP values "A virtual beauty expert who can catch monsters" is the platform introduction of Liu Yexi, the "Internet celebrity" of Douyin. On October 31, 2021, Liu Yexi released a short video titled "Now, you can see the world I see," and this video became a hot search, with more than 3 million likes. As of now, Liu Yexi's Douyin account has only released 8 works, with more than 24 million likes and more than 8.6 million fans. What is different from the "phenomenal" virtual IP and the "top stream" Hatsune Miku, the "Premier" of the second-dimensional virtual idol, is that Liu Yexi is a 2.5-dimensional image design, which is located between the two-dimensional anime image and the three-dimensional real-world character image. Her videos combine cyberpunk and fantasy ancient scenes, satisfying millions of viewers' imagination of "meta universe", and are jokingly called "meta universe blogger" by netizens.
Virtual digital people like Liu Yexi (hereinafter referred to as "virtual people") have always been considered a niche subculture category because they are mostly two-dimensional images. The "popularity" of this type of IP is more like the pursuit of young people and the self-carnival of small circles. However, with the rise of the Z generation of "post-95s" and "post-00s", virtual people have now broken out of the niche culture category and shown a trend of popularization and breaking the circle. At the 2021 CCTV Spring Festival Gala, the domestic virtual "singer" Luo Tianyi made a surprise appearance. This cooperation of "breaking the dimension wall" means that virtual people have officially entered the vision of mainstream media.
At present, virtual people have shifted from the user cultivation stage to the stage of broadly expanding their business value, and pursue IP-based operations. Liu Yexi, who has 8.663 million fans, began to have advertisements embedded in the latest short video, and since then her path to selling goods has quietly begun. Like real-life KOLs, virtual characters cannot avoid the link of selling goods, which is also the most intuitive and effective way for them to realize the commercial value of IP. At present, due to the frequent "fallback" of real idols and internet celebrities, brand partners have a headache. Relatively speaking, virtual idols have higher safety factors and stronger commercial sustainability. At the same time, shaping virtual idols and creating virtual IPs also solves the problem of MCN companies' long-term and stable holding of specific IPs and idols. It is precisely because of the urgent need of the market that a number of characters such as Liu Yexi, AYAYI, Luo Tianyi, Ling Ling, and A-SOUL were born.
Virtuals can obtain high traffic and be sought after by capital. In addition to being closely related to the preferences, market demand, security, etc. of young consumers, they also benefit from technological progress. Virtual human is a deep synthesis technology. Based on AI and 5G, the entire body and limb movements of the human body are digitized and visually "copy" in all aspects, and ultimately realize the precise simulation and construction of people in real life in the digital world. Simply put, it is to use AI﹢5G to build a "digital twin" of real people. With the rapid development of digital technologies such as artificial intelligence , virtual reality , virtual reality , virtual people are getting closer and closer to reality, virtual people actors and virtual people anchors are coming to life, and the digital economy is further integrated with the real economy, which provides a broader market space for virtual people to release IP value.
In the virtual human market, the virtual idol IP industry is more mature and diversified, and 5G﹢VR technology has brought new development opportunities to the virtual idol IP industry.Previously, Migu Video and Japanese NTT DoCoMo jointly hosted the world's first 5G﹢VR China-Japan cross-border concert. With the support of 5G network, the latest motion capture technology has achieved "zero delay" cross-border interaction between Chinese and Japanese audiences. Combined with the exclusive VR perspective, it has presented an unparalleled surreal audio-visual feast to fans, and used "new technology ﹢ big data" to bring more personalized interactive experiences to the audience.
From Hatsune Miku to A-SOUL, from virtual "singer" to VTuber, with the continuous upgrading of artificial intelligence technology, virtual idols are breaking through the dimensional wall and receiving more and more widespread attention. At the same time, virtual people have entered the stage of rational development. Under the premise that technologies such as AI, AR, holographic imaging, and motion capture are constantly developing, their products are more segmented and their models are more mature. In the future, they will enter the public's vision with more diverse attitudes, and continuously release IP commercial value in cooperation with various brands, colliding with different marketing sparks.
The meta-universe has not reached virtual people first With the development and maturity of 5G, artificial intelligence, virtual reality and other technologies, various industries have begun to explore the field of virtual digital people (hereinafter referred to as "virtual people"). The popular "metauniverse" in 2021 has pushed the virtual world to the forefront. Are we really going to enter the virtual world? Will virtual people replace real people in the future? In what areas will virtual people appear?
In fact, while we are still curious about the future application scenarios of virtual people, a group of virtual people represented by Liu Yexi have already "gained countless fans" on various social platforms. Whether it is brand marketing, character idols, or commercial promotion, these virtual characters have entered our daily lives.
In the just past 2021, Hua Zhibing, who was wearing ponytails and white shoes on the Tsinghua University campus, just started his study and research career in the computer department laboratory; Xia Yubing, who held a solo exhibition at the Central Academy of Fine Arts, let more people realize the virtual world; turn on the music player to listen to the digital music of virtual hip-hop singers; virtual characters who are working as sign language anchors at the Beijing Winter Olympics ...
I have to say that in the near future, more "figures" of virtual characters will appear in our lives. In the field of games, role-playing (RPG) games may become the place where virtual characters appear the most because they pay more attention to character mechanism settings. As the "water seller" in the virtual world, the game engine is expected to break the circle and help more virtual people in the industry create.
In terms of idol star creation, virtual people may also usher in a "big explosion". Liu Yexi is a very representative figure. Hyperreal virtual people can achieve high-intensity restoration of real people in terms of skin texture, and can make corresponding simulations and renderings based on different light and shadow conditions. At the same time, hyperrealistic virtual people are not limited to simple singing and dancing, but have more comprehensive functions and even interact with real people.
In the field of brand marketing, the virtual spokesperson market space is huge, and the commercial value release field is diversified. At the same time, the virtual spokesperson has a deep insight into the new consumption needs of Generation Z and helps the brand break the circle. External operational virtual people prefer traffic guidance, effectively promoting the application of live streaming and product-promoting scenarios. Liu Yexi became popular on the video platform and was labeled as "a virtual beauty expert who can catch monsters". At present, many domestic commercial brands have reached cooperation with Liu Yexi and achieved good publicity results.
In the tourism industry, especially in museums, cultural and tourism attractions, Chinese traditional culture is being carried forward. All parts of the scenic spot, guides serving tourists have become important application scenarios for virtual characters. In traditional scenes, the guide not only introduces the stories of cultural relics to tourists, but also plays the role of the guide to take care of the daily life of every tourist. This not only consumes huge manpower and material resources, but also increases more uncertainty. If virtual people are applied to the cultural and tourism industry, we only need to set corresponding trigger points at each cultural relics and attractions. When tourists touch or approach the corresponding scene, virtual people will come out to provide "services" to tourists.
More virtual "tools" people will appear in future life scenes.Not long ago, the first AI sign language anchor of the Taiwan Station created by CCTV News and Baidu Smart Cloud officially debuted. During the Beijing Winter Olympics, he was determined to "use technology to overcome the obstacles of sound this winter." The short-haired woman in a white suit dress, with a friendly and natural appearance and elegant temperament can provide the audience with professional and accurate sign language explanations after a long period of intelligent learning. The sign language vocabulary and specifications she mastered all come from the National Common Sign Language Dictionary. From the Beijing Winter Olympics, she will report on hearing-impaired groups all year round.
Will virtual humans replace humans? Let’s press the answer first, but it can be foreseeable that as the embodiment of a better "person", this will give full play to the advantages of digital basics and will go further and further on the road of commercialization.
How long can the virtual human vent last? "Virtual Beauty Expert" Liu Yexi, "Fashion Blogger" AYAYI, "Tsinghua Talented Girl" Hua Zhibing, and virtual singers based on "Teres Teng as the prototype" and live-action duets... With the development of 5G, artificial intelligence, augmented reality, cloud rendering and other technologies, virtual characters from various tracks are constantly refreshing our understanding of the real world. With the help of the metaverse, with the support of various capital giants, the virtual digital person (hereinafter referred to as "virtual person") industry has once again been favored by the capital market, gradually entering multiple industries such as media, live broadcast, entertainment, and education, and has attracted countless fans with its unique charm.
What impact will the virtual people who amazed us have on our real life? Behind the capital's popularity with the digital virtual industry, we should also calm down and think about what changes will these popular virtual reality technology bring to our lives? To what extent can it replace humans? What other problems do we need to pay attention to and solve?
The realism, interactivity and diversity of virtual characters do give people constant surprises. They can not only stand on the stage to perform, but also have their own short video accounts, go to online social platforms to communicate with everyone, and even show up in the online live broadcast room to "bring goods" with real people. Shen Yang, executive director of the New Media Research Center of the School of Journalism and Communication, Tsinghua University, once analyzed that virtual people can be roughly divided into three categories: communication media, professional service value, and life companionship in terms of function and value. Virtual people have broad application space in many fields such as media, entertainment, government affairs, medical care, education, finance, and elderly care. It can be seen that with the continuous innovation of virtual technology, there will be room for virtual people to exert their value in all aspects of our lives.
Compared with real people, virtual people seem to be more "pure". Virtual people in the spotlight do not have complex emotional disputes, nor will there be "thunderstorms" incidents that are prone to real people's internet celebrities and celebrities. For brand owners, choosing virtual people as image spokespersons can indeed avoid a lot of public opinion risks.
At the same time, many professionals are also worried that as virtual people "invade" the workplace, will the "rice bowl" of people in the workplace be lost? In this regard, some industry insiders believe that the rise of virtual people does reflect the general trend of integration between the virtual world and the real world. Although the intelligence level of virtual people is expected to be further improved in the future, there is still a long way to achieve true integration. Information from the Intelligent Design and Machine Vision Research Office of the Shenzhen Advanced Technology Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences also shows that the technology of virtual humans is not mature enough. In addition to the high development costs and low modeling efficiency, the algorithm performance of virtual humans also needs to be improved.
In fact, in addition to the current technology and performance not enough to support virtual people to completely replace human labor, the virtual people market is also relatively inclined to immersive game entertainment and service industries. While bringing a full sense of technology and freshness to our lives, it will not directly threaten our employment. With the transformation and development of enterprises in the Internet and other industries, the significance of virtual people may not lie in replacing people's work.
It is worth noting that with the continuous maturity of virtual technology, the subsequent ethics and social problems are also intensifying.While we enjoy the dividends of technology, we must also avoid social phenomena such as virtual people's "face changes", over-immersed in virtual world characters and being depressed, and escaping real life. We must also be wary of virtual people's "feedback" of prejudice and maliciousness to humans during the learning process.
In the wave of innovation and development of digital virtual technology, only when social management, ethics and technological development are coordinated, and positive guidance and correct value guidance can virtual people and digital virtual markets have richer practical significance and better serve the real society.
