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Healthcare: Ant Group (蚂蚁集团) released its 2025 Sustainability Report on June 17, detailing the deployment of its native AI health application Ant Aifu (蚂蚁阿福, also branded AQ), whose user base surpassed 100 million by February and which serves more than 84 million users in third-tier and lower regions, with over 30 percent of users being middle-aged and elderly and 9.23 million cumulative interactions occurring between midnight and 6 a.m.; the application supports more than ten dialects including Cantonese and Hokkien and connects to over 5,000 mainland medical institutions while integrating 300,000 real doctors for online consultation. The most prominent feature is the doctor "AI avatar" (AI分身): by the end of 2025, nearly 2,000 doctors across China had opened AI avatars on Ant Aifu, covering more than 20 specialties and providing round-the-clock health consultation, led by six academicians of the Chinese Academy of Engineering including Liao Wanqing, a top authority in dermatology and mycology, and Dong Jiahong, vice dean of Tsinghua University School of Medicine; Duan Tao, chief physician of obstetrics and gynecology at Shanghai East Hospital, became one of the first to open an AI avatar in June 2025, and by the end of 2025 about 160,000 people had consulted his avatar on roughly 720,000 obstetric and gynecological questions, while the avatar lets him offload repetitive questions and surface drug-contraindication information he cannot fully memorize, with the final decision still made by the physician. Hangzhou sleep specialist Mao Hongjing, relying on the agent service, expanded from serving at most 10,000 patients a year to providing round-the-clock help to 3.68 million insomnia users across 342 cities in a single year, and the avatars cumulatively helped 150,000 doctors work more efficiently. In rural Guizhou, village doctors in Puan County of Qianxinan Buyi and Miao Autonomous Prefecture, including 68-year-old Zhang Qifang and 23-year-old Liu Tingting (the county's youngest village doctor), as well as Zhang Shengyi, use Ant Aifu as an auxiliary diagnostic tool—Zhang Qifang credited the AI with flagging a possible stroke risk in a dizzy, vomiting patient and recommending referral, averting a delay—while Hubei village doctor Hu Biao in Datanshu Village of Renheping Town, Wufeng County, Yichang, uses it to interpret check reports, reference drug dosages, and build electronic health records; Liu Tingting also downloaded the app for an illiterate 78-year-old woman who had taken the wrong pills, instructing her to photograph medications for voice-based guidance, and used the avatars of dermatology authorities to consult on a psoriasis case during her training. Ant Aifu also upgraded its "photograph the skin" function to identify over 100 skin conditions and launched a "doctor review" feature inviting tertiary-hospital doctors to verify the AI's analysis, the first domestic landing of an "AI Q&A plus doctor review" model; the application was among the first to receive the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology's "excellent" certification for personal information protection in medical AIGC products. Ant Group's 2025 R&D investment reached a record 35.03 billion yuan, and in basic models it open-sourced Ring-1T, described as the world's first trillion-parameter reasoning model, and LingBot-World, described as the world's first open-source world model, among embodied intelligence models including the Bailing model family and the Lingbo embodied base model. Separately, Ant Group launched an AI version of Alipay (支付宝) called "Abao" (阿宝). In Lianyungang, Donghai County People's Hospital (东海县人民医院), serving as the county medical community general hospital, deployed an AI smart guidance system whose "online intelligent customer service plus offline AI digital human" dual-track service mode and "Dongyi Wanshitong" AI digital human, alongside online pre-consultation AI doctors and offline expert "digital avatars," support dialect recognition and multimodal interaction to guide patients and auto-generate compliant medical records, while a "medical general artificial intelligence platform" introduced in Guangzhou supports each physician building a digital avatar. In Yichun, Heilongjiang Unicom built an AI digital human smart guidance system for the Yichun government relying on the DeepSeek large model and Unicom's Yuanjing model.

Sports and Live Events: Lenovo (联想集团), as the official technology partner and core technology sponsor of the 2026 FIFA World Cup hosted across 16 cities in the United States, Mexico, and Canada, delivered a 3D digital human visualization solution that generated high-precision digital human models for all 1,263 players across the 48 participating teams, with scanning conducted from June 2 to June 14 at each team's base camp, reaching a single-day peak of 235 players and as many as nine teams scanned in one day; each player's roughly one-second scan produced multiple photographs uploaded to the cloud for automated modeling taking about 2.5 hours per digital human plus roughly seven minutes of automated quality inspection, with 32 on-site operators trained in advance and the core team remotely monitoring scanning points. The 3D digital human technology, trained on hundreds of thousands of human-body data points and described as the first fully automatic generation of digital humans for over 1,200 real players, maps players' real-time movements onto their avatars to deliver "scalp-level" offside determinations integrated into the semi-automatic offside technology (SAOT) system; in the Argentina versus Algeria match, Lionel Messi's 3D digital human model appeared on the broadcast to render an offside ruling in three-dimensional animation, and Lenovo project leaders Zhang Xiaoyan (3D digital human visualization solution lead) and Wang Xun (fan experience technology lead) detailed the delivery, with FIFA calling it an "amazing achievement." Lenovo additionally provided the Football AI Pro (FIFA AI Pro) super agent—a generative AI tactical analysis platform integrating over 2,000 data indicators and millions of data points, offered free to all 48 teams and able to generate 3D virtual players for simulated tactical playback—as well as the referee-view AI video enhancement system, smart command center with digital twins of the 16 stadiums, smart navigation system, and Hologram interactive projection, deploying over 17,000 terminal devices with Motorola and 200 engineers. At Lenovo's 31-city carnivals, fans experienced the "digital human visualization solution" and "offside timing master" technology hands-on, and Lenovo joined Migu Video to launch a "World Cup prediction human-machine battle" mobilizing its Tianxi AI to convene eleven domestic large models including DeepSeek, Kimi, Baidu's Ernie Bot, and Tongyi Qianwen. Separately, Baidu's Yijing (百度一镜), in cooperation with Coca-Cola China, launched a real-time interactive digital human of former footballer Fan Zhiyi as a viewing companion with response latency under two seconds, restoring his voice, accent, expressions, and movements, available on the Coca-Cola China mini-program.

Film, Television, and Short Drama: Ruyi Pictures (儒意电影) reached a strategic cooperation with Tencent Cloud (腾讯云) at its 2026 strategy conference in Shanghai to build a digital human operation platform, dedicated digital human IP, and artist IP interactive platform for cinema operations spanning viewing services, store management, and operational decision-making, while its Ruyi AI Lab showcased a fully CG AI-assisted creative segment titled "Folding City"; Ruyi Pictures operates 714 directly managed cinemas with 6,179 screens. Hengxin Network (恺英网络) established a new AI content company, Moment Stream (时光川行), focused on integrated AI live-action short drama and AI manhua-drama production using a self-developed vertical video generation model, targeting character consistency, Chinese-language emotional lip-sync adaptation, digital human texture, and dynamic action generation. In Jiangsu's Yannan High-Tech Zone in Yancheng, the Changsanjiao (Yancheng) digital audiovisual industry base operates an AI short-video production workshop where 100 ultra-high-speed cameras capture 180 high-definition photos per second to build a digital human in three minutes, alongside an AI super-realistic digital human named "Yan Mengmeng" guiding viewers through the Yellow Sea wetland, AIGC works including the animated micro-drama "Great Song Meow Meow Chronicle" and AI singer Baize performing "The Smile of the Sea," and the OPC innovation community "Yanli Chaoti" supporting digital creators; the Shangbai Information cross-border e-commerce base runs a digital human live-streaming system supporting 1:1 real-person cloning and AI original anchor customization with 24-hour broadcasting that cut single-session operation costs 65 percent, partnering with brands including Midea and Little Swan, while SenseTime's (商汤科技) high-performance computing center anchors the local compute base. In Dujiangyan, the Qingcheng Smart Tourism Valley digital economy industrial park's AIGC creation center built 20 local digital IPs including Li Bing, Huarui, and Zhao Gongming, with the digital human "Huarui" appearing at the Dujiangyan village candy fair, and returning entrepreneur Chen Haidong used AI assistance to independently complete short-drama production. At the 22nd China International Cartoon and Animation Festival in Hangzhou, Shandong's exhibition area featured new animation projects and AIGC works, with Haier Group showcasing its full Haier Brothers IP lineup and virtual human photo experiences, and Doushen Animation presenting "Approaching Confucius" immersive VR. In Zhengzhou's Erqi District, a micro-drama industry meeting featured Weiguang Semiconductor demonstrating a one-stop AI solution covering scripts, digital humans, and intelligent editing.

E-commerce and Retail: JD.com (京东) staged the全网 first AI shopping live-stream gala, a roughly 90-minute "Cyber Gala" featuring classic IP digital humans including the Monkey King (Sun Wukong), the Haier Brothers, Three Squirrels, Afanti, and Ma Xiaotiao performing song, dance, comedy, and runway segments, drawing over 500 million全网 exposures and tripling brand sales; powered by JD's self-developed JoyStreamer digital human technology enabling real-time interaction (lottery, quizzes, red packets) and lip-sync, the gala required over a hundred rounds of review including fine-tuning the feathers on Feihe's digital human IP "He Xiaofei," and JD's AIGC content lead noted the lightweight, high-concurrency model and plans for monthly galas. JD also deployed smart robots at its JD MALL Shuangjing store in Beijing, including the Zhiyuan X2 humanoid robot for greeting and navigation loaded with a dedicated corpus, the Unitree Go2 quadruped robot dog connected to JoyInside navigation for guided shopping, and the Zhiyuan G2 robot for stocking with over 90 percent single-item shelving success. On the platform side, KaiChun (Lightnuts, 轻量坚果) under Hangzhou Boruizi Technology provides a self-developed AI content creation engine for e-commerce smart image, product set, and short-video generation, and Chandama (蝉妈妈) offers an AI selling-point extraction tool, AI live-streaming scripts, and AI virtual anchor customization for short video and live commerce.

Marketing and Enterprise: Datastory (数说故事) presented its Agent Enterprise strategy at its smart mobility forum in Chongqing, describing AI as "new-type labor" in the corporate directory and building the EntVerse plus Navi AI business decision management platform, while raising AI brand "mind share" measurement for Chinese automakers going global and detailing AI partners including AI SOL, AI MAX, and AI ACE; it co-released a GEO white paper with Chongqing University. Focus Technology's (焦点科技) "AI Maike" 4.0 generates compliant foreign-trade copy and has served over 6,000 enterprises, and at the Yangtze River Delta cross-border e-commerce expo in Wuxi, Jiangsu, the Wang Yuanji Foundry brand used AI data analysis to customize cookware for Southeast Asia while exhibitors deployed digital human live-streaming, with Nanjing Changji Power Technology using AI-generated equipment operation videos and online 3D factory tours to sell equipment to Turkey. Beijing's measures supporting industrial enterprises encourage consumer internet platforms to provide AI content generation, digital human live-streaming, and industrial virtual exhibition halls, and Beijing E-Town established a "sandbox approval" mechanism issuing the first digital-human pilot enterprise admission certificate, planning to review offline commercial performances featuring digital humans and treat robots and digital humans as performers. Huishang Group (合百集团) released a 3D digital IP "AI Xiaobai" with live-streaming, marketing, and customer-service applications, while Dongpeng Holding (东鹏控股) launched a virtual digital human named "Yiming." On the technology supply side, NetEase Yidun (网易智企-易盾) leads the domestic large-model content risk-control market with about 43.7 percent share, covering AIGC, agents, virtual humans, and short-drama scenarios, and Meituan's (美团) LongCat team open-sourced LongCat-Video-Avatar 1.5, an audio-driven video generation framework producing lip-synced avatar videos from a static image and audio, supporting real human, anime, and animal avatars.

Education and Cultural Preservation: Shanghai University's Shanghai Academy of Fine Arts and FuturX (向量涌现) jointly established the "Art Digital Thinking Joint Laboratory," described as the country's first platform focused on digitally extracting and inheriting the creative thinking of art masters; FuturX, which previously developed university-professor digital avatar projects such as "AI Teacher Bao," uses its self-developed FuturMind original thinking-extraction technology to build interactive digital avatars of masters' creative thinking,审美 judgment, and artistic concepts, with executive dean Jin Jiangbo framing it as a backup for traditional mentorship and founder Zhou Weijiang emphasizing reusable thinking systems; the lab plans to first model modern Chinese art masters and build an art-thinking exhibition hall with portable "thinking plug-ins." A school-enterprise "lip-teeth and lip-sound motion-capture database" was listed on the Shanghai Data Exchange, a Chinese vertical dataset focusing on voice, lip shape, facial micro-expression, and emotional speech linkage, built with participation from students of the Shanghai Film Art Academy's performance school and applicable to film virtual shooting, digital human production, animation dubbing, intelligent voice systems, and virtual customer service. In Jieyang, Jiexi County's education digital transformation pilot at Hepo Middle School used virtual human interaction and situational inquiry in AI-integrated teaching. The Smart Travel digital industrial park in Dujiangyan and the Yannan base both develop digital IP for cultural tourism, while Pucheng County in Fujian developed AI digital "new museum staff" modeled on historical figures Jiang Yan and Zhen Dexiu that explain collections and local history through natural-language interaction with over 500 daily interactions, alongside an AI paper-cutting interactive system.

Mobility and Consumer Devices: Honor's (荣耀) Honor 600 smartphone features "AI Avatar Live" (AI分身Live), which generates a Q-version animated figure from a single solo photo to dance and interact alongside the real person, part of its imaging and AI creative functions. Huawei's HUAWEI HiCar 7.0 platform enriches digital human services within its in-cabin and full-scenario mobility ecosystem.

Ethical Contexts and Risks: A growing wave of AI digital human "overbearing CEO" (霸总) accounts on Chinese short-video platforms targets middle-aged and elderly users, with the same AI-generated face appearing across at least eleven different accounts under names like "Jianhua," "Jianguo," and "Dongdong," delivering affectionate messages and marriage proposals to drive live-streaming tips, storefront带货, and matchmaking schemes; one video found 12,000 comments where elderly users disclosed their cities, retirement units, children's details, and home addresses, and industry insiders noted mature one-click digital human templates can replicate such figures for as little as 20 yuan per video under 30 seconds, prompting calls for platforms to strengthen AI-content recognition risk control under the 2025 national labeling rules for AI-generated content. Shangyin Fund (上银基金) warned of new AI financial fraud using AI face-swapping to impersonate bank customer managers, generate dynamic faces to bypass facial-recognition verification, and create "digital avatars" from stolen photos for identity fraud, with one case involving AI-forged audio-video of university counselors to extract training fees. In Guangdong, a man lost over 5 million yuan in a romance scam, and Shanxi police dismantled a black-market ring supplying social accounts to fraud groups, with warnings that virtual personas in online dating are difficult to distinguish. In the film industry, iQiyi's announcement of an "AI artist library" of over 100 stars triggered连夜 denials from Zhang Ruoyun, Yu Hewei, Li Yitong, and Wang Churan that they had signed any AI authorization, while official records show 41 names registered as "digital avatar performers" and companies including Yaoke Media and Yuxiao Media are pursuing AI digital artists; the actors' committee issued statements condemning unauthorized AI face-swapping, voice cloning, and use of footage to train models.

17 June News

Entertainment: The intersection of synthetic characters and the entertainment industry in China is undergoing significant transformation, with celebrity attitudes, AI digital doubles, and virtual performers all featuring prominently. Director Yu Baimei (俞白眉) spoke at the 2026 Beijing International Film Festival, predicting that AI could replace 60% of actors with insufficient acting skills by April 2026, while opposing the use of AI to replicate traditional films and warning about issues of individual will and contractual monopoly surrounding "AI actor digital doubles" and "AI artist libraries"; actor Wu Hankun (吴汉坤) echoed concerns about not wishing to license his face to third-party AI, as the appeal of performance comes from unique life experience and emotional input. The controversy over iQiyi's "AI artist library," reportedly with over a hundred artists' digital doubles entering it, ignited public debate, with studios for Zhang Ruoyun (张若昀) and Yu Hewei (于和伟) urgently denying authorization, and iQiyi founder Gong Yu (龚宇) commenting that real-life shooting may become "intangible cultural heritage" while suggesting AI could handle high-risk and redundant scenes; a survey of 1,334 people found 75.6% had watched AI films but 65.1% found them merely passable, with viewers citing empty expressions and unnatural images, contrasting AI's limitations against the real performances in works like the television drama "Dangerous Relationship" starring Sun Li and Wu Kang-jen. Actor Chen Kun (陈坤) was subject to a ninety-day rumor that he had been secretly replaced by a Japanese individual via "multimodal AI doubles," which originated from an audio distortion at London Fashion Week and which he dispelled with the remark "I'm still alive." In the AI short-drama and micro-drama sphere, China's COL Group (中文在线) and its streaming platform FlareFlow licensed footballer Neymar's likeness to create an AI-driven vertical micro-drama series of sixteen works including "The Way Back to Glory" timed to the World Cup, with the AI avatar of Neymar serving as protagonist across revenge dramas and science-fiction settings, announced at the APOS conference in Bali. SenseTime (商汤科技), through its Seko "creation-editing integrated" AI video intelligent-agent platform led by Wang Zibin and built on its self-developed Daily New Seko series models and over 40000P of domestic computing power, launched the SenseTime Seko Industrial Base in Shanghai's Xuhui Xi'an waterfront, hosting over twenty one-person-company (OPC) teams; creators such as Li Rang (a Nanjing Media College graduate whose AI micro-drama drew 150 million views and entered the Beijing International Film Festival AIGC section) and Xuebao Studio (雪宝工作室), whose "Nai Tuan" reached 4.5 billion plays and whose AI live-action drama "Wan Xin Ji" topped Douyin's AI drama chart, are featured among 750,000 super-creators and 800-plus enterprise users on the platform, which integrates ByteDance's Seedance and Kuaishou's Kling models; Shanghai Media Group's Shangshi Films collaborated with SenseTime Seko to produce the Shanghai-style premium AI live-action short drama "Wutong Ling" centered on the Wukang Building, and creators such as Hou Yuxiang of Yizhou Qianji are producing Shanghai-style cultural series themed on the Peace Hotel, while a 3.5-minute AI short film "Zombie Cleaner" by former train driver Liu Ziyu using Seedance 2.0 garnered tens of millions of overseas views. Bona Film Group's AI-deeply-involved feature film "Sanxingdui: Future Past" received a public screening license from the National Film Administration. In the AI short-drama market, the AI version of "Zhan Xian Tai" topped Douyin animation charts, "AI Puti" briefly led Red Fruit (红果) charts, and the daily AI short-drama investment spend surpassed 200 million yuan, with listed firms such as Huashu Media (华数传媒) and its metaverse virtual human Aijia (艾珈) unveiled at the Tenth China Internet Audiovisual Conference, Wuxian Media (无线传媒) developing an AI-based digital human interaction system and producing the micro-drama "Deng Ni San Qian Nian," Zhongshi Cartoon's (中南卡通) Su Dongpo AI digital human and AI manga premiere alongside its IP "The Story of Su Dongpo and Hangzhou," and CCTV's virtual figure "Xiao 8" produced by China Television Media's (中视传媒) subsidiary Zhongshi Beifang, all positioning themselves in the synthetic-character space. The actor Fan Zhiyi appeared in two World Cup brand contents, one a traditional Mengniu TVC and another a 24-hour AI digital human version embedded in a WeChat mini-program for Coca-Cola, built by Baidu (百度) using its Digital Human Innovation Business Department's technology and its Yijing (一镜) Agent platform, with a three-layer persona structure trained on public information about Fan Zhiyi, delivered over roughly one month and capable of replacing the proposal, star presence, and post-production stages of traditional advertising, following Baidu's earlier Luo Yonghao dual-digital-human livestream that generated 55 million yuan in sales using a 97,000-word AI-generated script driving 8,300 actions; Ruyi Films also reached a strategic cooperation with Tencent Cloud to build a digital-human operation platform and exclusive digital-human IP and artist IP interaction platform.

Marketing and E-commerce: Across the 2026 "618" shopping festival and broader commerce, AI digital humans and virtual hosts have become standard infrastructure for Chinese platforms and merchants. JD.com (京东) deployed its JoyStreamer digital human livestreaming service, which has cumulatively served over 70,000 merchants with first-quarter 2026 broadcast volume surging tenfold year-on-year, achieving over 70 million yuan in sales within four hours of opening with a sixfold increase in broadcasting merchants, alongside its "Jing Xiaozhi" AI customer service serving over a million merchants; on Taobao and Tmall (天猫), Alibaba's (阿里巴巴) Qianwen large model was fully integrated for conversational shopping with AI try-on and discount calculation, while Alimama's "AI Wanxiang" super-operation intelligent-agent engine and the "Sheng Yi Guan Jia" AI product offering AI agents for merchants, and ByteDance's Doubao integrated into Douyin commerce with "帮你选" functions. Qixin Group (齐心集团) operates a virtual digital human created from real-person imagery using AI algorithm-driven technology to replicate appearance, voice, and expression with lifelike interaction capabilities, and is associated with the virtual digital human and Tencent concept; Jincai Internet (金财互联) launched a digital virtual human and is tied to virtual digital human and blockchain concepts; Yaowang Technology (遥望科技) and Bo Yan Technology (博彦科技), Fei Tian Cheng Xin (飞天诚信), Heng Yin Technology (恒银科技), Xin Dian Software (新点软件), and Beijing Human Resources (北京人力) are all categorized under the virtual digital human concept with various government, financial, and recruitment-oriented digital human deployments, with Xin Dian Software promoting government service intelligent agents and digital humans in Jiangsu, Shanghai, and Guangzhou for online consultation, hall guidance, and self-service interaction. The Fujian Provincial Consumer Council warned that AI virtual hosts and AI digital humans now enable round-the-clock livestreaming but increase consumer difficulty in distinguishing authenticity, noting that AI digital humans often display vacant eyes, overly regular movements, mismatched lip-sync, and template-like responses, while a digital-human livestreaming provider quoted hourly rates as low as 12 yuan. Wanxing Technology (万兴科技) is building an all-in-one global AI video platform integrating its Tianmu self-developed model, the Yunfan Zhixiao digital human system based on AI Agent technology for 24/7 intelligent customer service and private-domain sales, and short-drama production tools.

Sports and Events: The 2026 World Cup served as a major showcase for Chinese virtual-being and digital-human technology, with Lenovo (联想集团) as the sole official FIFA technology partner providing a suite of AI solutions. Lenovo's 3D digital human visualization scheme generated high-precision one-to-one digital avatars for all 1,248 participating players through 3D scanning and generative AI, trained on hundreds of thousands of human body data sets, used in offside replays and integrated into broadcast feeds to tighten offside judgment from 5 centimeters to 1 centimeter and enable hair-level offside determination viewable from 360 degrees; this marked the first time "digital twins" were a formal component of a global sporting event's refereeing system. Lenovo also provided the Football AI Pro super intelligent agent offering tactical analysis to all 48 teams, the referee-view AI video enhancement system reducing motion distortion by about 50 percent, an intelligent guidance system using stadium digital twins, and intelligent operations including AI-generated daily reports, with project officials Wang Xun and Hu Guanzhong, and global spokesperson David Beckham appearing at Lenovo's World Cup carnival across 31 cities, while the company reported AI-related revenue growth and a self-developed Tianxi AI personal agent. Iran's foreign embassies released AI-generated commemorative videos in which national team players held hands with virtual figures of 168 children killed in the Minab school airstrike, with the children's AI-restored images walking onto the World Cup field as a symbolic entrance ceremony.

Cultural Heritage and Tourism: Chinese companies and institutions are deploying digital humans, AI virtual humans, and avatars to activate cultural heritage and enhance tourism experiences. Hubei province launched the digital human "Yanyan" (炎炎) tied to the cultural IP of Yandi Shennong, using generative AI to revive ancestral achievements. China Unicom built a "5G+AI+XR+intangible heritage" digital business hall in Shantou, Guangdong, themed on the Yingge dance, where visitors can don virtual costumes to become part of the dance troupe and, in an AI digital human generation experience zone, generate within three seconds a personalized digital human image dressed in Yingge costume; the company also drove a digital Yingge creation competition and uses AI digital human technology across Luoyang Longmen and other heritage sites. At the Tengwang Pavilion scenic area, an AI digital human "Wang Bo" (王勃) serves as a check-in point where visitors reciting the "Preface to the Tengwang Pavilion" can earn free admission, and a "Thousand-Year Tengwang Pavilion" large-space VR experience center lets visitors converse with Wang Bo across time. The Beijing Changping 2026 Ming Culture Forum will debut the holographic AI virtual human "Chang Xiaoming" (昌小明) at its opening ceremony to present Ming-dynasty history through digital technology. Science fiction notwithstanding, smart tourism providers including Piaofutong (票付通), with its disabled-persons AI digital human sign-language tour guide, Alipay's (支付宝) AI digital human tour guides, Zhejiang Yunye Technology (云野科技) with its Sudongpo digital human, iFlytek's (科大讯飞) cultural tourism virtual humans such as "Qin Xiaobo" (秦小博) at the Emperor Qinshihuang's Mausoleum Museum, Zhejiang Huashu Culture's virtual digital employee "Aijia," and Pixel Transition Technology's (像素跃迁) "Wiseguide" AI accompanying-tour system, are integrating synthetic characters into guidance and immersive experiences, while the Sichuan emergency-management culture station deployed the AI emergency digital human "Shu Xiao'an" (蜀小安) for real-time public safety interaction.

Media, News, and Public Services: Chinese media organizations and public-service entities are integrating digital humans and synthetic anchors into content production and citizen services. Shangyou News (上游新闻), under Chongqing Daily Newspaper Group and built on its Shangyou Smart Media large model, deployed the AI anchor "Xiaozhu" (小竹), pioneering a "real-person reporter front-line collection plus virtual avatar intelligent broadcasting" human-machine collaboration model, alongside columns such as "Anchor AI Says" and "Shangyou AI Talks Solar Terms" that convert traditional culture and folk customs into lightweight immersive short videos. The fifth Global Digital Trade Expo in Hangzhou will feature AI virtual human guided tours and a "Digital Trade Expo AI Assistant." East China Normal and other education contexts aside, Hunan Engineering Polytechnic's "智建师 digital human" (Smart Builder digital human) populates its twin-space data practice field for construction training. Sichuan released a "Live Recruitment Service Specification" local standard requiring conspicuous "virtual digital human" host labeling at key entry points such as promotional pages and livestreaming rooms.

Ethical and Legal Contexts: Significant ethical and legal discourse surrounds digital doubles, AI avatars, and synthetic identities in China. Fudan University professor Xiao Yanghua (肖仰华) trained a digital double of himself on 106,000 WeChat messages over nearly a decade, finding it could replicate his behavioral patterns and short-sentence style well enough that at least 60% of daily social interactions could be imperceptibly handled by the avatar, prompting his call for urgent digital identity watermarking, human-machine interaction transparency rights, and the institutionalization of "white space" reserved for humans. The open-source "colleague.skill" tool created by 24-year-old Shanghai AI Laboratory engineer Zhou Tianyi, which distills a person's collaboration data into an "AI digital double" capable of assigning tasks and replicating work style, sparked workplace anxiety, with legal experts including Central University of Finance and Economics professor Shen Jianfeng and Chinese Academy of Social Sciences researcher Wang Tianyu warning that generating AI digital doubles processes individuals' personal information and privacy and alienates human personality elements into technical assets. Pang Pei (逄培) of China Zhi Gong Party and CVOD discussed AI overturning human nature, referencing DeepSeek, Zhipu's GLM-5, and AutoGLM enabling "everyone to have a digital double." Da Cheng Law Firm's Ma Shibo (马识博) and colleagues published research on AI digital simulation-human agency contracts, analyzing personality-rights commodification, biometric sensitive-information protection, and risks to performers including over-broad and perpetual personality-element authorization. The China Times reported on Mainland authorities cracking down on AI-related fraud, and the Shanghai Bank Fund warned of AI face-swapping fraud in which criminals use AI to generate dynamic face videos and "digital doubles" to bypass face recognition, impersonate bank customer managers via AI face-swap video calls, and fabricate teachers to defraud students. The financial commentary AI double "Digital Ray," an AI avatar of billionaire Ray Dalio reported by Finbold, was discussed in Chinese financial media for its asset-allocation views, and concerns over AI "standard faces" flooding short videos with homogenized synthetic characters were raised, with tests of Seedance, Kling, and Hailuo (海螺) video models showing near-identical AI face outputs.

16 June News

Marketing: In Jiangsu, the provincial Market Supervision Administration partnered with China Mobile Jiangsu Company (中国移动江苏有限公司) to support "Jiangsu Premium" (江苏精品) certified enterprises on the Mobile Aigou Mall (移动爱购商城), a localized digital lifestyle platform with 60 million Jiangsu Mobile users; the platform offers participating enterprises free AI digital human livestreaming and AIGC smart clipping tools to lower operating costs and broaden customer acquisition, with companies such as Laike Electric (莱克电气股份有限公司) and Sheyang Rice Group (江苏射阳大米集团有限公司) among the enterprises engaged. Coca-Cola, working with Baidu Yijing (百度一镜), launched a super-realistic real-time interactive celebrity digital human, the AI Fan Zhiyi (范志毅) digital human, on Coca-Cola China's mini program for the 2026 World Cup, allowing consumers who scan Coca-Cola products to engage in real-time football conversations with a "watch buddy" that faithfully reproduces Fan Zhiyi's accent and tone for 24-hour companion viewing, with response latency under two seconds, alongside an AI "digital twin" of José Mourinho deployed for real-time social video content; this work, following Baidu Yijing's earlier Luo Yonghao digital human project, was produced together with WPP's Ogilvy Shanghai and WPP Media, and Baidu Yijing also offers "director-level" TVC generation. Coca-Cola's campaign and the broader trend illustrate how Chinese brands use digital humans to convert traditional celebrity endorsement into two-way interactive operations, and the World Cup marketing wave saw Chinese original potential toy IP LABUBU from Pop Mart serve as a special guest at the opening ceremony and appear in the official single's music video.

Enterprise: Baidu Yijing (百度一镜), a Baidu AI-native application focused on AI digital humans and video generation, is being positioned as a low-cost "digital employee" alternative to human anchors and short-video operators, offering an AI digital "brain" powered by the Wenxin large model, seamless integration of generated content into Baidu's search and information-flow distribution channels, and a tiered SaaS subscription and API model. Weiyuan Technology (衔远科技) released Leadeep AI (Leadeep AI 领衔者), an AI decision product for enterprise top leaders built on its Daguan platform with a three-layer architecture of a digital twin (ME), an expert network (WE) of more than thirty vertical AI experts, and a meta-intelligence engine (MA); it pairs a four-millimeter titanium card with a four-array microphone for ten-meter pickup to capture business conversations, then constructs a continuously learning digital twin of the leader and convenes multi-agent expert推演, with knowledge-base recording and document uploads accounting for seventy-three percent of usage and the product first released on JD on May 20. Bangyan Technology (邦彦技术股份有限公司) launched NuwaAI, an intelligent-agent digital human cloud service platform and zero-threshold digital-clone creation tool serving enterprise digital employees and individual creation, and debuted a Li Bai (李白) digital human at Shenzhen Longgang's Gankeng Ancient Town over the New Year holiday that recited Tang poetry, performed rock music, and ran comedy with interactive reward mechanisms; Wai Qi Shu Ke (外企数科), a subsidiary under Beijing Human Resources (北京国际人力资本集团股份有限公司), launched digital human personas including "HR Xiaojiejie" (HR小姐姐), "Aili" (爱力), and "Zhengduoduo" (政多多) for professional real-time dialogue at the China International Fair for Trade in Services. The colleague.skill open-source tool by a twenty-four-year-old Shanghai AI Lab engineer named Zhou Tianyi (周天奕), known in Chinese as "tongshi.skill" (同事.skill), distills an employee's chat records, emails, documents, and work screenshots into an AI digital分身 that can write weekly reports, review code, and reply to colleagues in the person's style, sparking concern about consent, data sovereignty, and "AI human-ressetting" drift, and prompting reference to Chinese regulatory measures including the办法 on AI science-and-technology ethics review and the AI anthropomorphic-interaction and digital-virtual-human information-service rules.

Sports: At the 2026 World Cup, Lenovo (联想集团), the FIFA official technology partner, deployed a 3D digital human visualization solution that automatically generated digital human models for all 1248 players via 3D scanning bays, reconstructing player body posture, movement trajectories, and spatial relationships to render offside and contact judgments as 3D animation and enabling hair-level offside determination and 360-degree review of key moments; Lenovo also delivered the FIFA-certified generative-AI World Cup football AI super agent (FIFA AI Pro), built on FIFA's football language and knowledge system to process millions of data points and over 2000 indicators per match for all 48 teams, a referee-perspective AI video enhancement system that stabilizes referees' body-camera footage within milliseconds and reduces motion distortion by up to fifty percent, plus venue digital-twin command centers and ThinkSystem servers. Lenovo executives including Liu Jun (刘军), Qiao Jian (乔健), and senior vice president and CIO Hu Guanzhong (胡贯中) described bringing these capabilities back to Chinese football through cooperation with the China Football Association Super League联合会 (中足联), where Lenovo built the industry's first full-stack AI football match command center in Beijing, the L3-level event agent "Zhizhi Duomou AI" (足智多谋AI) on the Lenovo Baiying agent 2.0 base covering competition-training-youth-training data, and upgraded "fan service," "event command," and "event marketing" agents on Lenovo Tianqi擎天 AI. Hisense (海信集团) provided its RGB-Mini LED televisions as the official display equipment of the World Cup international broadcast center, with native three-color output reproducing pitch detail for VAR judgments such as offside lines and goal moments. An official intelligent navigation system jointly built with a Chinese enterprise connected all host cities, fan zones, and 16 stadiums on one real-time AI map using stadium digital-twin models to give personalized guidance and predict crowd flow.

Entertainment: Chinese short-drama and AI-content production is rapidly adopting virtual-being technologies, with the Hubei Micro-Short-Drama Creation Center (湖北微短剧创制中心), established by Hubei University of Economics' School of Journalism and Communication together with Hubei Yangtze River Film Group (湖北长江电影集团有限责任公司), Hubei Youth Film Creation (湖北青年影视创制有限公司), and the Central China Cultural Property Rights Exchange (湖北华中文化产权交易所有限公司), building an AIGC micro-short-drama workshop incorporating AI script generation and virtual digital human technology into the university credit system. In Chongqing's Yongchuan, the Yongchuan Technology Studio operated by Chongqing Dawa Hezhi Image Technology (重庆达瓦合智影像科技有限公司), led by co-founder and COO Chen Liang (陈亮), used its self-trained "AI worker" FilmOS, built on DeepSeek and ChatGPT bases plus over a thousand of its own digital assets and more than a hundred real scenes, to produce the 85-episode short drama "Lige 1999" (离歌1999) adapted from Rao Xueman's (饶雪漫) novel in ten days for two million yuan, and is producing an all-AI, cinema-grade short drama "Zuo'er" (左耳) where stars Chen Tianxiang (陈添祥) and Zhang Jinyi (张晋宜) appear only as digital likenesses without live shooting, with FilmOS cutting per-production cost by forty percent; AI short dramas largely free production from star dependence by generating digital humans from a few licensed photos at about one-fifth the cost of live shooting. The Shanghai Film Group's昊浦 community established a professional AIGC label, Shanghai Haodai Yingzhi Media (上海昊袋影智影视传媒有限公司), and announced AIGC titles including the red IP "New No. 51 Depot" (新51号兵站) and the all-AI cinema animation "Super Mini Warriors Movie" (超迷你战士大电影), while the Chongqing Software Park OPC Community opened to teams creating AI漫剧 short dramas, digital humans, and 3D models. Cantonese listed media firms reflect the sector's spread, with Jiangsu Broadcasting Cable (江苏有线) operating an AI digital staff member "Jiang Xiaochan" (江小婵) for exhibition consulting and Nanjing cultural-tourism interaction, Huanrui Century (欢瑞世纪) having piloted dialogue AI digital humans for the series "Lotus Tower" (莲花楼) with technology from N World (N世界), and Tianwei Video (天威视讯) launching TV AI voice digital humans; the AI digital human poses risks too, as Guangdong market regulators penalized a company for fully synthesizing an expert's voice and image to fabricate a带货 promotional video for压片 candy, and voice actor Shen Anyu (沈安宇) found his voice AI-cloned and resold across platforms.

Cultural: At the 22nd China International Cartoon and Animation Festival in Hangzhou, a Su Dongpo (苏东坡) AI digital human drew visitors, and Hangzhou animation-game enterprises including NetEase, Zhongnan Cartoon (中南卡通), and Dianhun Network (电魂网络) showcased self-developed technology integrating AIGC, multimodal large models, digital humans, and AR/VR/MR, with Zhongnan Cartoon presenting a Su Dongpo digital human. In Guangdong, the provincial Federation of Trade Unions upgraded eight provincial worker-skill training routes in Guangzhou's Huangpu District using digital human narration and AI interactive Q&A in transparent-factory and brand-center scenarios as part of digitized实景 classrooms. At Xiamen Xiang'an International Airport, a digital human host named "Xia Xiaowan" (厦小晚), created by the Xiamen Evening News, guides previews of the airport's human-centered "twenty scenes." The West Lake scenic-area comprehensive law-enforcement team in Hangzhou unveiled an enforcement digital human named "Xiaoye" (小叶) as a digitized, youthful, and engaging legal-education carrier for publicizing rules against illegal commercial photography. At the World Tourism Cities Federation's Beijing Xiangshan峰会, digital human and multilingual interactive technologies, alongside Beijing's颐和园 AI digital-human customer service and Keda Xunfei AI glasses, were highlighted among the "ten scenes" of Beijing cultural-tourism technology applications. NetEase Youdao's子曰4 offers three-second voice cloning across fourteen languages for口播配音 digital humans.

Healthcare: Ant Group's Ant Afu (蚂蚁阿福) health AI application upgraded its skin-photo function and launched a "doctor review" service, described as China's first deployed "AI Q&A plus real human-doctor review" collaboration model, in which the AI provides科普 analysis and a real doctor from a top-tier hospital reviews the result, with about fifteen percent of users choosing review and over ninety percent agreement between AI analysis and doctor review. Ant Afu's broader ecosystem includes a专家顾问团 of more than ten top hospital学科带头人, an open "doctor AI digital-clone" (医生AI分身) technology with eight academicians leading over 2000 famous doctors who opened AI分身 on the platform so users can "directly connect" to academician and expert clones, and links to more than 5000 hospitals supporting 300,000 real doctors online plus city medical agents such as Zhejiang's "Anzhen'er" (安诊儿) and Guangzhou's "Suixiaoyi" (穗小伊). At an intellectual-property practice exchange, Aier Eye Hospital's Sichuan regional legal director cited the digital human "Eyecho" among six AI applications used in企业一线 ophthalmology operations.

15 June News

Marketing: The most prominent China-related virtual-being marketing case involves Coca-Cola China (可口可乐中国) partnering with Baidu Yijing (百度一镜) to launch a Fan Zhiyi real-time interactive digital human "watch-along companion" on the opening day of the 2026 World Cup, accessible through the Coca-Cola China mini-program where users can interact via voice or text to obtain match interpretation and topic discussion. The digital human is built on real-time interaction technology with response latency controlled within two seconds, capable of simulating Fan Zhiyi's language style, voice characteristics, neim-toinen expressions and gestures, supporting continuous dialogue, emotion recognition, and 24-hour online interaction, while the collaboration also introduced AIGC content generation including automatic advertising video generation for brand marketing. According to IDC and Frost & Sullivan reports, Baidu Yijing ranks first in market share and comprehensive strength in China's domestic AI digital human market, and this case followed an earlier Luo Yonghao digital human as another commercialization milestone for Baidu's digital human IP. Baidu's MEG underwent organizational restructuring that elevated its digital human innovation business unit into an independent department, with the brand Huiboxing (慧播星) upgraded to Baidu Yijing at the Create 2026 conference, positioned as a global all-scenario multi-agent digital human platform integrating digital human livestreaming, digital human video, and real-time interactive digital humans, with digital human anchors surpassing 100,000 by end of 2025 and serving more than 30 industries. Separately, the Tongyi (千问) app launched a football prediction AI assistant during the World Cup, while broader industry observation notes that digital humans are reshaping brand marketing models by lowering creative content thresholds and upgrading traditional celebrity endorsement into two-way interactive digital operations.

Enterprise and Public Services: Shiyou Technology (世优科技) has deployed its Shiyou Bota AI Digital Human Intelligent Agent (世优波塔AI数字人智能体) across numerous Chinese enterprise and public-service settings, functioning as integrated "digital employees" with over 180 facial control points and multiple emotion modes, supporting cross-terminal deployment from large screens and all-in-one machines to H5 and mini-programs. In the smart exhibition hall of Yunnan Communications Investment Group (云南交投集团), two digital humans named "Yunshu" — one a safety officer in protective gear and one a business guide — connect to the "Lümei Channel Transportation Large Model" and a customized industry knowledge base to answer questions about smart highway projects, delivered through holographic cabins, mobile transparent screens, and web terminals. At ENN Group (新奥集团), an AI digital human guide named "Enniu Zhiban" integrates natural language processing and emotion recognition with contextual memory; at a provincial power company of State Grid (国家电网), Shiyou Bota uses a lightweight "large-screen middleware" deployment to give data screens voice-command capabilities for dispatchers, and digital human "service clerks" in State Grid business halls answer about 80% of basic inquiries while shortening processing time by 30%. In the Fengtai District government service center in Beijing, an AI digital human guide "Feng Xiaoshu" provides 24/7 service covering more than 1,500 high-frequency matters such as household registration, marriage, and entry-exit; at Nanyang Central Hospital in Henan, a Shiyou Bota digital human "guide" deployed on the hospital's public account and lobby kiosks recommends departments via medical knowledge graphs and reduces average patient dwell time by 35%. In education, Shiyou's AI teaching assistant "Xiaoyou" was deployed at the Xiong'an campus of Beijing No.4 High School, and in Hechuan, Chongqing, Shiyou Technology helped release the country's first Tao Xingzhi AI digital human, a high-fidelity reconstruction of the educator deployed in a memorial hall and schools for cross-temporal dialogue. At Nanning Wuxu International Airport, twelve "Gui Feifei" intelligent customer-service devices provide multilingual aviation service in Chinese, English, Japanese, Korean, plus ASEAN languages including Vietnamese, Thai, and Malay, answering within three to four seconds, while the Juxinyuan (聚宝源) instant-boiled mutton brand introduced a digital employee acting as an all-around in-store guide. In the banking sector, Yuanyue Technology (元岳科技) offers an AI digital human all-in-one machine system for branch lobbies supporting facial recognition, voice, and button activation, integrating enterprise Q&A and local knowledge bases and connecting to large models including DeepSeek, Doubao, Ernie Bot (文心一言), Tongyi Qianwen (通义千问), and ChatGPT, providing 7×24 service and multilingual support, with one city commercial bank branch deploying it within eleven days. China Telecom Yunnan Company (中国电信云南公司) showcased AI digital human livestreaming and real-time minor-language translation at the South Asia Expo to lower cross-border trade costs, and at the Changchun International Photonics Expo an AI digital human "Cai Xiaomeng" provided around-the-clock guidance and answered 2,856 inquiries. In Fujian, the Star Cloud Big Data (星云大数据) company under Fujian Big Data Group is developing doctor digital humans or digital twin assistants to provide patients with full-process pre-consultation guidance, in-consultation cloud accompaniment, and post-consultation intelligent follow-up, and Xinjiang's "AI + Medical Health" plan likewise calls for doctor digital humans serving patients across the care journey.

Media and News Production: Fujian Broadcasting and Television Group (福建省广播影视集团) has built an extensive digital human matrix as part of its AIGC-driven media transformation, anchored on its "Fuyun" (福云) digital base and a self-developed digital human generation platform with scene digital humans, real-person digital avatars, and 3D high-fidelity digital human production capabilities, opened to municipal and county media centers across the province in a three-tier system. Its applications include political commentary digital humans "Xiaobo" and "Dahai" trained as virtual commentators for round-the-clock authoritative broadcasting at the 2026 National Two Sessions, host digital avatars such as Zeng Bao and "Jinzi" enabling one-person-multiple-posts all-weather presence, and cultural-figure digital humans recreating historical personages including Wang Wenjiao and Yan Fu in AI short films such as "The Great Confucian Zhu Xi," "Crossing Time and Space: AI Reporter Interviews Lin Zexu," and "Yan Fu on Reading," broadcast on its Haibo TV platform. In Guangdong, the provincial lifelong learning platform launched historical-figure digital human functions where digital humans of figures such as Su Dongpo and Han Yu accompany learners. At the launch of the Hunan 2026 construction "Safety Production Month," an AI digital human "An Xiaoxuan" co-hosted the event using smart-construction technology to deliver safety knowledge. NetEase's news videos repeatedly credited the use of the Huiboxing (慧播星) digital human for video presentation across multiple reports. At the launch of "Rong Zhong Dui 2" in Beijing, a digital human "Dazhou" held an AI dialogue with People's Daily Press digital anchor "Xiao Qi," and the Western Creation Center of "Animation China," co-built by China Media Group and Chongqing, is establishing a digital human platform alongside an animation corpus and digital asset library at the "CCTV Animation × Yongchuan Technology Studio" AI creation base. Jiangsu Second Normal University's School of Fine Arts released a campus-wide "digital human" promotional video and honored the creators of its first "AI digital human series promotional film." Guangdong University of Technology art students created a digital human "Hua Hongmian" as a narrative guide for an immersive interactive platform teaching Guangdong Party history through AIGC.

Sports Technology: The 2026 World Cup, hosted across the United States, Canada, and Mexico, prominently featured 3D digital human technology with deep involvement from Chinese enterprises, principally Lenovo Group (联想集团) as FIFA's official technology partner. Lenovo provided a VAR 3D digital human visualization solution in which more than 1,200 players underwent full-body 3D scanning to generate high-precision virtual avatars before the tournament, enabling millimeter-level offside rulings; when the system detects an offside, it sends an audio alert to the referee's earpiece without VAR relay, reconstructs the player's body posture including arm position, shoulder angle, and toe direction within three seconds, and automatically generates a three-dimensional animation sent to the venue's large screen. The 3D digital human visualization scheme also achieved a "line-of-sight judgment" function for the first time, allowing VAR to call up the 3D reconstruction model to precisely simulate a goalkeeper's field of vision and generate angles uncapturable by traditional cameras to objectively assess goalkeeper interference. Lenovo's full solution set, deployed across 16 venues with over 10,000 computers, more than 200 engineers, and edge computing infrastructure processing over 535 trillion tokens daily, also included the World Cup Football AI Super Agent (also rendered as Football AI Pro), a FIFA-officially-certified generative AI knowledge assistant opened free to all 48 teams, and a referee-perspective AI video enhancement system providing a stabilized first-person "23rd man on the pitch" view; Lenovo applied a "hair separation algorithm" trained on hundreds of thousands of human data points to automatically generate digital humans for the players, reducing ruling disputes. Lenovo additionally became a full-stack AI strategic partner of the China Football Association, jointly establishing an AI command center in 2025 for match supervision and dispatch, and ran a "2026 FIFA World Cup Lenovo Carnival" offline tour including a Guangzhou stop demonstrating these AI solutions. The smart-chip core of the official match ball "Trionda" was also Chinese-made, and Hisense (海信) supplied RGB Mini-LED displays for the VAR center; the 2026 World Cup saw the tournament's first VAR-assisted on-field overturn in the U.S. versus Paraguay match.

Cultural and Tourism: In Yongchuan, Chongqing, the Yongchuan Technology Studio serves as a leading film-and-television industrial base equipped with two international-standard virtual shooting systems, a 16,000-square-meter digital intelligent set-building workshop, and over 50,000 standardized digital assets, having provided technical support to more than 140 productions including "Ne Zha 2" and "Wild Times"; during the 2026 Chongqing International Animation Film Week, 53 projects were signed including AI live-action shooting projects, and screenwriter Rao Xueman landed an AI real-person shooting project there. At the 28th Shanghai International Film Festival's technology creation unit, Bona Film Group (博纳影业) representative Qu Jixiaojiang discussed AI-shaped digital characters from "Sanxingdui: Future Past" that have appeared at a global archaeology conference online and walked the festival red carpet, gaining near-real personas and schedules capable of continuing into sequels. The Tencent (腾讯) Sustainable Social Value Department's Digital Culture Lab, with the China Cultural Relics News, ran the "Starry Sky Plan" assisting nearly 700 small and medium museums with digital transformation, including the "Digital Time Mirror" and "A Family Letter" interactive mini-programs that present museum collection artifacts through AI digital humans and AI cultural creations. The 2026 Ming Culture Forum in Changping, Beijing, will debut a holographic AI virtual human "Chang Xiaoming" to present Ming-era history. Shanghai Blood Center launched what was described as the country's first virtual idol aimed at the ACG community for World Blood Donor Day. The Lingang New Area in Shanghai presented its virtual image "α-lin" in interactive form at the 2026 Global Youth Development Project Week launch.

Gaming and Companion Robots: UBTECH (优必选) launched its consumer-grade humanoid robot U1 series positioned around emotional companionship, surpassing 3,800 pre-orders within ten days with deposits exceeding ten million yuan. The lineup includes a male version standing 183cm tall and weighing 42kg in a tailored suit, and a female version standing 168cm and weighing 35.2kg with a "makeup-applicable" face, both supporting high-degree appearance customization and IP linkage so the robot can resemble favored anime characters. The core selling point is an emotional large model with locally encrypted memory functioning as a "nurturing" system that remembers user preferences, moods, and habits and evolves its personality based on feedback, with the product designated for adult purchase only and an anticipated price between 100,000 and 200,000 yuan, raising questions around portrait rights and emotional dependency. WorldVac, created by the Chinese startup founded by Gao Senquan (高森泉) — a former Tsinghua pharmacy and systems-biology doctoral student — is a large multi-agent social simulation system in which millions of social agents driven by large language models are born, marry, work, and die within an evolving virtual world, where users can influence the agent society by trading stocks of agent companies; the system builds on the AgentSociety framework and models individual identity, memory, relationships, and spatial position, drawing on social survey data such as the China Family Panel Studies for calibration, with potential applications in virtual user research, advertising, and recommendation systems.

Ethical and Regulatory Contexts: Beijing Economic-Technological Development Area (Yizhuang) issued the city's first "sandbox approval" pilot plan for new quality productive forces, first applied to robot and digital human commercial performances, allowing qualified operators to include digital humans and robots as performers within a controlled "safe trial-and-error space," subject to identity and ownership proof, large-model content safety review, technical stability, on-site control capability, and a requirement that each digital human or robot be accompanied by a safety officer throughout performances. Under this framework, the AI virtual idol You Li (尤栗) — an Yizhuang "digital resident" with over a million fans across networks that had previously appeared at the Boao Forum for Asia and held the country's first digital idol identity authentication — received the nation's first "Digital Artist Card," a sandbox-specific compliance credential permitting legal commercial performances within the designated zone, marking digital performing arts' entry into formal regulated management. Regulators maintain full-process tracking with real-time dynamic monitoring and can immediately terminate trials upon major safety hazards. Separately, AI digital human "domineering CEO" characters using names such as "Jianhua," "Jianguo," and "Dongdong" have been criticized for emotionally manipulating and financially exploiting elderly users through livestream tips and storefront sales, prompting calls for enforcement of AI content labeling rules, platform content review optimization, age-friendly mode improvements, and anti-fraud education for the elderly.

14 June News

Marketing: Baidu (百度) launched a real-time interactive digital human chaperone for the World Cup, the Fan Zhiyi (范志毅) real-time interactive digital human, developed jointly with Coca-Cola through the Baidu Yijing (百度一镜) platform; positioned as the first real-time interactive digital human watch companion for sports events, it follows the earlier Luo Yonghao (罗永浩) digital human as another commercialization milestone for Baidu's digital human IP business. Relying on Baidu Yijing's real-time interaction technology, it keeps response latency under two seconds and faithfully reproduces Fan Zhiyi's voice, accent, expressions, and movements while preserving his professional football commentary ability and personal style; users interact via voice or text, with support for emotion recognition, improvised dialogue, real-time background switching, and brand interaction demonstrations, enabling 24-hour watch-along companionship, and it has gone live on the Coca-Cola China mini-program with the platform also offering "director-level" TVC generation. According to IDC and Frost & Sullivan reports cited in coverage, Baidu Yijing holds the leading share and overall strength in the domestic AI digital human market, with its share placed at 8.1% in one report; the digital human creation business was upgraded to an independent unit reporting to vice president Ping Xiaoli, and platform executive Ping Xiaoli disclosed that Baidu's digital humans generated revenue in the tens of billions of yuan, with planned overseas expansion of Baidu Yijing into Southeast Asia, Latin America, North America, and Europe supporting twelve languages and native-level lip-syncing across TikTok, Shopee, Lazada, and the Alibaba International Station. Separately, Qianwen (千问) launched a football prediction AI assistant in its app for the World Cup, correctly forecasting opening-day results and tying the prediction activity to charitable football pitch donations for rural schools.

Sports Technology: Lenovo (联想), as a FIFA official technology partner for the 2026 World Cup, deployed an end-to-end suite of AI solutions in which a large share of development was carried out by Chinese engineers and project managers, according to Lenovo's sports and entertainment business director Santiago Manso and FIFA DWS project lead Myles Spittle. Its 3D digital human visualization solution, trained on hundreds of thousands of human body data points, automatically generated digital humans for all 1,248 players by scanning each player in roughly one second to build high-precision 3D models; these models feed the VAR system's semi-automatic offside technology, enabling "scalp-level" offside reconstruction and a first-of-its-kind line-of-sight judgment that simulates the goalkeeper's field of view, with offside decisions presented as lifelike three-dimensional animations on stadium screens, integrated with the Hawk-Eye-supplied final imagery while final judgment authority remains with the referee. Lenovo also provided a referee-perspective AI video enhancement system delivering stabilized first-person footage with latency compressed under two seconds, and the FIFA-certified generative AI tool Football AI Pro (also called the World Cup Football AI Super Agent), opened equally to all 48 teams for pre- and post-match analysis to advance "football equality." In Beijing, Lenovo launched a "World Cup Prediction Human-Machine Battle" with Migu Video, in which its Tianxi (天禧) AI super agent convened twelve AI models including DeepSeek, Kimi, Wenxin Yiyan (文心一言), Tongyi Qianwen (通义千问), and China Mobile's Jiutian (九天) to predict match results against fans, with experience zones featuring a "3D digital human visualization solution," an "offside timing master," and AI virtual avatar interactions; in Hong Kong, Lenovo became a partner of the Hong Kong Jockey Club's football activities, offering experiences with AI virtual avatars and the FIFA Creative Studio. Lenovo additionally connected community designers in Beijing and children in rural Yunnan via Tianxi AI to design jerseys. Separately, Hisense participated in the World Cup as a VAR display technology partner.

Cultural and Heritage: The Huangpi district museum in Wuhan launched AI curators built around two local IP figures, Hua Mulan and Master Cheng (程夫子), providing immersive guided tours through digital human interaction and routing complex questions to DeepSeek for precise answers. Hunan's "Culture plus Technology" product application exhibition at the Hunan Provincial Culture Center featured a "Digital Hunan Charm" (数字湘韵) digital human zone spanning computing power, AI, and motion capture, using digital human technology to revive Hunan historical IP and tell regional stories through intelligent interaction. In Anhui, Dangshan county's military and civilian authorities created an AI digital human of revolutionary martyr Wang Xuefeng (王学风) for the "AI Recreating Martyr Heritage" event at Dangcheng No. 1 Primary School, reconstructing his appearance, expressions, and voice from historical photos, archives, and family accounts via AI modeling, expression rendering, and high-definition restoration, with an intelligent interaction system answering students' questions in real time and generating composite battlefield scenes of the martyr receiving and reading letters. In Beijing's Changping district, the 2026 Ming Culture Forum will debut a holographic AI virtual human "Chang Xiaoming" (昌小明) to present a digital scroll of Ming-era Changping history, while in Xiamen the Children's Work Committee's "Zhonghua Wuyu Hall" features an "AI interactive digital human" providing multimodal caring services for youth. According to the Digital China Development Report, Hangzhou's "Hang Xiaoyi" (杭小忆) digital human, fully integrated with DeepSeek, covers over 40,000 service points to provide tourists with navigation, hotel booking, and scenic guidance.

Government and Public Services: In Yuhang, Hangzhou, the local ecological environment bureau introduced an AI digital human named "Yu Xiaohuan" (余小环), built on the Tongyi Qianwen large model, to serve as an intelligent steward for grassroots environmental governance; it aggregates information on over 5,000 enterprises, more than 200,000 historical archives, and over eight million sensing data points, providing enterprises with environmental risk assessment, permit renewal guidance, and compliance analysis, while assisting frontline environmental enforcement with on-site enforcement points and sampling standards, and it has been deployed on platforms such as "Kan Yuhang" (看余杭) and "Yu Shengxin" (余省心). In Hunan, the 2026 construction safety production month launch in Changsha was co-hosted by a human presenter and an AI digital human named "An Xiaoxuan" (安小宣), which uses intelligent construction technology to deliver safety knowledge. NetEase Hao news videos covering provincial government and judicial affairs in Zhejiang, Hubei, Heilongjiang, and other regions were produced using the Huiboxing (慧播星) digital human, and at Yiwu's Global Digital Trade Center a multilingual digital human shopping guide greeted foreign visitors and switched seamlessly between languages to introduce products.

Enterprise and Commerce: JD.com (京东) had its 3C Digital "Twelve Ladies" (十二姬) AI digital human project selected into Shanghai's case collection on AI empowering commercial brand development; built on JD's self-developed JoyAI large model, the Twelve Ladies AI digital human matrix is the industry's first multi-brand symbiotic AI virtual idol matrix, conducting 24-hour uninterrupted livestreaming with each digital human given a distinct persona, achieving over 100 million yuan in sales in JD's PC-assembly master livestream room, producing a debut single with over 100 million views, and extending into AI short dramas with the Beijing International Film Festival's AIGC unit and C2M custom IP merchandise; JD's digital human system has served over 80,000 brand merchants and drove partner GMV growth exceeding ten billion yuan in 2025. In Yiwu, foreign officials experienced the multilingual digital human shopping guide at the Global Digital Trade Center. Huawei (华为) filed a communication method and apparatus patent (publication number CN122205116A) to improve interaction with digital humans during calls by matching audio features to multimedia action material so that digital human body movements move beyond simple lip and repetitive gestures. Several listed companies disclosed digital-human-related businesses, including Guomai Culture (国脉文化), which developed virtual digital human images Irene (艾琳) and Xiaolin (小琳) as corporate digital spokespersons, and Tianzheng Electric (天正电气), which presented a "Tian Ce" (天策) marketing digital human; Soul App also released the open-source SoulX-LiveAct model to optimize real-time digital human generation and address long-video digital human generation challenges.

Film, Media and IP: The Shanghai Film Group, at the 28th Shanghai International Film Festival's technology creation unit, presented its Haopu (昊浦) AI creation ecosystem, including AIGC content covering short dramas and animation, the new AIGC label Shanghai Haodai Yingzhi (上海昊袋影智), and partnerships with Kuaizi Technology (筷子科技) to implement AI interactive storytelling, commercial agents, and digital human operations; the Shanghai Film Park also partnered with local AI company Foldin on the healing original animation IP "Dundun and the Big Goose" (墩墩与大鹅). Kuaizi Technology separately signed a strategic cooperation memorandum with Shanghai Film Group's production platform to collaborate on video generation infrastructure, AIGC agent development, AI celebrity copyright, and digital human licensing, jointly developing AI film and television agents and exploring a digital human copyright licensing system. The Beijing-based AI short drama collaboration platform AniShort, operated by Nanjing Badianba Digital Technology (南京八点八数字科技), completed near-100-million-yuan financing; Badianba had earlier developed China's first digital human generation model XMEN.AI and the "Yihua" (亿话) digital human agent creation platform, holding nearly one hundred AI digital human core patents, and its core product "Yihua" served over 20,000 enterprises. Guangxi-based Qingfeng Music (青风音乐) presented its AI virtual artist "Lynn" (灵玥) at the London AI Summit, whose song "RED" surpassed 210 million plays, with planned new virtual IPs including YAN and Peanuts Jack, alongside plans for virtual artists built on real-singer-authorized AI voice training. Hangzhou-based Xiangxin Technology (相芯科技)'s digital human technology was integrated into the HarmonyOS ecosystem.

Entertainment and Virtual Idols: Huawei's Music China business through Warner Music China announced a strategic partnership with Chinese internet artist company Dream Maker (造梦师), which has incubated over 3,000 singers with virtual artists including "Kong" (控), "DL.寂", and "DL.L9"; each virtual artist is matched one-to-one with a real person who uses real-time motion capture to drive the virtual avatar for livestreaming, song performance, and IP interaction, with "Kong" ranking first in the virtual livestream track by single-session viewership and revenue. Tsinghua University's original virtual student Hua Zhibing (华智冰), jointly cultivated by the Beijing Academy of Artificial Intelligence, Zhipu AI (智谱AI), and Xiaoice (小冰) and supervised by professor Tang Jie (唐杰), can write poetry, compose music, paint, and engage in emotional interaction. Domestic virtual singers in the V-singer family operated by Shanghai Henian (上海禾念) include Luo Tianyi (洛天依), Yanhe (言和), and Yuezheng Ling (乐正绫), with Luo Tianyi performing brand collaborations including Procter and Gamble's Whisper. Yunnan Tourism (云南旅游) operates the virtual IP "Baoxiao Two Sisters" (爆笑两姐妹) using real-time facial and full-body motion capture for live virtual streaming with over ten million followers. The early Chinese virtual student concept traces back to the 2001 Xiangshan Science Conference proposal on "digitized virtual humans."

AI Agents and Digital Avatars: At the 2026 Beijing Zhiyuan Conference, the Beijing Academy of Artificial Intelligence released SoulAgent, a personal agent giving its experts "digital avatars" that users can converse with via a mini-program, using a self-developed architecture that cuts token costs by 30% and resource usage by 80%; the conference also debuted a "listening agent" Soul Agent function letting attendees create AI digital avatars to attend sessions in parallel. In Taiwan, veteran artist Bao Xiaobai (包小柏) had his deceased daughter Bao Rong (包容) appear as an AI digital avatar at his Taipei University of Technology doctoral graduation, with her recreated voice and image, and he expressed hope the restored voice and image technology could serve as an awakening tool for dementia patients. The Yanfu Mass News Group (盐阜大众报报业集团) introduced the digital avatar "Big Zhou" (大周) of its head Zhou Jin (周劲) as employee number 490, presenting results alongside a "digital human team." A GitHub open-source project "Colleague.skill" and a domestic open-source tool "Nüwa.skill" (女娲.skill) extract departed employees' work habits and speaking styles into AI skill packages to summon their "digital avatars," with former major-tech employee Wang Dengke (王登科) creating an "AI Dengke" digital avatar from his blog; legal experts including Nankai University's Chen Bing (陈兵) and Capital University of Economics and Business's Fan Wei (范围) discussed the labor rights and personal information concerns these raise.

Ethical and Regulatory Contexts: Hainan's market regulator issued a special guideline on AI-generated advertising requiring that all AI-generated or deep-synthesis ads carry prominent labels such as "This advertisement is AI-generated," prohibiting the use of AI virtual experts, virtual health lecturers, or virtual famous doctors to exaggerate health product efficacy and targeting elderly consumers, banning the use of AI virtual livestreamers to promote ordinary or health foods as having disease-prevention or treatment effects, and forbidding unauthorized AI face-swapping or synthesis of others' likenesses and voices without written real-name authorization. Zhejiang's market regulator, ahead of the "618" promotion, required that AI-generated content or digital human livestreaming carry conspicuous labels and barred the use of technical means to fabricate displays or synthesize endorsements. At the Global Human Rights Governance high-end forum in Beijing, East China University of Political Science and Law's Ma Changshan (马长山) argued that in the digital era every person is both a biological and a digital person, and that digital human rights should be strongly protected, noting this is reflected in China's National Human Rights Action Plan. Industry reporting also flagged emerging AI fraud in which criminals use synthesized voices and images to impersonate relatives such as turning a "grandson" into a digital human.

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Marketing: Chinese AI and digital-human technologies converged on the 2026 World Cup as a marketing vehicle, led by Baidu (百度) whose Yijing (一镜) platform partnered with Coca-Cola China to launch a real-time interactive digital human modeled on retired footballer Fan Zhiyi (范志毅) as a 24/7 watch-along companion, following an earlier Luo Yonghao digital human; the avatar runs on Yijing's real-time interaction technology with response latency under two seconds, reproduces Fan Zhiyi's voice, accent, expressions, and football-commentary style, supports voice and text interaction, emotion recognition, improvised dialogue, and real-time background switching, is hosted on the Coca-Cola China mini-program, and the partnership also deployed Yijing's "director-level" AIGC TVC video-generation capability, with IDC and Frost & Sullivan reports cited placing Yijing first in China's AI digital-human market. JD.com (京东) advanced its self-developed JoyAI model to build the Twelve Maidens (十二姬) AI digital-human matrix for its 3C electronics business, the first multi-brand co-existing AI virtual idol matrix in the category, uniting twelve hardware brands' virtual images for 24-hour livestreaming that independently handles product explanation, parameter answering, and purchase guidance, with each digital human carrying a distinct persona; during the 618 period the matrix surpassed 100 million yuan in sales in JD's "Assembly Master" livestream room, its group single exceeded 100 million in online exposure, and the project, which entered Shanghai's AI-empowered commercial brand case collection, extended into the JD 618 Cyber Gala that animated over a hundred brand IPs (including Three Squirrels' characters and Lenovo Legion's "Savior Girl") as digital humans, with JD's digital-human system serving over 80,000 brand merchants and driving over 10 billion yuan in partner GMV growth in 2025. Qixin Group (齐心集团) markets Qixin Digital Human, an AI-driven 2D virtual figure cloned from real people that replicates appearance, voice, lip movement, expressions, and gestures, built with Tencent Cloud support, while numerous A-share listed companies including Foison (佳创视讯) with its virtual digital human Huan Xiaojia and MotionMAX capture system, New Sun Tech (新晨科技), Ningshui Group (宁水集团) which built a corporate AI virtual human, Jiadu Technology (佳都科技), Talkweb-related New Media Co. (新媒股份), Guangxi-based Guilin Tourism (桂林旅游) with its AI digital-human greeter, Wuxian Media (无线传媒) with an AI digital-human interaction system for IPTV, Tianzheng Electric (天正电气) with its "Tiance" marketing digital human shown at the Yunqi Conference, Jincai Internet (金财互联), Sundy Land (天舟文化) with virtual streamers including Linjia Xiaoxian and Xiaoya Tongxue, Guomai Culture (国脉文化), and others embedded digital-human concepts into their business narratives.

Entertainment: TVB (香港电视广播有限公司) through its FF Studio announced five new AI-generated drama series to counter rising production costs and youth-audience attrition, including East Window Three Heroes based on its long-running program, a remake of The Generals of the Yang Family, Young Zhong Kui, Top Star After, and the animation Winning at the Finish Line, using a model of "AI for creativity and visuals plus professional human Cantonese voice actors," with production costs cut to as little as one-tenth or one-hundredth of traditional methods, a team of about ten people, and a roughly one-month turnaround; FF Studio, founded in 2025, focuses on AI micro-dramas and AI artist development, having released TVB's first AI short drama In My Heart, You Are Unique in September 2025, the AI micro-animation AI930: Corporate Slave Survival 101 voiced by Zhou Jialuo in February 2026, and by March 2026 having produced three AI short dramas, stored fourteen AI news models, and created seven AI digital humans, with executive chairman Xu Tao stating AI could cut long-video production costs by 20 to 30 percent. Nanjing-based Eight Point Eight Digital (八点八数字), a national high-tech enterprise founded in 2014 that self-developed China's first digital-human generation model XMEN.AI and is among the few full-stack vendors achieving 2D/2.5D/3D real-time digital-human generation and driving, secured nearly 100 million yuan in financing led by Beijing Taizhonghe for its AI short-drama collaboration platform AniShort, the largest single financing in China's AI short-drama tool segment in 2026; its product matrix combines software, hardware, and deployment services with the core "Yihua" digital-human agent creation platform serving over 20,000 enterprises, and AniShort integrates Seedance 2.0, Gemini, Deepseek, Banana, and Image2 models with node-based collaborative technology, producing over 5,000 minutes of short dramas and 40 complete dramas daily, partnering with Baotong Technology and Yihuan Network for overseas expansion, and its supported AI ink-wash short film A Thought won the China-region best AI short film at the 2026 World AI Film Festival. Kuaizi Technology (筷子科技), which has served over 13,000 enterprises and generated 1.2 billion commercial videos, signed a strategic memorandum with Shanghai Film Group's Shanghai Film Production (上影制作) to develop full-chain AIGC intelligent agents covering script analysis, creative planning, character generation, storyboard previews, smart editing, and distribution, to explore tokenized computing power, and to build a digital-human copyright authorization center granting "identity cards" to digital humans' likenesses and voices, with first pilots planned within the year. The Shanghai International Film Festival's tech-creation unit and the Shanghai Haopu smart industry community, which built China's first film-industry-dedicated computing pool and projects over 50 million yuan in AI digital content business in 2026, unveiled the AIGC label Shanghai Hao Dai Ying Zhi (上海昊袋影智), released AIGC titles including the AI realistic short drama Ling Tan and the all-AI animated film Super Mini Warriors, signed Kuaizi Technology and Huying Technology for digital-human operations, and partnered with local AI firm Foldin on the original animation IP Dundun and the Big Goose, while Shanghai Film Studio agreed with Anhui Film Group on 4K restoration of classics. CreativeFitting (井英科技) raised tens of millions of dollars for AI entertainment content services, and Jixin Media (凡酷文化) opened a Hengdian creation center.

Celebrity Avatars and Digital Likeness Authorization: Controversy surrounded iQiyi (爱奇艺), whose CEO Gong Yu announced at its April 2026 World Conference that its self-developed AI agent platform "Nadou Pro" had over 100 deeply cooperating artists sign consent letters to join its AI artist library, naming performers including Chen Zheyuan, Cheng Lei, Zeng Shunxi, Jiang Long, and Ma Su, with Gong Yu arguing AI could let actors "shoot" fourteen dramas a year and predicting live-action filming might become "intangible heritage," but numerous artists and studios including Zhang Ruoyun, Yu Hewei, Wang Churan, Li Yitong, Wang Yuwen, Chen Yuqi, and Chen Zheyuan publicly denied signing any AI authorization, with iQiyi clarifying that "joining" only indicated willingness to discuss AI projects; iQiyi also plans to release its first fully AI-generated commercial blockbuster in summer 2026, while Tencent Video announced exploring fully AI-produced long dramas and films for the third quarter of 2026. Confirmed authorization cases include internet celebrity Han Anran, who in March 2026 signed with Yuxiao Media (聿潇传媒) to authorize her facial features, voice, and performance data for an AI digital avatar appearing in short dramas under a base-fee-plus-revenue-share model, and Shanghai Yaoke Media (耀客传媒), which on March 18, 2026 signed two purely AI-generated digital actors, Qin Lingyue and Lin Xiyan, who maintain independent social media accounts and appear in the AI drama The Bronze Mystery of Qinling but drew "look-alike" infringement disputes for resembling real stars. A separate report noted GitHub-hosted open-source projects cloning the speaking style of public figure Zhang Xuefeng and a "colleague.skill" workplace AI avatar, alongside commercial 399-yuan "AI revival of deceased relatives" services, enterprises training departed-employee digital humans to continue their posts, and artists' commercial virtual avatars, prompting concern over portrait, voice, and personality rights; the Cyberspace Administration of China issued the draft Measures for the Administration of Digital Virtual Human Information Services requiring conspicuous identity labeling and prohibiting generation of identifiable individuals' virtual images without consent or infringement of deceased persons' personality interests.

Sports and Officiating Technology: At the 2026 World Cup, Lenovo Group (联想集团), an official FIFA technology partner, deployed an AI-driven 3D digital-human (digital twin) system that scanned all 1,248 players using twenty-eight 3D scanning booths at team hotels with each scan taking about one second, generating high-precision virtual figures consistent with players' real body characteristics for use in semi-automated offside technology and replays that, unlike prior generic-model displays, show 3D forms matching players' real builds, with the system tracking 29 skeletal points across 22 players fifty times per second and Chinese engineers and project managers prominently credited for developing these solutions; Lenovo also provided computing support across 17,000 devices in three countries, a referee-perspective AI video enhancement system, and the Football AI Pro analysis tool. Migu (咪咕) integrated twelve domestic large models, including DeepSeek, Tongyi Qianwen, Baidu Wenxin, Tencent Hunyuan, Zhipu, MiniMax, Step, iFlytek Spark, China Mobile Jiutian, Tianxi AI, Kimi, and SenseTime Xiaohuanxiong, for match prediction and used AI as a visualization tool showing formations and player movements, with 3D digital-human visualization aiding "leg-hair-level" offside judgments. Wangsu Technology (网宿科技) supported the global livestream with AI, in an event where AI digital twins, 3D VAR offside judgments, and smart ball-tracking featured throughout.

Cultural and Tourism Applications: The world's first MR immersive theatrical work Illusory Land of Great Void, produced by Shanghai Shichen Culture Technology Group (上海世臣文化科技集团), premiered at the Shanghai Poly Theatre, fusing MR with 4D Gaussian splatting technology and using Apple Vision Pro as the interaction terminal; directed by Zhong Zhuo and supervised by Jiang Xuefen, it deployed 150 matrix industrial cameras to capture live performers and AI algorithms to reconstruct them as 360-degree explorable digital avatars embedded via volumetric video into a real stage space, marking the first complete commercial application of combined 4D Gaussian and MR technology in a 60-minute production where dancers performed alongside invisible-to-them digital characters. The 2026 Ming Culture Forum at the Ming Tombs in Beijing's Changping district will debut the holographic AI virtual human "Chang Xiaoming" to present Ming-era Changping's historical scenes. At Yiwu's Global Digital Trade Center, multilingual digital-human shopping guides drew foreign visitors by switching languages fluently, and the 2026 Global Digital Economy Conference in Beijing's Longfu Temple will let visitors browse stores via AI digital humans. In Xiamen, the engineering inspection firm under CCCC First Highway Engineering Bureau built a digital-human system atop an AI large model to compress pile-foundation testing to minutes, while in Changsha's southern city area, digital humans, robots, and VR experiences featured in a digital culture event including the AI robot performance Zhidong Xiaoxiang. China Unicom Shanghai (中国联通上海市分公司) showcased smart elderly-care medical "doctor digital avatars" at the 2026 Shanghai aging-care expo, including the U-Ai Doctor agent built with Shanghai First People's Hospital carrying a pancreatic specialty Q&A agent "Dr. Long."

Enterprise and Workplace Applications: DingTalk (钉钉) released the DingTalk A1 Doukou Doctor Edition AI hardware at 999 yuan, embedding the Doukou medical large model and Doukou Doctor super assistant for clinical documentation, decision support, and literature retrieval; though primarily a hardware assistant, it forms part of a broader push that on internal AI Native restructuring saw 1992-born technologist Chen Yusen succeed Chen Hang as DingTalk CEO, with Alibaba's MuleRun (骡子快跑) Agent marketplace and related products advancing. Alibaba Cloud's AgentTeams (商业化版本 of the open-source HiClaw project) deployed "digital employee" agent teams such as taishan-alert-agent and taishan-diagnosis-agent acting as Agent digital humans in chat rooms to handle 3 a.m. alerts, with a TeamLeader-Worker structure spanning fifteen agents across four AI-Native scenarios including a 7x24 intelligent on-duty Q&A center and the open-source Chaosblade development pipeline, framing agents as digital colleagues rather than mere chatbots. Xianyuan Technology (衔远科技) launched Leadeep AI Leader, a decision product for enterprise top executives combining a titanium recording card with over thirty AI experts and a continuously evolving "digital分身" (digital avatar) built on its Daguan platform's ME-WE-MA architecture, priced at 2,499 yuan with debut on JD.com on May 20. Heye Health (荷叶健康) presented dual AI digital avatars—an AI salesperson cloning insurance sales champions' judgment and an AI doctor providing diagnosis and health management—at the 2026 insurance intermediary development summit, positioned for human-machine collaboration in insurance展业. Brokerages including Huatai Securities, GF Securities, Guosen Securities, and CICC, having competed on digital humans, launched Skill (agent skill) services covering research and advisory scenarios, with vendors such as Hithink (同花顺) and Hundsun Juyuan offering Skill services to dozens of brokerages. Beijing Human Resources (北京人力) subsidiary FESCO Digital Technology launched digital-human figures including "HR Xiaojiejie," "Aili," and "Zhengduoduo" at the China International Fair for Trade in Services. In Beijing's Yizhuang, the AI virtual idol Yuri (尤栗) received China's first "digital artist card" under a sandbox-approval pilot for digital-human commercial performances.

Technology and Platforms: Meituan (美团) released LongCat-Video-Avatar 1.5, an open-source audio-driven video generation framework that produces lip-synced dynamic avatar videos from a single static reference image and an audio clip, using Whisper-driven speech feature extraction and step-distillation compressing the DiT generation process to eight steps, with generalization across real portraits, 2D/3D anime characters, and animal avatars, hosted as a digital-human model on the HyperAI platform. Eight Point Eight Digital's XMEN.AI and consumer applications Yihua, Yiying, and Yizhan support real-time digital-human interaction and video creation. A Zhuhai one-person company, Yuntu Juexiao Technology (珠海云途觉晓科技), built a self-developed digital avatar electronic business card presenting a Q-version figure that introduces the company and answers in the founder's voice, part of an OPC AI-creation model. Ningxia and various A-share firms embedded virtual digital human capabilities, while a digital-human resource designer career emerged as the firm Guanghe Vision (光禾视界) transitioned a traditional film editor, Zhou Lina, into designing AI digital-human assets, AI comic-drama characters, and virtual idols using tools including Hailuo, Jimeng, Kling, Wondershare, and LIBTV. Workers' Daily, published by the All-China Federation of Trade Unions, ran a series on protecting workers' rights amid AI, noting concerns that digital-avatar development and institutionalized employee "skill packs" and digital-avatar training carry infringement risks; legal scholars including Nankai University's Chen Bing discussed boundaries for采集 employee work data to train humanlike digital employees.

Ethical Contexts: Commentary warned that AI digital-avatar and "cyber immortality" applications, having spread from workplace tools and emotional consolation to celebrity cloning, raise unresolved questions over personality rights, dignity, and governance, citing the Cyberspace Administration's draft management measures and the Provisions on the Administration of Deep Synthesis of Internet Information Services as regulatory responses, alongside developer countermeasures like content poisoning and style watermarks against unauthorized cloning. A Chinese-language piece controversially framed both "lying flat" and excessive competition as forms of "cross-border digital biological warfare," and concern grew over low-quality "AI slop" short dramas with uniform, stiff AI characters prompting calls for quality-driven content; the National Radio and Television Administration's pre-launch filing system for AI comic dramas and ByteDance's AI short-drama review standards were cited as governance measures, and a Nanjing AI comic-drama incubation base, Nantong Nanyang Culture Technology (南通楠阳文化科技), partnered with three universities for industry-education integration. Separately, a Paraguayan model mistaken for an AI virtual human amid heightened public suspicion following a Korean "virtual goddess" incident, and a fabricated near-90万-follower AI influencer "Eva Delong," illustrated rising difficulty distinguishing real people from synthetic characters online.

12 June News

Regulatory and Industry Frameworks: A landmark regulatory milestone occurred in the Beijing Economic-Technological Development Area (Beijing Yizhuang) on June 11, 2026, when authorities held a certification ceremony granting an AI virtual idol named Yuri (尤栗) both an admission certificate and the nation's first "Digital Artist Card" under a "sandbox approval" pilot scheme. This marked the launch of China's first sandbox approval pilot specifically targeting digital artists for commercial performance activities. Yuri is owned by Beijing Guyu Qiushi Business Technology Co. (北京谷雨秋实商务科技有限公司), a locally cultivated AI digital-human technology startup that holds two core intellectual properties, AI.TALK and Yuri. As the Beijing Economic-Technological Development Area's dedicated "digital resident," Yuri has accumulated over one million fans across networks, participated in major events such as the Boao Forum for Asia, and collaborated with multiple well-known brands; Yuri had earlier received the country's first digital idol identity certification. The sandbox model establishes a closed-loop management mechanism of "box-entry application, compliance review, sandbox testing, and box-exit approval," subjecting digital-human commercial performances to formal supervision covering intellectual property confirmation, large-model content safety, and on-site and network operational security. The company's founder and Yuri's principal handler, Zhao Hanqing, framed the significance as providing regulatory "certainty," describing this as a critical step for Yuri to move from a "digital identity" to a "digital artist."

Enterprise Restructuring and Commercialization: Baidu (百度) undertook a significant organizational restructuring within its Mobile Ecosystem Group (MEG) on June 6, 2026, upgrading its Digital Human Innovation Business Department—formerly part of the e-commerce division—into an independent department, the first time Baidu has spun off its digital-human business as a standalone unit. This signaled the elevation of digital humans from an e-commerce "supporting tool" to a core strategic business for Baidu's AI commercialization, with the e-commerce and commercial business departments merged into a "Grand Commercial Business Department" under group vice president Ping Xiaoli. By the end of 2025, Baidu's digital-human anchor count had surpassed 100,000, serving over 30,000 enterprise clients across more than 30 industries; Li Yanhong (Robin Li) characterized digital humans as "visible intelligent agents." At the Create 2026 developer conference, Baidu announced the upgrade of its "Huiboxing" (慧播星) digital-human platform into "Baidu Yijing" (百度一镜), a full-scenario multi-agent digital-human platform built on the Wenxin large model, digital-human specialized models, and a multi-agent collaboration system, covering e-commerce livestreaming and brand marketing. The platform, according to commercial business head Wu Chenxia, raised average livestream-room conversion rates by 29% and delivery efficiency by 150% while reducing production costs by 63.3%. Ping Xiaoli, who joined Baidu as an intern in 2006 and previously led the Baidu App, took the AI-driven content e-commerce approach for Baidu Youxuan, where in 2023 AI large-model-assisted transactions accounted for 20% of total trades. The notable case of Luo Yonghao's digital human going viral on Baidu's livestreaming was reportedly a project directly driven by Li Yanhong, with a custom digital human commissioned at considerable cost. Baidu also registered the copyright for the "Baidu Yijing logo" as an artistic work and applied for multiple "Baidu Yijing" trademarks.

The virtual-human full-chain service provider Eight Point Eight Digital (八点八数字), a national high-tech enterprise founded in 2014 and headquartered in Beijing, completed a strategic financing round of nearly 100 million yuan led by Beijing Taizhonghe (北京泰中合), described as the largest single financing in China's AI short-drama tooling sector for 2026. The company self-developed XMEN.AI, described as China's first digital-human generation model, holding nearly one hundred core digital-human patents, and is among the few full-stack vendors achieving real-time generation and driving of 2D, 2.5D, and 3D digital humans. Its core product "Yihua" (亿话) digital-human intelligent-agent creation platform has served over 20,000 enterprises with sales exceeding 100 million yuan, and the company collaborates with partners including Tencent and 360. Its AI short-drama collaboration platform AniShort, launched March 13, 2026, integrates models including Seedance 2.0, Gemini, DeepSeek, Banana, and Image2, and was the first globally to introduce an AI short-drama collaboration agent for full-process automation. After launch, AniShort surpassed 10,000 enterprise team users, with monthly subscription revenue approaching ten million yuan; the AI ink-wash short film "Yi Nian" (一念) it supported won the China-region Best AI Short Film award at the 2026 World AI Film Festival and the Best Technology award in the Beijing International Film Festival AI unit. CEO Geng Guangxing described the AI short-drama market as "digital actors' largest value domain." Eight Point Eight Digital separately announced strategic financing of nearly 100 million yuan led by Taizhonghe Investment, focused on identity-type and service-type virtual-human solutions for government-enterprise, brand, film, gaming, and animation sectors.

Healthcare and Traditional Medicine: Gushengtang (固生堂) is advancing medical-grade AI digital-human applications in traditional Chinese medicine. The company announced its "National Medicine AI Avatar" (国医AI分身) and "TCM Brain" (中医大脑) products, which possess strong medical attributes and rigorous diagnostic logic, forming a dual-empowerment medical AI system that assists renowned doctors while training young physicians. In collaboration with Nanyang Technological University's Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine in Singapore, Gushengtang plans joint research on a TCM-Western medicine integrated AI large model, co-development of AI avatar applications, and exploration of AI medical scenarios such as cancer screening. The company also reached deep cooperation with top research teams at Beijing University of Chinese Medicine, the China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences, and Beijing Jiaotong University to build a TCM-tailored large-model foundation.

In Wuxi's Binhu district, Tsinghua University's Institute for AI Industry Research, through its incubated company Zijing Zhikang (紫荆智康), is deploying Zijing AI Hospital (Agent Hospital), described as the world's first AI hospital, to grassroots community health service centers. The system uses self-developed virtual-world-based evolvable medical-agent technology. For physicians, an "AI avatar" learns synchronously during consultations, assisting with medical-record writing, evidence retrieval, and diagnostic reasoning, becoming increasingly similar to the doctor over time. For patients, it provides full-lifecycle health management including AI general health consultation, intelligent triage, pre-consultation interviews, and automated post-diagnosis follow-up. Among four "global first" achievements unveiled in Binhu, Zijing AI Hospital's online virtual clinic opened for global public testing, enabling every doctor to have a dedicated AI avatar.

The International Centenarian Consortium (ICC) academic gathering in Gaochang, Jilin Province, discussed Human Digital Twin (HDT) technology, which integrates an individual's genetic information, health examination results, lifestyle habits, and medical history to construct a virtual digital human capable of predicting disease likelihood and developing personalized health-management strategies, positioned as a core engine for the era of healthy lifespans reaching 100 years.

Education and Training: Iflytek's (讯飞) Zhizuo (讯飞智作) platform and Iflytek AI Virtual Human Interaction Platform have served over 200 institutions across higher education, primary and secondary schools, and vocational education. Teachers can generate a dedicated digital human by uploading a photo and replicate their own voice with a small voice sample, eliminating repeated on-camera recording; the PPT-to-video function automatically parses courseware and generates course videos using digital-human imagery and voice. Universities including Shandong University, Tianjin University, and Qinghai University have applied these capabilities to course-resource development. The Iflytek Virtual Human Intelligent Interaction Machine, integrating digital-human imagery, large models, and real-time interaction, can be deployed in campus corridors, libraries, and multimedia classrooms as an AI teaching assistant. The platform also supports digital counselors and digital teaching assistants at the Open University of China, Southwest University, and Xi'an Automobile Vocational University, handling enrollment consultation, course inquiries, exam scheduling, and scholarship policy interpretation around the clock.

In the cultural-tourism domain, Iflytek's AI Virtual Human Interaction Platform created the cultural tourism ambassador "Tang Xiaobao" (唐小宝) for Xi'an's Datang Everbright City, appearing in promotional videos and on the official mini-program with real-time interaction powered by the Spark large model and a景区-specific knowledge base. The Zhizuo platform offers a cultural IP image library covering historical and cultural figures, with one-photo custom-formation, enabling scenarios such as Li Bai narrating Mount Lu and Zhang Ji introducing Hanshan Temple. The platform offers both online digital humans (deployed via API and SDK to websites, mini-programs, and apps) and offline digital humans (pure端-side deployment for weak-network, disconnected, or intranet environments in museums and exhibition halls).

In Hefei, AI研修 training classes under the Hefei Craftsman Academy "Craftsmanship Classroom" demonstrated "digital avatar" office-efficiency techniques on the Wukong AI work platform, with one session of 100 spots filling in ten minutes; the instructor was Yu Qianfeng, dean of the Anhui Yunzhi Shuke AI Research Institute and a Chinese Academy of Sciences PhD.

Xi'an Eurasia University's "new retail" strategy noted that AI digital-human anchors can now sell goods around the clock; the institution embedded AI tools as "collaborative partners" in livestream operations and digital marketing, using AI to generate livestream script drafts before iterating with real user feedback. The university also added a new engineering major whose graduates can serve in roles including virtual digital-human development. Chuanzhi Education (传智教育), through its Heima Programmer and Chuanzhi AI sub-brands, launched 2026 AI courses including AIGC creation training camps covering AI digital humans, with reported employment rates for AIGC application directions of 95.86%; the company collaborates with Huawei, Baidu, Alibaba, Kingsoft, and iFlytek on curriculum.

Film, Television, and Short Drama: The short-drama and film industries are undergoing significant transformation involving virtual beings. Yaoke Media (耀客传媒) officially announced two AI digital artists, Qin Lingyue (秦凌岳) and Lin Xiyan (林汐颜), at the Hong Kong International Film and TV Market in March 2026, but faced backlash after netizens noted Qin Lingyue resembled actor Zhai Zilu and Lin Xiyan's face appeared to fuse features of Liang Jie, Zhao Jinmai, and Zhang Zifeng, with Zhao Jinmai's studio comment section flooded with rights-defense demands. The first quarter of 2026 saw 128,000 domestic micro-short-dramas produced, with AI manga dramas comprising 95%, and production costs dropping from hundreds of thousands of yuan to tens of thousands. The Spring Festival 2026 work "Yang Yu Lan" (羊与兰) launched simultaneously in live-action and AI manga-drama versions. JD.com (京东) and Kuaishou (快手) jointly produced China's first AI plus live-action sci-fi short drama "We Who Came from the Stars" (来自星星的我们), launching June 10, 2026, starring Yue Yuting and Karon, featuring an AI digital human's consciousness awakening, using Kuaishou's Keling AI (可灵AI) underlying technology to blend real actors with AI digital humans; viewers could jump to JD to purchase "Karon's same-style fan" or "Yuting's same-style fan."

Kuaishou's Keling AI generated revenue of 650 million yuan in Q1 2026, up over 300% year-on-year, with applications including special-effects supplementation for "Taiping Nian" (太平年) and virtual-scene generation for "Da Wei Dynasty" (大卫王朝); AI manga-drama marketing consumption peaked at over 20 million yuan in a single day. The AI short film "Paper Phone" (纸手机), which exceeded 100 million views, was produced by two non-professional creators using Keling AI over three days.

Filmmaker Stephen Chow (周星驰) and his Hong Kong-listed company Bingo Group (比高集团) completed a strategic investment in Suzhou Interactive Star Network Technology Co. (苏州互动之星网络科技有限公司), collaborating around AI series, interactive film-games, live-action film and television, and full-chain IP operations including AI manga dramas, AI quasi-live-action dramas, motion capture, virtual cinematography, and AI video character consistency. Chow had earlier partnered with Douyin to launch the "9527 Theater" short-drama venture.

Concerns about virtual beings replacing performers were highlighted: actors refusing to authorize facial data for AI model training reportedly face a collective dilemma of "no signing, no roles." Dubbing performers including Ji Guanlin, Bian Jiang Studio, and Voice Workshop 729 issued collective rights-defense statements in March 2026 proposing "three prohibitions" against unauthorized voice collection and AI generation. Zhang Jiaming, voice of Taiyi Zhenren in "Ne Zha 2," lost five commercial collaborations to AI infringement. In the drama "Soul Ferry: Ten Years" (灵魂摆渡·十年), a new character Zhao Hengzhi used an AI voice synthesizer in his portrayal, depicting workplace "personality splitting."

Cultural Heritage and Tourism: Cultural digital humans are expanding across文博 and tourism sectors, though concerns over content emptiness and excessive entertainment persist. Shanxi Museum created the digital docent "Qingniao" (青鸟) modeled on the Marquis of Jin's bird-shaped zun, using super-realistic modeling and intelligent interaction. Hubei's Jingzhou Museum deployed "Jing Xiaochu" (荆小楚) with a massive cultural-relic knowledge base. Datong's ancient city features the holographic digital human "Hua Mulan" (花木兰) in Northern Wei armor, while Qixian's Wang Wei Art Museum offers a "Wang Wei" digital human reciting poetry and explaining painting. Shumin Technology (数命科技) developed "Jing Xiaochu," embedding a knowledge system of over 110,000 cultural relics with support for 143 languages, deployed in over 30 museums. Chongqing Hechuan released a "Tao Xingzhi AI Digital Human" with high-fidelity appearance restoration and a knowledge base of Tao Xingzhi's lifelong works, achieving 98% interaction accuracy.

Shiyou Technology (世优科技), founded in 2015, offers full-stack digital-human services and has accumulated over 2,000 cases. Its 3D digital-human projects include a national-style digital employee for Electric Power Construction Real Estate (电建地产) and a digital avatar for "Naobaijin" (脑白金). Its 2D digital human "Xiaoyi" (小益) serves the Shunyi District Procuratorate as an AI prosecutor, generated from roughly ten minutes of real-person video. The Bota AI digital-human intelligent agent powers cases including New Olympus Group's (新奥集团) "Enniu Zhiban" (恩牛智伴) chief docent, Haikai Group's (海开集团) "Yunbao" (云宝) receptionist, and Yunnan Communications Investment Group's (云南交投集团) dual digital humans "Yunshu" (云舒). Shiyou also created the virtual IP "Huo Chuquan" (火出圈) for the Hunan Tourism Development Conference and "Xiaojinhua" (小金花) for the city-level digital human of Dali, using inertial motion capture; the company participated in the Hangzhou Asian Games digital torchbearer project. Shiyou's AIGC technology enables rapid production of digital-human videos across scenarios.

Beijing文旅's "Ten Major Technology Application Scenarios" integrate digital relic vitalization, XR immersive performances, AIGC personalized content, holographic imagery, and intelligent canvases for personalized tourist content. Guilin Tourism shares (桂林旅股) deployed AI digital humans and intelligent safety systems on Li River cruise ships, AI smart-themed cruise ships for the Two Rivers and Four Lakes, and AI intelligent customer service. Shandong is planning Taishan culture and Yellow River culture theme atlases that will give Mount Tai and the Yellow River "digital twins," through实景三维 and古今对照 modern cartographic techniques. At the World Tourism Cities Federation Beijing Xiangshan Tourism Summit, attendees experienced multilingual digital humans for promoting China globally, telling Chinese stories in local languages.

World Cup and Sports Technology: Lenovo (联想), as FIFA's official technology partner for the 2026 World Cup, deployed multiple virtual-being technologies. Its Football AI Pro super-intelligent agent, the first FIFA-officially-certified World Cup football AI super-agent, integrates the FIFA football language model and supports multiple languages to interact with all 48 participating teams for pre-match preparation and post-match review. Lenovo's VAR 3D Digital Human Visualization Solution (3D Avatars) created high-precision 3D virtual images for all 1,248 participating players via 28 3D scanning booths deployed at team hotels, with each player scan taking approximately one second; the system generates任意-angle virtual replays for offside and foul judgments, with player hair removed from offside determination via AI though retained in the visual presentation. The Referee View AI Video Enhancement System provides stabilized first-person referee perspectives. FIFA President Infantino praised the embrace of digital technology and AI. Chinese裁判 Ma Ning explained the 3D human-image system mechanics. The official match ball "Trionda" (三重浪), made by an Adidas代工厂 in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area with an embedded smart ball胆 by顶碁 Sports (顶碁运动) in Huai'an, records 500 touches per second. Uruguayan media reported Lenovo would introduce AI-driven digital-avatar technology.

Sales, Marketing, and Service Applications: Multiple digital-human applications appeared across commercial and public-service contexts. The "Huiboxing" digital human was used to produce a news video reporting on a guardrail-damage compensation dispute in Shaanxi Baoji. In Qiandongnan Prefecture, Guizhou, a hotel and homestay AI new-media salon led by chief engineer Fu Kai of Shenzhen Xinruying Artificial Intelligence Technology (深圳新如影人工智能科技有限公司) taught AI digital-employee setup, AI batch copywriting, intelligent video editing, and digital-human实景 filming, using local operators including Yuncun, Xijiang Xiyuan Smart Hotel, Congjiang Pinshang Hotel, and Kaili Banshan Hotel as practice samples.

TCL upgraded its smart-hotel solution AI large-model hotel television, expanding virtual-human images from three to ten with deep custom IP support; Sushi Hotel's (苏适酒店) custom virtual human "Xiao Suzi" (小苏子) blends Suzhou garden aesthetics for 24-hour greeting, Q&A, and scenic recommendations, converting smart experiences into "social currency" for younger guests via natural dialogue suitable for short-video and social-media sharing.

In Henan, Huangfanqu Industrial Group (黄泛区实业集团) developed the "Zhoudao Nongfu" (周到农服) mini-program with the embedded "Huangfanqu No. 1" agent, whose on-screen digital human confirms plot location and work timing through voice interaction, automatically generating agricultural-machinery dispatch orders.

Shenzhen's job market deployed digital-human livestreaming for recruitment ("数字人直播带岗云聘日"). Qixin Group (齐心集团) created Qixin Digital Human, an AI-algorithm-driven virtual 2D figure based on real-person imagery, replicating speaking voice and lip/expression/action patterns, with applications including the provincial政务 "Yueshihui" video platform and intelligent party-building. Tencent (腾讯) QQ relaunched "QQ Show" supporting AI generation from uploaded photos to quickly generate personal virtual avatars usable across social scenarios including avatars, group-chat interaction, and "brain-hole show" creative videos, though it announced discontinuation of the separate "Super QQ Show" 3D virtual-image function and its "Xiao Wo" (小窝) home system from August 11, 2026.

Voice Cloning, Fraud, and Rights Protection: The misuse of synthetic characters for fraud emerged as a serious concern. AI voice synthesis was used to defraud an 83-year-old woman, Grandmother Chen, of intended 30,000 yuan via a fake "son" call. The Huangshigang District People's Court in Huangshi, Hubei, adjudicated a case where fraudsters used AI voice-mimicking technology that highly restored vocal timbre with real-time conversational interaction to impersonate a "grandson," defrauding three elderly victims of 60,000 yuan combined. In Fujian, a business head was defrauded of 4.3 million yuan in ten minutes by an AI-synthesized "digital avatar" impersonating a friend during a video call. So-called "AI elderly tycoons"—AI-generated handsome, refined "儒雅霸总" virtual figures—systematically hunt lonely elderly users, sending ambiguous messages, AI-synthesized fake photos, and false promises to extract打赏 and transfers, potentially constituting fraud or civil deception.

Voice actor Shen Anyu discovered his voice was cloned by AI and distributed by major media accounts, with his AI分身 sold as voice packages for 688 yuan for lifetime use; he filed litigation with lawyers Ren Xiangyu of Beijing Zhongqin Law Firm and Wang Haoqian of Beijing Guanling (Wuhan) Law Firm under a risk-agency model, referencing China's first AI voice-infringement case decided in April 2024. Platforms began recommending real-person original dubbing while sometimes misjudging genuine human dubbing as AI-generated, requiring creators to appear on camera to prove authenticity.

Labor, Legal, and Ethical Frameworks: The integration of virtual beings into labor processes raised significant rights concerns. A Shandong gaming-media company trained a departed HR specialist into an AI digital avatar to handle consultation, invitations, and table-making. Reports documented enterprises systematizing the "smelting" of digital分身 and incorporating them into performance assessments, collecting employee work data and behavioral traces that may infringe personal-information rights, with knowledge-property attribution of "cloned" experience remaining legally ambiguous. Experts including Wuhan University associate professor Ban Xiaohui and Chinese Academy of Social Sciences researcher Wang Tianyu called for revised labor-law systems addressing AI agents, digital avatars, and algorithmic management. The 2026 Beijing Zhiyuan Conference featured a "Soul Agent" experience zone where attendees could obtain dedicated intelligent agents and engage in real-time dialogue with AI avatars of top scholars.

Internationally relevant to China-based discussion, Warner Music Group acquired AI attribution startup Sureel AI, whose technology creates an "AI-DNA" for each work and includes a Name/Image/Likeness attribution suite tracking artists' voices, images, and performance styles in AI-generated content including voice cloning, AI-generated digital avatars, and style imitation. New York State enacted a law requiring conspicuous disclosure of "synthetic performers"—AI-generated digital imagery simulating real performances—in advertisements, supported by SAG-AFTRA. The family of late musician Ozzy Osbourne planned a "digital imprint" via Hyperreal, a closed AI not connected to the internet, drawing only on verified statements; Hyperreal previously created a digital human of Stan Lee. These cases informed Chinese industry discussion of virtual-being regulation, as China has accelerated its regulatory framework with the Interim Measures for AI-Generated Synthetic Content Labeling and a draft Digital Virtual Human Information Service Management Measures.

Stock Market and Industry Positioning: Numerous Chinese listed companies position virtual digital humans as a concept sector. Zhejiang Wenhu Internet (浙文互联) develops digital virtual humans, AIGC, automotive metaverse, and cultural-tourism metaverse businesses. Huashu Media (华数传媒) launched the metaverse virtual human "Aijia" (艾珈). Guomai Culture (国脉文化) released digital virtual-human images "Ailin" (Irene) and "Xiaolin." Ningshui Group (宁水集团) launched its AI virtual human in early 2025 as part of a digital-culture metaverse layout. Tianxiaxiu (天下秀) operates the 3D virtual social product Honnverse (虹宇宙) building virtual identity, image, space, and social interaction. Qiyuan-related Diweixun (迪威迅) developed a digital-human rapid-generation system. Other companies tagged with virtual digital-human concepts include Xinchen Technology (新晨科技), Wanda Information (万达信息), Qixin Group, ST Yilianzhong (ST易联众), Tuowei Information (拓维信息), and Zhongshi Media (中视传媒) with its digital human "Xiao 8." Liard (利亚德) is using motion capture and large models to develop "action large models" for film and gaming, including影视-级 motion capture data converted into trainable semantic inputs for virtual-actor driving, and contributed 80 million yuan to an AI industrial fund.

11 June News

Healthcare and Accessibility: Several China-based virtual-being deployments focus on health, care, and inclusion. Chengdu Kairui Medical Technology Co., Ltd. (成都市凯瑞医疗科技有限公司), known primarily for its intelligent blood-drawing robots integrating infrared and ultrasound vascular positioning, was the sole medical-device developer among more than thirty institutions that co-authored China's first national standard for sign-language digital humans, Information Technology — Sign Language Digital Human Technical Specifications (GB/T 47517-2026), effective November 1, 2026. According to the company's co-founder Wang Qiulin, the standard requires sign-language comprehension scored no lower than 70 by deaf evaluators, ensuring digital humans accurately convey meaning rather than producing meaningless gestures; such digital humans are already used in news broadcasting, government-hall guidance, museum navigation, and major-event information release. Hansong (Nanjing) Technology Co., Ltd. (汉桑(南京)科技股份有限公司) filed a patent for a voice self-adjustment method that extracts multimodal user features, identifies emotional states, and adjusts a virtual digital human's real-time voice output parameters accordingly. In Chongqing, the Bayu New Public Welfare digital-talent cultivation program, run by the Chongqing Land and Sea International Communication Public Welfare Foundation, empowers rural workers, veterans, graduates, people with disabilities, and other groups to master digital tools in the AI era. In a Yunnan financial-inclusion context, the China Banking Regulatory Wenshan branch and the Wenshan branch of China Construction Bank launched a "Financial Consumer Protection AI Digital Human" to popularize enterprise rights-protection knowledge during a financing matchmaking event.

Cultural Heritage and Tourism: Cultural digital humans are widely deployed across Chinese museums, heritage sites, and tourism venues, though many face the problem of being visually impressive yet culturally hollow. The Shanxi Museum created the digital docent "Qingniao" based on the bird-shaped zun of the Marquis of Jin, using hyper-realistic modeling and intelligent interaction for relic explanation. The Jingzhou Museum in Hubei deploys "Jingxiaochu," developed by Shuming Technology, embedding a knowledge system of over 110,000 relics, supporting explanation in 143 languages, and already in use at more than thirty museums. In Datong's ancient city, a holographic digital human of "Hua Mulan" wears Northern Wei armor and narrates frontier history; in Qixian's Wang Wei art gallery, a "Wang Wei" digital human recites poetry and explains painting. Wuhan's Donghu High-Tech Zone offers subsidies of up to ten million yuan covering 30 percent of investment for "AI+" cultural innovation platforms. Net Dragon Networks (福建网龙网络公司) had its "high-fidelity digital human rapid construction and multi-module interaction system" selected as a 2025 national metaverse typical case—the only such case from Fujian—built using its self-developed character editor, virtual host, and scene editor through face-sculpting, motion-capture, and facial-capture, connected to an AIGC dialogue large model; the company appointed virtual digital human Tang Yu as rotating CEO in 2022, alongside AI assistant Tang Xiaoqing and AI project manager Tang Sheng, and operates an "AI travel ambassador" digital human and education products across 192 countries. In Tibet's Baqing County, the "Lingcao Traceability" virtual digital human debuted at the sixth caterpillar fungus collection experience event, with AR check-in scenes and live-streamed traceability. In Liaoning, the provincial social-science federation built a "Liaoning Mei" digital human and short-video series and a "Red Mountain Culture AI Digital Immersive Science Popularization Exhibition." At the Second World Classics Conference, sages such as Socrates and Confucius appeared as digital humans interacting with attendees. The Central Radio and Television Station's innovation technology exhibition in Chongqing showcased hyper-realistic digital humans, voiceprint cloning, and intelligent dubbing among eight AI media applications, with a CGTN report on intelligent Chongqing. At the 2026 Chongqing International Animation Film Week, the "Animation China" Western Creation Center is being built relying on a CCTV Animation × Yongchuan Technology Studio AI creation base, featuring a digital-human platform and multilingual translation for IP projects such as Journey to the West.

Commerce, Trade, and Customer Service: Virtual digital humans are transforming retail and cross-border trade in China. At the Global Digital Trade Center in Yiwu, Zhejiang, pearl-jewelry merchant Chen Junwei placed an AI digital human customer-service display screen at his stall; the digital human, mirroring a real person's appearance, fluently switches between English, Arabic, Spanish, and other languages to answer foreign buyers' inquiries, replacing translation software, handling preliminary questions, and freeing staff to serve high-value clients, helping him reach deals with clients in the United States and Southeast Asia. The center integrates AI transparent translation screens and multilingual digital humans, and the "World Yiwu" trade large model offers thirteen AI application tools. At the tenth China–South Asia Expo in Kunming, the service-trade hall featured cross-border digital humans, multilingual real-time translation, and AI cross-border data services alongside the tea-brewing robot "Chayedan." Guangdong's Fifteenth Five-Year Plan explicitly writes in digital-human creation, generative AI in content creation and translation, and overseas distribution of web series and games. Bestek Group's智科平云 women's football digital agent, an AI digitized image of Guangdong women's football captain Luo Yu, was launched as the country's first provincial professional women's football digital IP, jointly developed by Guangzhou Digital Technology Group and Guangzhou New Generation Company.

Media, News, and Broadcasting: Chinese media platforms increasingly use digital humans for news delivery. NetEase Hao's news videos covering the Hong Kong Wang Fuk Court fire prosecutions, the Yuncheng "rotten-egg smell" environmental alert, the Harbin man drinking beer by the river, and the Guangdong single-candidate exam room all explicitly state they "use the Huiboxing digital human." Baidu's reorganization merged its e-commerce and commercialization units into a "Big Commercialization Business Group" led by Ping Xiaoli, with digital-human business spun off as an independent unit reporting to her; Baidu's Huiboxing digital-human live-streaming tool was upgraded to "Baidu Yijing," extending from live-commerce to multi-form digital humans, while its self-developed Nuwa AI digital-human platform supports enterprise digital employees. Xinhua Securities' Hongan studio and Net Dragon products appear across multiple reports. Moore Threads' MTT AIBOOK AI computing laptop integrates a 2D digital human named "Xiaomai." iFlytek's AI Virtual Human Interaction Platform, whose full functionality passed national-standard certification, powers digital docents, smart guides, and IP operation across museums and scenic areas, including the "Tang Xiaobao" cultural tourism ambassador created for Xi'an's Tang Dynasty Everbright City and an IP "唐小宝" entering the official mini-program, plus offline digital humans for weak-network venues.

Short Drama, Film, and Content Production: AI-driven virtual characters are reshaping China's short-drama and film industries. Soul App's AI team Soul AI Lab open-sourced the real-time digital-human generation model SoulX-FlashTalk, achieving 0.87-second sub-second latency and 32fps, followed by SoulX-FlashHead (1.3B parameters, 96fps on a single RTX 4090) and the high-robustness SoulX-LiveAct, forming a three-model matrix from consumer GPUs to high-end computing. JD.com open-sourced the JoyAI-Echo long audio-video generation framework for digital-human assistant scenarios. AI仿真人 (AI simulated-human) dramas grew rapidly, with simulated-human comic dramas accounting for 38 of the top hundred in January 2026. At Beijing's Mentougou Jingxi Drama Valley, the company Beijing Xingguiwuxian and Zhongjiao Interactive produce AI comic dramas, and Jingxi Zhiying used the "Tanzhe Zhikong" text-to-video model to "revive" martyr Zhao Yiman in San He Jia Shu, donating it to a memorial hall; the XR Immersive Audiovisual Joint Laboratory features a digital-human production center. Across Hengdian, AI short dramas displaced many real-person crews, prompting concern from actors and foreign performers over digital-portrait authorization, voice copyright, and AI usage clauses. PixVerse, the product of Aishi Technology, offers digital-human and lip-sync video generation for short dramas and e-commerce, while Jingying Technology, Jingdong, and others build AI short-drama Agent-native companies. Star Spark Media (星火传媒), founded by Li Jing, runs an internalized "content factory" using digital-human cloning, AI multilingual dubbing, and AI editing to revive classic Hong Kong films; the Hong Kong audiovisual industry envisions reactivating dormant IP through "digital human permanent personality assets," with Sima Huapeng of Silicon Intelligence cited. Chengdu's Kemeng science-fiction OPC community, led by Chen Shi, focuses on virtual digital-human performance among AIGC film production fields.

Enterprise, Training, and Digital Employees: Chinese enterprises are deploying digital humans as digital employees and corporate ambassadors. At Net Dragon, virtual digital human Tang Yu serves as rotating CEO performing AI management duties. Jiawei Lanjing's智能运维 solutions include IT-process digital humans and standard-operation digital humans as operational智能体. A Chinese game-media company "refined" a departed HR specialist's work data into an AI digital human to continue performing consultation, invitation, and form-making tasks, raising labor-law and personality-rights concerns analyzed by Northwest University of Political Science and Law scholars regarding "炼化同事" and the limits of employee consent. In Yueqing-based Tianzheng Electric, "virtual digital human" appears as a concept-board label. Midea Group's Thailand smart air-conditioning factory established an overseas training base using AIGC, digital humans, and VR for multilingual talent cultivation. In Yiwu and Hangzhou, OPC (one-person company) creators use digital-human operation as a core track; Shandong Zhongkai Digital Technology Group's Jinghua AI incubator in Rizhao supports digital-human operation teams serving local businesses, while Hangzhou's market regulator competition showcased digital-human explanation for individual businesses.

Education and Public Sector: Digital humans support teaching and ideological-political education across China. Hailiang Technology, the only education-technology firm on the 2026 Zhejiang Merchant AI Agent Top 40 list, deploys "Xingledu," which customizes digital-human teaching assistants for teachers and provides digital-human guided reading and intelligent voice assessment, used for morning reading at Hangzhou Chunhui Primary School, reaching 31 provinces. Anhui University of Finance and Economics developed digital-human video cases and AI-enabled cross-segment collective lesson preparation, while Anhui Vocational College of Electronics and Information Technology built an ideological-political virtual simulation center with red-themed VR courses and a 3D digital-human Q&A system. Southwest Minzu University's School of Journalism and Communication, with Sichuan Observation, ran a "Virtual Digital Human IP Full-Process Practical Training" session. At Wuhan Institute of Technology Science and Engineering, an ideological-political work used immersive VR with digital-human narration. In Changchun's optoelectronics expo, the AI digital human "Caixiaomeng" served job-seekers. At a Ningbo family-building event and Dongnan Primary School, children conversed with AI virtual images of cultural figures via an AI "Curiosity Window." The Chongzhi Media OPC in Rizhao and the Soul智源 conference SoulAgent, with eleven AI experts' digital avatars, extend digital-human interaction into knowledge and learning contexts.

Compliance, Regulation, and Ethical Risks: China's regulatory framework for digital humans is rapidly developing alongside concerns over misuse. The Interim Measures for the Management of AI Anthropomorphic Interactive Services and the draft Measures for the Management of Digital Virtual Human Information Services have been published, and a 2026 Beijing Internet Court ruling held that AI-tool use cannot evade infringement liability. The "Xinzhua AIGC" platform, run by Chengdu New Claw Culture Technology Co., Ltd. (成都新爪文化科技有限公司), partnered with Beijing Tengrui Cloud Culture Technology Co., Ltd. (北京腾瑞云文化科技有限公司) to build a full-chain "evidence-monitoring-forensics-rights protection" system for AI digital-portrait assets, using blockchain存证 and hash-fingerprint comparison via Tengrui's CPSP platform with a fingerprint library exceeding 1.7 billion entries. Giant Mobile Technology Co., Ltd. (巨人移动技术有限公司) in Shanghai filed a patent for a super-resolution-algorithm-based digital-human image detail reconstruction method using U-Net and StyleGAN2. A serious ethical problem involves "AI老霸总" (AI old tycoon) digital humans targeting elderly users: accounts such as "Laoyou Suole" deploy AI-generated suave male figures calling viewers "sister," with eleven accounts sharing one identical face but different personas, generated from mature templates for as little as 20 yuan per 30-second video, luring打赏, showcase-带货, and婚介 referrals; one elderly榜一大哥 reportedly spent nearly four million yuan over three years on a married streamer in a related case ruled on by a Wuhan court. The United States' New York State "synthetic performer" advertising-disclosure law took effect, requiring clear labeling of AI-generated virtual figures in ads, a development relevant to Chinese cross-border advertisers and digital-human asset providers facing tightening compliance thresholds.

10 June News

Healthcare: 喵小禾科技 (Miaoxiaohe) operates a Neuro AI platform for child brain development that leverages avatar-style interactive interfaces and proprietary DBx digital biomarker technology for millisecond-precision microbehavior data capture; deployed across China, the US, and Canada, it has reached over 15,000 paying users with 8-week interventions reportedly improving children's cognitive function by an average of 40%. Pet medical AI company 宠语科技 (Chongyu Technology) partners with Ant Digital Technologies (蚂蚁数科) to deploy its "宠智语" pet medical virtual assistant and the co-developed "宠灵宝" AI agent across more than 300 veterinary clinics; the virtual veterinary digital persona handles roughly 80% of routine nighttime consultations with 85%+ monthly active usage. 芳华正茂 (Fanghuazhengmao) released the "夕鸟 Agent" digital human elderly-care manager, a multimodal AI companion integrated with home sensors and the company's FIM algorithm engine to provide emotional companionship, health interaction, and emergency response for seniors aging in place, with deployments in Beijing's Shichahai street community and adaptive showrooms.

Entertainment, Film and Microdramas: Zhejiang Huace Film & TV launched the AIGC High-Tech Film Creation Center in Tonglu, with an AIGC digital sound stage breaking ground in October to support virtual shooting, real-time rendering, digital human synthesis, AI motion capture, and LED virtual production; partners include Zhixiang Future, Shengshu Technology, and Qunhe Technology on film large models and spatial intelligence, with the AIGC creation pipeline embedding digital humans across scripting, shooting, and post-production. The Tonglu government's "影 cultural tourism" scenario explicitly converts virtual shooting, digital humans, and real-time interaction into consumable cultural-tourism products. Hangzhou's Tonglu AIGC center plans to host more than 100 crews annually under a one-stop "AI-enabled" model. Hangzhou-based Jingxi Drama Valley (Jingxi Drama Valley) in Mentougou produced over 60 AI dramas including AI real-person manga drama (AI live-action manga drama), with Jingxi Zhiying, led by Jin Yan, uses the "Tanzhe Zhikong" text-to-video large model to "revive" martyr Zhao Yiman in the short film "Shanhe Jia Shu: Zhao Yiman Pian" for the Zhao Yiman Memorial Hall in Yibin, and to produce "A Rough Porcelain Bowl"; Beijing Xinggui Wuxian, led by Pei Liqun and Hu Xuedi, signed a 10,000-minute AI animation framework agreement with overseas platforms, with a 7-person team producing a 30-minute episode in 3 days; Zhongjiao Hudong builds full-pipeline AIGC short dramas in Mentougou and is establishing a northern AI industry-education base; Yunjian Media, the first OPC (one-person company) to land in Jingxi Drama Valley, uses Tanzhe Zhikong to enable solo digital-human creators; Fengyuzhu operates virtual hosts, AI digital humans, and Zhejiang Shenbai Digital subsidiary is developing virtual idols and AI digital human IPs; it participates in the Lingjing Oasis metaverse content. Guomai Culture produces over 200 AI short dramas via China Telecom Telechat and other multi-model integration, deploying virtual digital humans Irene and Xiaolin as enterprise digital spokespersons. CCTV Media created the CCTV virtual character "Xiao 8" via its subsidiary Zhongshi Beifang. Tianyu Digital Technology operates the virtual human Tianyu, whose short-drama series "Qianbi Xunzong" accumulated over 400 million views and nearly 30 million Douyin likes within a year. Baotong Technology develops digital humans via its BOTON SPACE 1 platform combining naked-eye 3D mixed reality, deployed for industrial scenarios alongside its overseas mobile game publishing business. Tianzhou Culture operates four virtual streamers, including Linjia Xiaoxian (8 million followers) and Xiaoya Tongxue (2 million followers), on multiple platforms, plus Xianyu and Yingke on Bilibili. Fushi Holdings subsidiary DISMedia launched a "Digital Human Program" within its DISAI Smart Chain platform. Shengtong Technology launched China's first GPT-driven digital human assistant for youth education camps.

Marketing, Advertising, and Live-Commerce Digital Humans: Baidu consolidated its MEG (Multi-Enterprise Intelligence Group) into a Big Commerce business unit led by Ping Xiaoli, while separating the Digital Human Innovation Business Unit (DHU) as an independent department. The Huibo Star brand was upgraded to Baidu Yijing, launched as a global, multi-agent digital human platform covering live streaming, video, and real-time interaction, with an overseas version. Baidu Yijing surpassed 100,000 digital human streamers serving over 30 industries; Luo Yonghao's digital-human livestream debut achieved over 13 million views and 55 million yuan GMV, with average conversion increased by 29%, delivery efficiency increased by 150%, and production cost reduced by 63.3%. Robin Li defined digital humans as "visible intelligent agents" and proposed DAA (Daily Active Agents) as the new AI-era metric. Baidu also filed a patent for large-scale model training methods applicable to virtual human scenarios. Miaowu AI, operated by Miaowu Universe (Shenzhen) Artificial Intelligence... It lets users generate their own AI digital avatar in 15 minutes with 100+ styles and 99.8% voice similarity, with one operator managing 1,000+ digital agents, applied to IP building, product endorsement, smart customer service, and live commerce; founder Qiu Nan is positioned as an early founder of desktop robots. iFlytek released Spark Marketing Assistant, an AI digital employee platform that creates a 1:5 human-machine collaboration mode where each human agent has multiple voice-matched AI digital avatars for parallel outreach, raising daily effective reach 36.5% in financial marketing scenarios. Seeyon and Huawei Cloud jointly launched CoMi Intelligent Agent Digital Avatar at the Huawei Cloud INSPIRE creator conference, providing per-employee AI digital avatars for office, process, risk control, and sales scenarios, built on the AI-COP collaborative platform with Call Me natural language interaction. Digiwin showcased its Athena EIOSpace Enterprise Ontology, with Digital avatars, expert agents, and commander agents were stratified for industrial use at Shanghai United Bearing and a Zhejiang foreign trade case where digital avatars act as order-taking and order-following assistants. Baixing Intelligence released the OntoZ platform, deploying AI digital avatars across 1,000+ Chinese-outbound enterprises with nearly 1,000 agents active in 160+ countries, including a Zhejiang fastener manufacturer landing 200+ inquiries through smart digital avatar outreach. XunTu Technology develops financial-research AI digital avatars trained on user information flows for subjective strategy private equity use cases. MIO Exhibition plans a 150 million RMB investment in Jieyue Xingchen to support a "digital avatar agent + platform matching agent" multi-agent architecture for outbound trade, alongside its subsidiary Aochuang Tianxia doing AI agent video marketing. Midea deploys AI-translated digital humans with VR for multilingual overseas employee training, cutting course production from 2.5... Days to 4 hours. Guaishou Intelligence provides a pipeline of "knowledge base + vertical model + content writing agent + AI digital human + public opinion monitoring"; its Guaishou digital human-driven algorithm passed CAC deep-synthesis algorithm filing, supporting 7×24 multi-platform digital-human livestreaming. Miao Xiaohe (separately) also overlaps in digital interaction. Goldenhome launched the home-furnishing industry's first digital-human spokesperson, Goldcicada, and now uses digital human livestreaming via partnerships with the Xiaomi ecosystem. Oriental Pearl partners with Shanghai MiniMax and Jieyue Xingchen on digital human and multi-model e-commerce applications, and runs the Magnolia Livestream Room with digital-human commerce. Xuanya International co-founded the Julang Metaverse Joint Laboratory to deliver virtual digital humans, virtual spaces, and XR livestreaming services. Kaipuyun. Self-developed digital humans Yun Xiaoyang and Yun Xiaoyu ("Digital Human Assistant for Travel During the Epidemic") and powers AI digital humans for smart government services. Jiafa Education introduced 3D digital AI human English teachers for K-12 oral-English coaching. Hengfeng Information is positioned in virtual digital humans within elderly care service systems. Jincai Internet launched a digital virtual human in 2023 for financial and tax services. Filinger integrates virtual humans into simulation exercise modules. Bluefocus (via Fengyuzhu) and Leo Group are referenced as constituent AI-marketing companies of the China Securities Entertainment Media Index. Leqi Group, based in Hangzhou Binjiang, is positioned as an AI-driven smart retail service provider in the AI+e-commerce full-chain.

Cultural Heritage and Tourism: The Wuxi Stele Forest in Qiyang, Yongzhou, in partnership with the Hunan Malanshan Panoramic Cultural Digital Innovation Center, opened the world's first digital experience museum for cliff carvings. Through 3D laser scanning and lighting-matrix capture, 505 inscriptions were digitized and 80 weathered tablets were restored. A holographic digital image of Yan Zhenqing quizzes visitors on the "Three Immortals," and visitors interact with digital humans of Yuan Jie and Yan Zhenqing, as well as generating AR group photos with ancient figures. The Wuhan Municipal Property Management Bureau and Changjiang.com launched a campaign for a Wuhan property digital human IP, with submissions such as Wang Bo's "Jiang Xiaoan," Tang Chuling's "Chu Xiaotun," and Hu Bin's "Han Xiaotun," all reimagining the Yangtze finless porpoise as smart-property digital ambassadors. The Shanghai intelligent agent "Hu Xiaoyou" handles AI custom itineraries and AIGC travelogues for over... With 45,000 cultural-tourism resources and 13 million users, Hangzhou's "Hang Xiaoyi" digital human integrates DeepSeek across 40,000+ service points for tour guidance, hotel booking, and itinerary planning. Yiwu Global Digital Trade Center features the World Yiwu Model, AI digital human customer service that quickly switches between English, Arabic, and Spanish to support cross-border merchants such as Chen Junwei's pearl-jewelry stall, plus the humanoid robot "Wukong" greeting foreign buyers in 60 languages ​​and "one-click generation of short videos in 36 languages" and "digital human live streaming." Douyin's "Ignite! Great Power Equipment, City Treasures" campaign with the China Association for Public Companies features the Yiwu digital human live streaming alongside Sikan Technology's 3D digital modeling. Jiangsu launched the 2026 Jiangsu Province New Consumption Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition in Suzhou, encouraging new business models including digital human services and token services. Shenzhen published a three-year action plan promoting digital human multi-scenario deployment across smart commerce. including unmanned retail and live-streaming e-commerce.

Sports and Broadcasting (China-relevant): For the 2026 USA-Mexico World Cup, Lenovo, led by Senior Vice President and CIO Hu Guanzhong, co-developed the "Football AI Pro" digital base with FIFA, scanning 1,200+ players into millimeter-precision 3D digital humans for semi-automatic offside judgments and broadcasting offside replays, replacing static TV freezes with 3D digital-human animations.

Enterprise and Industrial Digital Workers: Shanghai United Bearing, partnered with Digiwin Digital Intelligence for over 18 years, is deploying AI digital avatars alongside expert and commander agents within its Jiading smart factory. Zheng Lei, Vice General Manager of United Bearing, described digital avatars as replacing scheduling roles with process coordination, material matching, and predictive maintenance. Sany Heavy Truck deploys digital avatars for marketing-side customer support alongside AI assistants for service. Fengyuzhu collaborates with Xinhua News Agency's AIGC and uses the MR Research Institute to deliver 3D reality experiences across time and space with virtual hosts and AI digital avatars. Quzhou Development backs full-stack integration of digital human technology into the HarmonyOS ecosystem and indirectly holds Cloud Deep Technology via Hangzhou Yunqi Venture Capital Fund. The National Data Administration, in its 2025 Digital China Report, cited digital humans as a key application across smart tourism, smart government, and education, listing city IPs like "Hu Xiaoyou" and "Hang Xiaoyi." (The remaining text appears to be a list of companies: Guomai Culture, Fengyuzhu, Fushi Holdings, CCTV Media, Tianyu Digital Technology, Baotong Technology.) Oriental Pearl, KaiPu Cloud, Jiafa Education, Hengfeng Information, JinCai Internet, Jinpai Home Furnishings, FuShi Holdings, XuanYa International, FeiLiXin, ShengTong Shares, Tianzhou Culture, and ZhangYue Technology all reported portfolio activities in virtual human, AIGC, or digital-human-driven applications across A-shares.

AI Companions, Personal Avatars, and Knowledge Agents: The Beijing Academy of Artificial Intelligence (BAAI) launched SoulAgent at the Beijing Academy of Artificial Intelligence Conference, a personal intelligent agent designed to grow with users. It supports cross-session listening, observation summarization, and integrates 11 AI avatars from top AI experts for multi-round dialogue, extending into daily learning and office assistance. Wuhan East Lake High-tech Development Zone, jointly with Huazhong University of Science and Technology, founded the Optics Valley Artificial Intelligence Creative Technology Research Institute, releasing the self-developed multimodal AI production platform "ARTIOO" for AI film industry and digital human expression and motion control. Beijing Miaoyin Digital Technology shifted from traditional anime to XR large-space immersive cultural tourism and AI digital human business, with Chinese culture digital human content lines targeting children. They also sell products through Taobao, including digital biological corners and Snoopy plush products. Wuhan Shiguangli Culture Technology builds AI-generated memorial micro-films using AI face-swapping to revive deceased relatives for participation in stories, plus digital human videos for elders' birthday celebrations. Huibo Star was... Referenced in news segments produced with Huibo Star Digital Human in NetEase reports about provincial government accountability. Digital human "Xiaotian" delivers AI-perspective Guizhou news coverage for Tianyan News. The Wuhan Optics Valley incubator backs digital human interactive platforms. Bangyan Technology, with Alibaba Cloud, launched NuwaAI, an "AI performing digital human" using a dual-brain collaborative architecture (IQ brain + EQ brain) generating commercial performing digital humans in 3 minutes, with 30+ performer templates targeting live performances, cultural tourism exhibitions, shopping mall exhibitions, and new product launches. AI digital humans are integrated into GEO and other GEO platforms competing for AI-search visibility, including Yangmingyu Doubao and Douyin ecosystems via Miaowu AI and GEO service providers. Heilongjiang Daily articles describe the deployments of digital human teachers in ideological and political education via Baidu Smart Cloud Xiling and Xunfei AI Virtual Human to handle knowledge questions and provide free human teachers for emotional guidance.

Investor Education and Public Services: Orient Securities opened its Investor Education Base (Tibet) in Lhasa, featuring a Tibetan-Chinese bilingual AI digital avatar in a local Tibetan-style attire for securities and futures knowledge dissemination, marking the first bilingual, dual-track investor education platform in the Tibetan Plateau.

Regulatory and Ethical Contexts in China: In Wuhan, digital avatar design submissions revolve around motifs of the Yangtze finless porpoise to humanize property services. Well-known AI "boss" accounts on Douyin—including the "Jianhua," "Jianguo," and "Dongdong" digital-human personas in livestreams such as "Ruyi Langjun 618" and "Tianxuanzhiren@"—were exposed for using AIGC video customization (as low as 20 yuan per video) to manipulate elderly viewers for tipping and product sales. Investigations identified the 11-account "Laoyou Suole" cluster sharing one AI face, and the dating company "Yushengyuan Chief Matchmaker Xiao Wu Laoshi" using synthetic AI image profiles to harvest personal information. Controversies surrounding AI digital avatars, including the "Tongxun.Skill" technique allegedly used to clone departed employees' work styles, were debated by experts including Chen Bing, Vice Dean of the Law School of Nankai University; Fan Wei, Professor of the School of Labor Economics at Capital University of Economics and Business; and Zhang Chenggang, raising concerns about labor rights and personal information protection under China's... PIPL. The National Data Administration issued the data infrastructure framework supporting digital human development. Hainan released its 15th Five-Year Plan for High-Tech Development, supporting token export, sovereign big data model R&D, and high-quality AI datasets enabling further digital human deployment. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission launched the 2026 Special Action for Humanoid Robots and Embodied Intelligence Real-Scene Training, indirectly supporting digital-human and embodied avatar applications. China's Cyberspace Administration of China has filed 748 generative AI services and updated content-labeling standards relevant to synthetic digital humans. AI digital human tools like Huibo Star are increasingly cited in China-related US regulatory analogs such as New York's "Synthetic Performer" disclosure law, which applies to digital humans used in advertising.

09 June News

Healthcare: Chinese medical device firm Chengdu Kairui Medical Technology (成都市凯瑞医疗科技有限公司) participated as a core drafter of China's first national standard for sign-language digital humans, "Information Technology Sign Language Digital Human Technical Specifications" (GB/T 47517-2026), approved by the National Standardization Administration and set to take effect on 1 November 2026. Co-drafted with more than 30 enterprises, research institutes, and disability service organizations, the standard defines the technical framework, core technical requirements, and evaluation methods for sign-language digital humans, supporting standardized deployment in government services, news media, special education, and public services for hearing-impaired groups. Kairui Medical is the sole medical-device R&D enterprise among the drafters, contributing expertise in intelligent perception, human-machine collaboration, and sign-language rehabilitation.

Livestreaming, E-commerce, and Marketing: Baidu (百度) restructured its Mobile Ecosystem Group (MEG), merging the commercial and e-commerce units into a new Big Commercial Business Group and upgrading the Digital Human Innovation Business Unit into an independent BU reporting to group vice president Ping Xiaoli. At the Create 2026 developer conference in May, Baidu upgraded its digital-human brand Huibo Xing (慧播星) into "Baidu Yijing" (百度一镜), positioned by Robin Li as the world's first full-scenario multi-agent digital-human platform combining live-streaming, video, and real-time interactive digital humans, with an overseas version also launched. By end-2025, Baidu Yijing had surpassed 100,000 digital-human anchors serving more than 30 industries, and powered Luo Yonghao's digital-human livestream debut, which drew over 13 million viewers and more than RMB 55 million in GMV. Baidu Yijing's high-persuasion digital humans support real-person cloning, generative live broadcasting, and multi-product switching, lifting average livestream conversion rates by 29%, delivery efficiency by 150%, and cutting production costs by 63.3%; skincare brand Qingyan (倾颜) saw a 32% conversion uplift, 31% GMV growth, and 25% daily-order growth on its digital-human toothpaste channel, while its "spokesperson solution" has been deployed at media organizations including Dahe Bao. JD.com (京东) and Kuaishou (快手) jointly launched China's first AI-plus-live-action sci-fi short drama "Coming from the Stars" (来自星星的我们) for the 618 shopping festival, starring Yue Yuting and Ka Rong alongside AI digital humans built with Kuaishou's Kling AI, with viewers able to jump from Kuaishou episodes to JD pages to buy "Karon-style" and "Yuting-style" fans. At Yiwu's (义乌) Global Digital Trade Center, pearl-jewelry merchant Chen Junwei (陈俊伟) deployed an AI digital-human customer-service avatar on an in-store smart display that switches between English, Arabic, and Spanish to handle foreign-buyer enquiries, helping him close deals with clients in the US and Southeast Asia, while the city's "World Yiwu" trade large-model platform offers AI tools spanning design, production, and marketing for cross-border merchants. Guangdong Radio and Television's report on a Guangxi traffic case used a Huibo Xing digital human as the on-screen presenter, and a Yancheng Border Inspection Station deployed Jiangsu Frontier Inspection's AI digital anchor "Su Yan" (苏言), created by Yanfu Mass Media Group, to deliver 90-second standardized policy explainers on Taiwan-resident travel documents and online lodging registration for foreigners, with the format praised by the Ministry of Public Security. Yancheng's Yanfu Mass Media Group is also rolling out an AIGC Application Engineer training programme to expand the local digital-human and AIGC workforce. Xiaoying Technology (小赢科技) deployed virtual digital human "Win-Daidai" as a 24/7 generative-AI service agent handling dispute mediation, emotion recognition, and risk warnings, and turning anti-fraud cases into anthropomorphic consumer-protection science communication.

Film, Television, and Short Drama: Hangzhou Tonglu's (桐庐) Fuchunjiang Film Industry-Education Demonstration Zone launched the AIGC High-Tech Film Creation Center operated by Zhejiang Huace Film & TV Group (浙江华策影视集团), founded by Zhao Yifang, anchoring Tonglu's third "AI+" flagship scenario covering AIGC technology research, full-process film production, vocational training, and "film+culture+tourism" consumption. Seven core scenarios include the AIGC Super Academy and Super Factory, the AIGC Premium Mid- and Short-Drama Creation Base, and an AIGC Digital Studio, with strategic agreements signed with Communication University of China and AIGC firms including Zhixiang Future (智象未来), Shengshu Technology (生数科技), and Manycore Tech (群核科技) on film large models and spatial-intelligence services. Tonglu also unveiled a roadmap to convert virtual shooting, digital humans, and real-time interaction into immersive film-tourism products, and projects like Mei Rong Village's "Taiping Nian" themed village, Shen'ao ancient village's "You Are the Late Joy" location punch-cards, and the Hangzhou Future Imaging Lab's "Taiping Nian" production are examples of AI-driven film-IP-to-tourism pipelines. The Future Imaging Lab at Zhejiang University's Yangtze River Delta Smart Green Oasis Innovation Center, with researcher Wu Yuwei and Yu Xinping, used AI to deliver 2,515 VFX shots, 1,370 rendering hours, and digital-human-driven concept design for the historical drama "Taiping Nian," and is now combining live action with AI VFX in the anti-Japanese war micro-drama "Returning, I See the Mountains and Rivers Anew" (《归来方知山河重》) with Tencent (腾讯) and Xinhua. Henan-listed Guigang Network (贵广网络, 600996), under Guizhou Broadcasting Group, integrates its Red Ribbon (红飘带) Long March digital memorial with AI digital "Red Army" holograms, AI-generated personalized "Red Army digital persona" experiences for visitors, and the Huang Xiaoxi (黄小西) provincial travel large model that supplies AI guides and AR navigation across the "One Code Tour Guizhou" platform. The independent A-share short-drama market is being reshaped by AI漫剧 (AI anime drama) studios such as Wang Qiuyun's (王秋云) Guangdong studio, Lao Bai (老白), Doudou (豆子), Le Qi's (乐琪) Huanggang studio, and Youkela (浙江优克拉智能科技) using ByteDance's Seedance 2.0/Jimeng (即梦) and other tools to generate digital-human-driven episodes, with Baidu's Yijing and Kuaishou-supported AI-drama production now central to platforms like Hongguo (红果); industry data cite AI漫剧/video accounting for 55% of national token consumption, more than double software development. Production-side innovation also appears in Xi'an Eurasia University's (西安欧亚学院) XR Virtual Creation order class, jointly run with Xi'an Film Group's Xi'an Immersive Wonder Film Technology, training students to build XR virtual shoots, digital humans, and immersive films, while drama "Qiao Chu" (《翘楚》) and Tian Xiwei's "AI Xiao Tian" livestream drew criticism for AI-style stiffness, and director-led campaigns against unauthorized AI use of Xiao Zhan's likeness in AI short dramas reached Shanghai courts. The Manbo (漫播) "Voice in Campus" college dubbing competition, run by Youka Interactive Group (有咖互动集团) with Weiying Xinghuo Digital Media Industry Academy, trained over 12,000 student works for IPs including "Black Myth: Wukong" and the upcoming classical audio drama "Listening to Dream of the Red Chamber" (《听说红楼》), explicitly identifying digital humans and metaverse spaces as new frontiers for student voice actors. AI short-drama-driven recruitment of OPC (one-person-company) studios is being institutionalized at Wuxi Software Park's "Double O" social area, the country's first Volcano Engine AI-anime-drama OPC community, and at Hangzhou Sandun town's "Yinran 66 Dream-Start Summer" job fair, where digital-human host "Shuiyue Baobao" (水月宝宝) served as on-cloud "job recommender" linking Yunshenchu Technology, Feibu Technology, Linghai Culture (the Black Myth: Wukong IP operator), and other firms with Gen-Z candidates.

Tourism and Cultural Heritage: Datong's Yungang Grottoes (大同云冈石窟) launched the "Tan Mi Yungang" (探弥·云冈) XR immersive exhibit, developed over eight months by Datong Yungang Cultural Tourism Industry Development Co., using 3D-lighting matrices, holographic projection, and a VR digital human modeled on a Northern Wei princess (with garments referencing Yungang honeysuckle motifs) to guide visitors through replicated grottoes including the otherwise inaccessible Cave 38; since July 2025 it has hosted over 30,000 visitors. At the Hanging Temple in Mount Heng, the "Lingjing Hanging Temple" (灵境悬空) MR project by project lead Liu Rui produced a 1:1 digital-twin replica using UAV photogrammetry and ground LiDAR, enabling visitors to "fly" above the temple with synchronized digital narration. In Xining, Yuanto News Client's snow-leopard digital human Xiao Yuan (小源) acts as virtual guide to the "Bao Street" (豹街) night market, using a permanent 3D model of the rescued wild snow leopard "Bei Bei" and snow-leopard murals and lighting to support the "Snow Leopard Capital" city brand. Wuxi's (无锡) Qingming Bridge runs the "Jin Ye Liang Xiao" night cruise blending real actors with holographic water curtains and AI-driven characters along the Grand Canal, while the city's broader cultural-tech push includes the "Zhongshu Fang" reading-house network and Mland Taihu Music Town as anchors for digital culture consumption. Guangdong's report on Lingnan culture proposes a "culture + digital twin + cross-border trade" scenario where digital-human Cantonese opera stars introduce Lingnan goods to global buyers and virtual try-ons of Xiangyunsha silk feed direct-purchase channels, and Hubei's Wuhan media-integration push includes the "AI Shang Huanghelou" (《AI上黄鹤楼》) AI-magic stage drama developed by People's Daily Online's Mengtu Lingjing AI exhibition center, blending 4K holography, intangible-heritage illusion, and AI-built Tang-Dynasty figures.

Enterprise, Smart Office, and HR: Alibaba's (阿里巴巴) "Wukong" (悟空) enterprise-grade AI-native work platform, incubated inside DingTalk and presented in Hangzhou by East China solution director Li Chen (李宸), is positioned as a "digital double" and "AI team" for organizations rather than a consumer chatbot; combined with the DingTalk A1 hardware, it captures customer voice in sales calls and uses enterprise knowledge bases to generate deliverable plans, manage local-and-cloud model routing, and serve as a personalized digital double for each employee. Lunan Pharmaceutical (鲁南制药) deployed a portfolio of named AI agents on its self-developed "Lunan Zhiqing" (鲁南智擎) platform powered by an 11.6 PFLOPS in-house cluster: the "Smart HR Youyou" (智慧HR呦呦) recruiting agent screens 12,000+ resumes and schedules interviews for HR director Song Xiangyun; trademark, pharmacovigilance, equipment-maintenance, and sales-data agents handle 1,594.7 hours/month of repetitive work; and 24/7 digital-human anchors run multi-account livestreams on its e-commerce channels, lifting consumer-query response from 3 minutes to 15 seconds and conversion by 25%. The Dingjie Digital Intelligence (鼎捷数智) chairman Ye Zizhen used his AI digital double on stage at the fifth Digital Intelligence Future Summit to deliver a keynote alongside a humanoid robot, and the company is now filing for a Hong Kong listing while promoting its "Yadianna" (雅典娜) Enterprise Intelligence Operation Space and "Agent Space" to position digital humans as enterprise governance front-ends. Shiyou Technology's (世优科技) "Shiyou Bota AI Digital Human" middleware, headed by founder Liu Zizheng, layers 2D/3D digital-human avatars over existing data dashboards and digital-twin systems for Beide Group's Jiangyin AI cockpit (where the avatar voices and visualizes production-line KPIs), Shandong Guohui Group's smart showroom, Linyi Logistics City's logistics digital human "Ji Bao" (集宝), Hai-Kai Group's Zhongguancun Dongsheng Park 3D guide "Yunbao" (云宝), and Xin'ao Group's (新奥) "Enniu Zhiban" (恩牛智伴) chief digital lecturer, with deployments also at Fengtai District government service center, Shanxi Cultural Tourism's "Qingniao" promoter, and the Yili General's Mansion MR tour; the company has built more than 2,000 digital humans across 1,000+ brand customers using a 95% lip-sync engine, 180+ facial control points, and integrations with DeepSeek and Qwen. Xinyuan Network (新华网) is investing RMB 1.12 billion in the state-backed "Xinhua Yudian" (新华语典) political-news AI agent, combining its Xinhua Zhiyun (新华智云) MAGIC short-video platform, AIGC-Safe deepfake detection, virtual digital humans, and "Yuanmao" (元卯) metaverse system to serve party-government, SOE, university, and research-institute customers.

Education and Public Sector: Suzhou's Shanghai-area expanded skills-evaluation platform "Shuzhi Tong" (数智通), built by Guizhou Lingang Vision (贵州领航视讯) in Guiyang High-tech Zone under chairwoman Luo Linrao, supports digital-human-relevant trades such as AI trainer, network and information-security manager, internet marketer, animation producer, and e-commerce specialist, providing online practical simulations and certification for 77 occupations and 59,000+ candidates. Langfang's (廊坊) public-employment service deployed digital-human "AI job housekeeper" Lang Ruyi (廊如意) on the "Langfang Employment" platform and the Hongxing Meikailong job station, generating standardized resumes in three minutes, recommending matching positions, and pushing policy explainers to graduates, new-citizen residents, and difficult-to-employ groups via 58 livestream sessions and 1,300+ vetted jobs. Smart Era (厦门智能时代), founded by AI expert Chen Kunxiang, packages digital-human livestream marketing, AI short-drama production, and digital-human voice cloning for clients across government, schools, hospitals, banks, listed companies, and SOEs in 12+ provinces and Hong Kong. Smith Vision Lab at Hubei's Optics Valley (华中科技大学) launched the Optics Valley AI Creativity Technology Research Institute, headed by Cai Xinyuan, which released the multimodal AI production platform "Aiwu" (ARTIOO) for AI cinema and digital-human facial and motion control, with the institute's first showcase being the Wuhan cultural-tourism promo "Xin Jianghan Lansheng Tu" (新江汉揽胜图). Beijing's Zhiyuan Research Institute (智源) is debuting personal smart agent "SoulAgent" at the Beijing Zhiyuan Conference with 11 named AI expert avatars that users can converse with for multi-round Q&A, follow across parallel sessions to summarize talks, and retain as a long-term, personalized AI companion; each registrant receives a dedicated agent and 100 million tokens. Anhui-based Kimi (月之暗面 Kimi) released Kimi Work and its 300-agent K2.6 Agent Swarm with web automation and built-in financial-market connectors, enabling tasks such as parallel consulting reports, Apple stock analysis from local files, and a 300-agent World Cup forecast that ranked German football as the most-undervalued contender; though the swarm is task-oriented rather than persona-driven, its specialized "researchers," "strategists," and "designers" function as named role-based agents in user workflows.

Banking and Financial Services: Xi'an Bank (西安银行) deployed "i Xi'an" digital-RMB and digital-life APP services and was named a benchmark in Shaanxi's financial digital-transformation case list, with consumer-protection campaigns highlighting digital-human-enabled service channels for senior citizens under the "Xiyin Xi'an" elder-finance brand. Generic ESG reporting aside, the bank's broader public communications increasingly use AI digital hosts to explain green-finance products such as biodiversity loans and water-rights-pledged loans, sitting alongside its mobile-banking "Carbon Energy" gamified low-carbon engagement.

Ethical and Regulatory Contexts: Reports continue to surface of fraud rings using AI to generate "refined and wealthy" or "elder tycoon" digital humans to seduce elderly users, harvest private information, and induce live-stream tipping, prompting Chinese commentators to position silver-haired travel as a remedy to the resulting "digital loneliness." Director-led complaints expose AI short-drama studios systematically replicating actor Xiao Zhan's face and voice without authorization, with court filings in Shanghai Pudong and references to Civil Code Article 1018 and the draft "Digital Virtual Human Information Service Management Measures" treating any AI-generated likeness recognizably tied to a real person as actionable infringement, while disguises such as partial mosaics or renaming to "Xiao Zhan-soundalike" do not exempt operators. Guangzhou's Zongheng Technology (广州纵恒科技) filed a patent for an AI-and-big-data system that automatically configures multimodal attributes of virtual humans and drives them to deliver voice broadcasts and body movements within auto-generated advertising videos. Industry analysts note that as AI digital humans, AI short dramas, and AI-marketing supply chains scale, regulators have begun cooling the once-overheated AI short-drama market through stricter pre-registration rules (with "register first, broadcast later" enforced from 31 March), forcing many OPC studios into closure even as platforms like Hongguo and Kuaishou redirect resources toward premium, high-token-consumption digital-human productions.

08 June News

Baidu's Digital Human Business Expansion: Baidu (百度) implemented a major organizational restructuring of its Mobile Ecosystem Group (MEG), merging its commercial and e-commerce departments into a new Big Commerce Business Unit, while elevating its Digital Human Innovation Business Unit to independent status reporting to Vice President Ping Xiaoli. This marks the first time Baidu has spun digital human operations into a standalone BU, signaling the strategic importance of the segment. At the Create 2026 Baidu AI Developer Conference on May 13, Baidu upgraded its digital human brand Huiboxing (慧播星) into Baidu Yijing (百度一镜), positioned as the world's first full-scenario multi-agent digital human platform, integrating digital human livestreaming, video, and real-time interactive digital humans, with an overseas version (Yijing Haiwaiban) also launched. By the end of 2025, Baidu Yijing had surpassed 100,000 digital human anchors serving over 30 industries, and notably supported Luo Yonghao's (罗永浩) digital human livestream debut, which drew over 13 million viewers and generated GMV exceeding 55 million yuan. Baidu founder Li Yanhong (李彦宏) described digital humans as "visible intelligent agents" and the universal interaction interface for the AI era, proposing Daily Active Agents (DAA) as a new core metric. In the e-commerce context, the high-persuasion digital human technology used by skincare brand Qingyan (倾颜) for a toothpaste-focused livestream room reportedly lifted conversion by 32%, GMV by 31%, and daily orders by 25%, while Baidu Yijing's "spokesperson solution" was deployed at media organizations including Dahe Bao (大河报), with real-time interactive response times under two seconds.

Livestreaming, Short Video, and Content Production: Beyond Baidu Yijing, Chinese AI video and digital human platforms are pushing into long-form and entertainment content. JD.com (京东) released JoyAI-Echo, an open-source long video generation framework featuring a cross-modal audio-visual memory library to maintain character and voice consistency across 5-minute videos, DMD-based post-training that accelerates inference 7.5x, lightweight real-time super-resolution, and a Director Agent for dialogue-based editing; the framework targets virtual IP storytelling, digital human content, brand marketing, education, virtual anchors, and short drama creation, and JD already uses AI digital humans in its livestreaming business. Huiboxing digital humans are extensively used by NetEase's Kankan News (看看新闻Knews) to narrate news videos covering events ranging from Chongqing Hechuan floods, gaokao coverage, and Shanxi Qinyuan official investigations to viral stories about koi auctions, escaped pet snakes, and kindergarten admission disputes. The Jiangsu Satellite TV virtual host Leyi (乐伊), created by the channel's AIGC Media Application Lab as a "sweet, energetic AI female anchor" and launched on March 21 to cover the Su Super (苏超) football league, debuted in a high school exam encouragement video alongside Su Super Suzhong Team 3 players, marking her transition from sports broadcaster to cross-scenario AI idol. In the drama sector, the costume series *Qiao Chu* (《翘楚》) was dubbed an "AI doll drama" by viewers who initially mistook live actress Liu Jin for a digital human due to porcelain-smooth skin and stiff movements, and critics noted heavy reliance on AI-generated backgrounds and dialogue, reflecting broader industry concerns that AI may displace mid-tier actors, with漫剧 (AI manga drama)占比 rising from 7% to 38% of the top 100 chart. A separate analysis discussed AI face-swapping of celebrities, the "won't sign, won't get cast" pressure on actors over facial data authorization, and platforms' incentive to deploy AI performers.

Personality Distillation, Ethics, and Governance: At the "Innovation Without Borders, Rule of Law With Measure" salon co-hosted by the Shanghai Association for Science and Technology and East China University of Political Science and Law, an open-source project called "Personality Distillation" sparked debate about AI replicating not just appearances but human knowledge, thinking patterns, and behavioral styles into reusable skill packs. Wang Yanfeng of Shanghai Jiao Tong University's AI Institute warned that researchers risk being replaced by AI trained on their own work, while ECUPL Professor Wang Qian argued AI should not be granted legal personhood. SenseTime (商汤科技) digital human project director Liao Hu introduced its Ruying (如影) digital human program and the principles of "authorizable, controllable, traceable" trustworthy digital humans developed with industry partners. Xiaohongshu (小红书) public affairs head Yuan Shidong revealed the platform had handled 180,000 AI-faked notes and systematically governed over 1.2 million AI-hosted matrix accounts under its newly issued "AI Governance Proposition."

Enterprise, Customer Service, and Vertical Agents: iFlytek (科大讯飞) won a 933,600 yuan contract from Fujian Expressway Information Technology Co. for a digital human tool development collaboration service project. Shenbi (Nanjing) Software (神笔(南京)软件) filed a patent for a multi-dimensional matching-based digital human generation method combining text or image input, dynamic anthropomorphic label libraries, voice and motion libraries, and large-model video generation for digital content and virtual interaction. Guangzhou Zonghen Technology (广州纵恒科技) filed a patent for an AI big-data-driven virtual human advertising video system that automates script, storyboard, virtual human configuration, voice, action, and scene rendering to compress production cycles. Bytype Intelligence (百型智能) released OntoZ, a third-generation enterprise AI infrastructure built around an "enterprise ontology" and group-agent architecture for cross-border B2B sales, serving over 1,000 Chinese出海 enterprises with nearly 1,000 agents active across 160+ countries; founder Han Mei outlined plans for an "unmanned A2A ecosystem" in which each enterprise has its own super-agent acting as a digital twin in global commerce. Yunton Suixiu (云动悦修), launched by Ma Renye, positions itself as an AI + cultural修身 ecosystem combining AI digital human content workflows (digital human synthesis, cloud-based smart editing, scheduled publishing) with traditional culture-based personal development. In recruitment technology, 360 Education Online (360教育在线) presented at Jinzhong Information College an AI matrix including the AI Smart Selection (AI智选) major recommendation system, 24/7 AI smart phone agents, AI volunteer simulation, and "mentor AI avatars" used at 800+ universities. Bytype's related concept of corporate "personality distillation" further illustrates the trend of digital分身s representing professionals.

Healthcare Digital Humans and Agents: Zhejiang Provincial Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine (浙江省中医院) deployed a layered medical agent system covering clinical diagnosis (Copilot tools for voice-to-record and intelligent quality control), medical imaging agents that analyze tens of thousands of reports at mid-level radiologist standards, research literature agents, ICU risk-warning agents, insurance quality-control agents, and mobile voice ward-round agents, with future plans including "famous doctor digital avatars" and a smart TCM pharmacy. Zhidan Technology (智诊科技) presented its WiseClaw medical agent platform, which has built AI digital avatars for over 2,000 medical experts to extend specialist-level guidance to grassroots doctors, and its consumer-facing Haoban AI (好伴AI) personal health management app, credited with the industry's "first AI life-saving case" for detecting acute kidney-stone risk early. Wuxi Binhu's "Agentic AI" forum unveiled the Tsinghua AI Hospital online virtual clinic, with 26 Chinese-language and 21 English-language departments, AI patient agents for diagnostic interaction, and user-specific doctor avatar agents simulating consultations, examinations, and diagnoses with image-text dialogue and automatic medical record drafting, opened to global public testing in April 2026.

Public Services, Anti-Drug Education, and Cultural Heritage: The Tianjin Drug Rehabilitation Bureau (天津市戒毒局) deployed AI animation, VR, and digital humans including "Officer Xiaoqiao" (小桥警官) and "Police Xiaobei" (警小蓓) for community and school anti-drug education, combined with Tianjin-specific cultural assets such as crosstalk and intangible heritage. The Liaoning Provincial Federation of Social Sciences built a "Liao AI Social Sciences" platform with "Liaoning Beauty" digital humans, short video showrooms, and a "Hongshan Culture AI Immersive Science Exhibition," accompanied by AR restorations of prehistoric scenes and Red Mountain culture. The National Museum of Natural Sciences (国家自然博物馆) designed five digital human figures for virtual exhibitions in its new museum slated to open October 2029, alongside dense point-cloud maps, three visiting routes, and over 300 AR effects to bring fossils and specimens to life. In Tibet's Naqu Baqing County, the sixth Cordyceps harvest experience event launched a "Lingcao Source Tracing" virtual digital human and AR check-in scenes for traceability and tourism. Chongqing's Yongchuan Tech Film Studio, host of the 2026 Chongqing International Animation Film Week, integrates two international virtual production systems and a 16,000-square-meter digital intelligent set workshop, conquering 23 core technologies including digital humans and motion capture, with a national-level sci-tech film digital asset platform node hosting 50,000+ digital assets and 1,000+ digital scenes. The Guangu AI Creative Technology Research Institute (光谷人工智能创意技术研究院), launched by Wuhan East Lake High-Tech Zone with Huazhong University of Science and Technology as lead, focuses on AI creative generation and digital human interaction, with Director Cai Xinyuan unveiling the self-developed multimodal AI production platform ARTIOO (爱乌) demonstrating AI film industry workflows and digital human expression and motion control. Hangzhou's Shidun Town held an招聘 fair at the variety-show landmark "Planting Planet" using AI digital human anchors as "job recommendation officers" for livestream career fairs.

Hardware, Robotics, and XR Adjacencies: Yunshenchu Technology (云深处科技) hosted Lao President Thongloun Sisoulith during a visit to Hangzhou featuring humanoid and quadruped robots, illustrating digital-physical convergence; Alibaba (阿里巴巴) demonstrated an AI digital human at the same visit that answered the question of who Laos's president is. Sightful (视涯科技) plans to sell up to 1.6 billion yuan of silicon-based OLED microdisplays to Goter (歌尔), underpinning AR glasses and digital human display hardware. Reports referenced ongoing development of Nvidia's Korea AI Tech Center focused on physical AI, digital twins, and robotics, including OpenUSD-based Omniverse virtual world building—context relevant to China's competing digital twin and digital human supply chains.

Market Outlook: iiMedia Consulting data cited in the coverage put China's core digital human market at 33.92 billion yuan in 2024, projected to reach 93.56 billion yuan by 2030, with industry observers framing Baidu's organizational moves as a signal that the digital human track is shifting from technology showcase to a mainstream commercial battlefield, with major Chinese platforms, vertical AI firms, and institutional users all racing to embed digital humans across livestreaming, enterprise services, healthcare, education, public communication, and cultural heritage.

07 June News

Healthcare: A wave of medical virtual beings is reshaping Chinese clinical practice and patient services. Tsinghua University's Institute for AI Industry Research (AIR) launched the Ziwei (Zijing) AI Hospital online virtual consulting room (紫荆AI医院), led by Professor Liu Yang's team and signed as a cooperation project with the Wuxi Liyuan Economic Development Zone Management Committee; the platform offers large-scale, hyper-realistic AI patient agents across 26 Chinese clinical departments and 21 English departments, supports bilingual full-process simulated diagnosis, real-time medical record writing, deep reasoning recommendations and authoritative evidence retrieval, and lets users build personalized doctor-clone agents that co-consult alongside real physicians. Baidu Health (百度健康) has signed a strategic cooperation with the First Affiliated Hospital of the University of Science and Technology of China to deploy its AI smart outpatient solution—covering AI triage, online appointment add-ons and AI pre-consultation—across nearly twenty top-tier hospitals, while also providing digital human AI tools to help doctors build personal IPs. Aier Eye Hospital (爱尔眼科) introduced an "AI Ophthalmic Management System" featuring AI digital human "Eyecho" (爱科) for nationwide myopia prevention education; the First Affiliated Hospital of Guangxi University of Chinese Medicine opened an "AI Traditional Chinese Medicine Smart Service Experience Zone" with an AI digital human meridian display; and Ant Group's AI doctor product Mayi Afu (蚂蚁阿福) provides hundreds of AI clones of top doctors as on-demand consultants. Lingxi Cloud (灵犀云), incubated from Tsinghua's neural engineering lab, raised nearly RMB 100 million to build "digital brain" virtual human models for brain-machine interface diagnostics in depression and Alzheimer's disease.

Accessibility and Public Services: Sign-language digital humans have moved from sports broadcasting into daily civic life. The Hangzhou Metro (杭州地铁), working with the Hangzhou Deaf Association, deployed a standardized sign-language digital human announcer on dynamic map screens of Lines 1 and 19, developed by a local technology-for-disability company; the rollout coincides with national standard GB/T 47517-2026 "Information Technology Sign-Language Digital Human Technical Specifications." The Palace Museum (故宫博物院), with the Beijing Sign Language Research Association, has expanded its digital sign-language guide via the Yiyu Sign Language Translator (译语手语翻译官) product, which centers a sign-language digital human that auto-recognizes full sign-language sentences; the same product appeared at the 22nd China (Shenzhen) International Cultural Industries Fair. Qujiang District's Disabled Persons' Federation hall in Quzhou, Zhejiang has installed an intelligent sign-language translation system, complementing earlier on-bus sign-language announcement digital humans on Suzhou bus routes 5002 and 661.

Live Commerce and Enterprise Marketing: Digital human livestreaming has become the workhorse of China's 618 shopping festival. JD.com (京东) reported a sixfold year-on-year increase in merchants using its JoyStreamer digital human platform and over RMB 70 million in digital-human-driven GMV in the opening hours, while its AI customer service Jingxiaozhi (京小智) saw a 14-fold surge in large-model service volume; JD's consumer AI assistant Jingyan (京言) has served close to 80 million users. Baidu (百度) elevated its digital human business unit to an independent department within MEG and rebranded the Huiboxing (慧播星) digital human as "Baidu Yijing" (百度一镜), a full-scenario digital human platform spanning livestreaming, video and real-time interaction, with an overseas version "Yijing Haiwai Ban"; founder Robin Li framed digital humans as the "visible agents" of the AI era, and the company has registered the "Baidu Yijing" logo and trademarks. Numerous news clips from Kankan News (看看新闻Knews) covering stories such as the Macau prostitution ring bust, the Sichuan Tianfu New Area street-vendor case, the Nanjing Massacre wording dispute and the Xiangya Second Hospital tender controversy are explicitly noted as produced using Huiboxing digital humans. Alibaba's (阿里巴巴) Alimama (阿里妈妈) "Wanxiang" agent engine and Douyin's (抖音) Doubao "Help You Choose" feature push AI-driven discovery, while Meitu's (美图) "Kaipai" (开拍) tool, which integrates Seedance 2.0 and offers AI short-drama and Digital Human 2.0 functions, saw AI compute-point consumption surge 360% in Q1. Soul App (Soul) released its open-source SoulX-LiveAct model for real-time digital human generation, targeting long-duration livestreaming digital hosts, AI education, smart services and virtual interaction spaces, achieving 20 FPS streaming at 512×512 on two H100/H200 GPUs. JD also open-sourced JoyAI-Echo for long-form digital human video generation with stable identity and lip-sync. Baixing Intelligence (百型智能) launched OntoZ, a third-generation "enterprise ontology" platform whose digital twin "company body" links to thousands of cross-border B2B agents serving Chinese exporters in 160+ countries.

Cultural, Tourism and Events: Virtual beings are anchoring China's smart-tourism push. Beijing's three-year "AI + Culture and Tourism" Action Plan highlights deployments such as the Summer Palace's bilingual AI digital human customer service, Kexun Feiyun (科大讯飞) AI glasses acting as a "wearable AI tour guide," and the Beijing Economic-Technological Development Area's Robot Mall and Baidu Apollo Park AI tourism showcases. Guangxi's June 5 Environment Day main event in Nanning featured digital human hosts "Xiaoshan" and "Xiaoshui" (小山、小水) opening the ceremony. Shaoguan's Chuanshan Academy uses an AI digital human of philosopher Wang Fuzhi (王夫之) for cross-time dialogue, while the Tengwang Pavilion deploys "AI tour guide Wang Bo" (王勃) that scores recitations of the Tengwang Pavilion Preface. The Hangzhou cultural-tourism agent "Hangxiaoyi" (杭小忆) and Xi'an's Tang Dynasty etiquette robot "Chang'an Daolan Cheng" (长安导览丞) provide immersive AI guidance, and Guizhou's Huangxiaoxi scenic-area agent (黄小西景区智能体) bundles six digital human roles—Baishitong, tour guide, service assistant, smart docent, travel-photo assistant and surroundings expert—with multilingual AI Q&A. Bazhong County in Tibet's Naqu launched a "Lingcao Suyuan" virtual digital human for its Cordyceps festival. The Baoji municipal cultural-tourism plan calls for AI micro-dramas and digital human guides under a "Cultural-Tourism + Digital" track. CMG's Shengshi Magnificent City of Yongchuan in Chongqing hosted the third Film Golden Digital Honor Gala, supported by an LED virtual production stage with digital human motion capture; Yangquan's 1947 AIGC Digital Audio-Visual Industrial Park opened with optical motion capture, MR, AI virtual digital human and XR virtual film-shoot studios, signing AI manhua-drama and simulated human-drama contracts. China Youth Travel Service (中青旅) opened its "Pet-the-Guest Plan" conference with virtual digital human "Zhong Xiaoqing" (钟小青) flying on a kunpeng. The Mercer Labs report contextualizes Chinese sinic immersive players, with Shuhu Image (数虎图像) noted as a Chinese digital-creative firm tracking these trends.

Sports, Entertainment and Fan Culture: Jiangsu Broadcasting Corporation's virtual host Le Yi (乐伊) teamed with players from the Su League's five northern Jiangsu city teams (Xuzhou, Yancheng, Huai'an, Lianyungang, Suqian) in an AR appearance to cheer 2026 gaokao candidates, blending a digital human emcee with real footballers. Hong Kong celebrity Du Rufeng (杜如風) used a Vtuber-style stunt costume during her Korea trip, while TVB former child star Xian Diqi (冼迪琦) warned the public about AI clone scams after fraudsters captured her image and voice over FaceTime—both stories highlight rising public awareness of unauthorized AI digital doubles. Quickkan Comics (快看漫画), founded by Chen Anni, launched the AI "digital life" product Livo aimed at relationship-based monetization.

Short Drama and AI Video Production: Beijing-based JD released JoyAI-Echo with cases like a five-minute "Day at Home" narrative maintaining consistent male-lead identity and voice, illustrating digital actor stability for AI shorts. Capital Online (捷成股份) operates AI creation engine ChatPV with digital human capabilities and partners with Shiyou Technology (世优科技), which has "revived" more than 600 IP virtual figures via motion capture; Huayi Brothers (华谊兄弟) and Huasheng Tiancheng (华胜天成) jointly develop AR/VR digital human IPs; Fengshang Culture (锋尚文化) subsidiary Fengshang Huyu runs four business lines around its virtual digital human IPs including a virtual idol platform; Hengrui (Huanrui) World Century (欢瑞世纪) collaborated with N World on AI digital human characters for its "Lotus Tower" (莲花楼) drama; Tianzhou Culture (天舟文化) operates four virtual VTuber hosts including Linjia Xiaoxian and Xiaoya Tongxue, and its game subsidiary uses virtual mascot Xiao'ai Tongxue. Aoya Co. (奥雅股份) subsidiary Millennium LA in the US develops AIGC digital marketing, digital film studios and virtual human applications. Crazy Stone Studio's interview confirmed Chinese platforms Jiuzhou and Maiya are leading the AI short-drama overseas wave with low-cost, standardized digital-human production, while the article "AI Wheel Should Not Reverse" debates protections for human actors against AI clones in micro-dramas; relatedly, Shanxi police prosecuted resident Xing for unauthorized livestream selling using an AI digital human of Taiwan KMT chair Zheng Lifang. Volcano Engine, Huoshan and Rokid collaborate with Hangzhou-based Huace Film & TV (华策影视), which deploys self-developed "Youfeng" (有风) and "Guose" (国色) film vertical large models, AI digital characters and 50 digital scenes in productions such as "Taipingnian" (太平年), saving over RMB 20 million in costs.

Sign-Language, Government and Enterprise Assistants: Beyond Hangzhou Metro, virtual digital humans staff Chinese enterprise and public-service workflows. SenseTime (商汤科技) was appointed deputy group leader of the national Virtual Digital Human Standards Working Group, received the first batch of GB/T 46483-2025 customer-service virtual digital human conformance certificates alongside iFlytek (科大讯飞) and Baidu, and delivered a keynote on "AI Digital Humans—From Virtual to Reality" while updating its Ruying digital human product line. Chinese International Capital Corporation (CICC) (中金公司) launched "Analyst.Skill" digital clones of more than 300 analysts to deliver one-stop investment research. Dingjie Digital Intelligence (鼎捷数智) unveiled its Athena EIOSpace enterprise intelligent operating space, where digital-twin agents, commander agents and expert agents collaborate with employees and smart equipment, with workers progressively authorizing their digital clones to act autonomously. ST Huayang (ST华扬) and its subsidiaries created the virtual digital human "YOUNG" and upgraded it for Xiamen's "Wenbao Wonderful Night" Huli Cannon Fortress immersive tour. Songtian Education (中公教育) introduced virtual digital lecturer "Xiao Lu" (小鹿) for its AI Digital Class. Jincai Internet (金财互联) launched a "digital virtual person" for fintech operations, while New Beiyang (新北洋) embedded virtual digital human modules into its smart bank teller machines. Jiafa Education (佳发教育) built an AI English tutor as a 3D digital human teacher, and Tianyu Digital Technology (天娱数科) and Guomai Culture (国脉文化) anchor virtual digital human content services for telecom and media, with Guomai's "Ailin Irene" and "Xiaolin" promoting brand and 5G businesses. Nengke Technology (能科科技) advanced digital twin services, Xinhuanet (新华网) announced an RMB 1.122 billion investment in its "Xinhua Yudian" AI Agent platform and is grouped in the virtual digital human concept, and ChuangYe Heima (创业黑马) operates a "metaverse digital human accelerator." Bao Tong Technology (宝通科技) leverages its BOTONSPACE1 platform to build virtual digital humans with naked-eye 3D mixed-reality experiences for gaming and AR/VR via its Hainan Yuanyuzhou subsidiary. Xuanya International (宣亚国际) co-founded the "Julang Metaverse Joint Laboratory" to develop virtual digital humans and XR live broadcasting. Xinchen Technology (新晨科技) explores blockchain-anchored metaverse digital human applications for finance, while Hubei Mobile and Yancheng Polytechnic's media arts college are co-developing AIGC digital human curricula with Yanfu Daily Newspaper Group, whose newsroom showcases AI digital human news anchors and holographic interactive cabins. Mass Reading TCL's smart hotel solution integrates customizable AI virtual digital humans—such as the Suiyuan-branded cartoon mascot "Xiao Suzi" for Sushi Hotel—into in-room TVs for guest services. Lenovo's FIFA World Cup project, although foreign-led, performs 3D scans of roughly 1,200 footballers including Chinese players to generate hyper-realistic digital doubles potentially feeding video-game IP.

Anti-Fraud and Ethical Contexts: Chinese authorities and platforms are increasingly confronting digital-human misuse. Shanxi public security publicized five AI-rumor cases including the unauthorized AI digital human livestream impersonating Taiwan politician Zheng Lifang. Haier appliance executive Zhong Zheng called for mandatory registration of digital humans amid livestream fraud. Kuaishou (快手) reported using a self-developed anti-fraud AI model that blocks 98% of scam risks while operating 23 million-job-creating creator products, alongside its female-virtual-human service "Nüwa Digital Human" and "π Digital Employee" for merchants. A Wuhan single father case sparked national debate over using AI digital humans to "revive" a deceased mother for a grieving toddler, with the father cautiously refusing despite netizens' offers. Li Tingting's FansNetwork in Taiwan demonstrates monetized "AI girlfriend" virtual companions modeled on her own persona, while highlighting risks of emotional dependency.

Education and Knowledge Work: Beyond classroom robots and tutoring digital humans, Xinhua's "Tech Week" probe with the China Association for Listed Companies leveraged douyin creators to bring "national heavy weapons" coverage to 13 billion views; Shenzhen Xinkewei's exhibition-design rosters list digital human guides as standard, and Guangzhou's exhibition-design rankings spotlight AI interaction and digital human applications. Suzhou's pioneer AI startup Xin Shi Yuzhou (心识宇宙), led by Tao Fangbo, is building "Second Me" AI digital clones positioned as a "clone internet" successor to mobile internet, where each user's digital ontology represents them across society. Yueshi Education's Chuanglian Education AI Short Video Master Class trains learners on Doubao, Jimeng, Keling AI digital human livestream and AI office workflows, while Hefei-based Zhaixing AI's Moonzhou Hangxiang model claims 280 million cross-platform recommendations for client Hanrun Home Furnishing and integrates digital human livestream into its "Zhaixing Fangzhou" product suite. Bazhong's Computex demonstrations spotlighted GameOn Group's AI virtual human "Xiao Yuan" (小缘) doubling as a venue navigator at the Taipei show, and Hong Kong streamer Xiao Zhengming (Eason) collaborated with AI VTubers "Qinqin Zi" (亲亲子) and Xiao Yuan, illustrating that mainland and Taiwan livestream cultures are co-shaping AI virtual being acceptance.

06 June News

Healthcare and Digital Life: Multiple Chinese organizations are deploying virtual humans in healthcare and end-of-life contexts. Neusoft (东软集团) developed an AI digital human named "Changbao Kangkang" (常宝康康) for Changzhou's "My Changzhou" residential health platform, serving 5 million citizens with health assessments, medical report interpretation, and chronic disease management; the system is powered by Neusoft's Tianyi medical large model and connects to the city's unified health code. Shandong Digital Human Technology (山东数字人科技股份有限公司), a Jinan High-tech Zone-based national-level "little giant" enterprise led by chairman Xu Yifa, produces virtualized human anatomy through frozen-sectioning and 3D reconstruction to replace traditional cadaver specimens in medical education, and is expanding into clinical applications and digital twin humans. The First Affiliated Hospital of Guangxi University of Chinese Medicine (广西中医药大学第一附属医院) opened an AI Traditional Chinese Medicine Smart Service Experience Zone featuring an AI digital human meridian display and self-test area that performs 3D reconstruction of twelve meridians from 24 acupoint palm scans, alongside AI constitution identification and robotic guides. In the deathcare and emotional comfort space, Nanjing Super Brain Information Technology (南京超级头脑信息技术有限公司), founded by Zhang Zewei, has served over 100,000 clients by recreating deceased relatives as digital humans from photos, videos, chat records, and recollections, used for ongoing conversation, wedding appearances, and parental legacy recordings for terminally ill clients. Xiaoying Technology (小赢科技) launched a corporate virtual digital human called Win-Daidai that converts anti-fraud cases into 24/7 financial consumer education content, and operates the WinAgent intelligent agent platform for smart customer service.

Live-streaming Commerce and Customer Service: Chongqing Guanmei Technology (重庆冠美科技有限公司), working with Hangzhou Maitu Live (杭州麦兔直播), evolved AI livestream hosts through three generations, culminating in a 3.0 "digital twin host" that clones a real anchor's face, voice, and mannerisms, taps an industry large model for real-time Q&A, recognizes viewer behaviors such as add-to-cart, and operates 24/7 with about 20% of Guanmei's clients adopting the technology, addressing the late-night Z-generation shopping window first raised by an international cosmetics client. Hebei Daocheng Electronics (河北道成电子) used digital human livestreaming to achieve over 36 million yuan in cross-border signed deals, while in Fucheng County 340 enterprises including Hebei Baida Mingsheng Integrated Housing (河北佰达铭盛集成房屋有限公司) reached 200 million yuan in livestream-driven sales. Hefei Department Store Group (合百集团) launched a 3D digital IP "AI Xiaobai" (AI小百) covering live commerce, marketing, corporate communications, and customer service. CCB Guangdong Branch (建设银行广东省分行) introduced digital customer service IPs "Long Zhiwei" (龙知微) and "Long Zhiyuan" (龙知远), which handle over 10,000 service scenarios, answer 99% of common questions, and support more than 200 self-service operations, drawing crowds at the Guangzhou International Finance Expo. Guangdong Mingzhu (广东明珠) and other A-share companies were tagged with related concept activity around such deployments.

Media, News, and Cultural Tourism: Jishi Media (吉视传媒) developed the Jilin Cultural Tourism Digital Human, locally deploying a top-tier Chinese large model and a RAG-based knowledge base on the "One Phone Tour Jilin" platform and the Jilin Cultural Tourism Bureau's high-quality dataset, achieving sub-1.5-second latency, 92%+ speech recognition accuracy, Northeast dialect optimization, and multi-terminal deployment; it has served the Northeast Asia Expo and the 2025 China World Heritage Tourism Promotion Alliance (Ji'an) Conference, and was recognized at DCIC 2026 and entered the Golden Lingguang Cup national finals. Laibin Media Center (来宾市融媒体中心) operates an AI digital human exhibition area and an AI manga drama OPC industrial base, with Mingtai (Beijing) Technology (铭台(北京)科技有限公司)—a partner of Volcano Engine (火山引擎), Baidu (百度), and Alibaba (阿里)—visiting to deepen cooperation on AI manga campus curricula and intelligent agent services. Yancheng Daily Media Group (盐阜大众报报业集团) demonstrated a vertical-domain digital human intelligent agent designed for repetitive service-heavy industries, alongside a WorkBuddy intelligent agent and AIGC certification scheme. Wireless Media (无线传媒), serving Hebei IPTV operators, built an AI-based digital human interaction system covering avatar modeling, motion binding, and multimodal model integration for IPTV set-top boxes, smart TV operating systems, OTT, and other end devices. Zhongshi Media (中视传媒) noted that CCTV's virtual character "Xiao 8" was produced via 3D animation by its subsidiary CCTV North (中视北方). Hubei Sanxia Xincai (三峡新材) and other firms surfaced in related concept trading. The Xinhua-affiliated Huiboxing (慧播星) digital human was used to deliver multiple news segments by Kankan News (看看新闻Knews), Netease, and others, including coverage of the Lao president's China visit, official corruption prosecutions, and travel safety reports.

Government, Public Services, and Smart Cities: Hangzhou Yuhang District Ecological Environment Bureau (杭州市生态环境局余杭分局) launched environmental AI digital human "Yu Xiaohuan" (余小环) at the 2026 World Environment Day event in Nanhu Future Science Park, a pilot under the Ministry of Ecology and Environment Information Center; it provides 24/7 multilingual policy and approval guidance for enterprises and the public, mobile decision support for frontline inspectors via Zhejiang's Zhezhengding platform, and PC-side AI Q&A, AI data search, AI mapping, AI archives, AI case files, and an AI EIA think tank for managers. Zhucheng City Federation of Trade Unions (诸城市总工会) launched a 24-hour official livestream on WeChat and Douyin combining real staff during work hours with AI digital human hosts at night and on holidays, covering labor mutual aid, women workers' protections, and safety production. Wuhan Housing and Urban Renewal Bureau (武汉市住房和城市更新局), with Yangtze River Net (长江网), opened a public call to design the IP image and name of a "Wuhan Property Management Digital Human" to communicate policy, popularize knowledge, and mediate disputes in smart community governance. Zhangjiakou Qiaodong District is using digital human technology connected to Hebei provincial systems for streamlined business registration under capital subscription reforms. Jiangsu Bank (江苏银行) and Bank of Nanjing (南京银行) advanced digital RMB smart contract and hard wallet projects whose use cases include controlled prepaid consumption monitoring and supply-chain finance, while Guangzhou Digital Technology Group (广州数科集团) showcased its "Guangxinyu" (广信预) prepaid funds regulatory platform, "Guanghuitong GPX" cross-border platform, and digital RMB smart counters and agricultural terminals; subsidiary Guangdian Yuntong (广电运通) and Chaozhi Machine (超智机器) demonstrated the G100 bank-branch AI robot piloted at a state-owned bank and the G200 humanoid teller robot, plus digital human smart counters deployed in Shanghai and Sichuan banks.

Industrial, Infrastructure, and Specialized Deployments: China Communications Construction First Highway Engineering Group (中交一公局集团) released the "Natural Human + Digital Human + Robot" Tri-Agent Collaboration White Paper at the 2026 Transportation Science and Technology Conference in Tianjin, defining ten knowledge systems and a "43210" target framework, with deployments on the G219 Zhaowen Highway West Tianshan Extra-Long Tunnel, Zhejiang Yilongqing Highway tunnel cluster, and Haitai Yangtze River Tunnel. Unilumin Technology (洲明科技) disclosed a digital human action library and a patented non-wearable motion-capture technology designed to train both digital humans and embodied robots. Baotong Technology (宝通科技) integrates digital twin scenes with virtual humans through its BOTON SPACE 1 platform, including naked-eye 3D mixed-reality presentations. Shandong Zhongwei Century Technology (山东中维世纪科技股份有限公司), located in Jinan High-tech Zone, focuses on AI-vision smart monitoring rather than virtual beings directly, while Shenzhen Xinshiqi (新石器) entered JD.com for unmanned delivery cooperation. Yiwu's vocational education ecosystem trains students for "AI digital human livestreaming" inside Yiwu International Trade City. Mingqing County (闽清) attracted Fuzhou Jingwei Media Technology (福州市鲸纬传媒科技有限公司), an AIGC firm partnering with ByteDance Volcano Engine, iQIYI, Tencent, and Bilibili, to develop AI manga dramas, cultural tourism digital human IPs, and smart cultural tourism projects, supported by the local "Zhiyun Minqing AIStore" computing-power platform. Wuxi-based JoyAI-Echo, open-sourced by JD.com (京东), targets long video, digital human livestreaming, brand marketing, education, and gaming with cross-modal audio-visual memory for consistent character identity. Dali Robot (大晓机器人), with the Chinese University of Hong Kong Multimedia Lab and Shenzhen Hetao Academy, launched the Kairos-HomeWorld interactive whole-house world model for embodied AI and robotic training. SentiPulse, with Renmin University of China's Gaoling School of AI, released the SentiAvatar framework, the SUSU 3D character, and the SuSuInterActs Chinese-dialogue motion dataset to drive expressive, emotion-aware 3D digital humans. iFlytek-backed Spark Cognitive Model (科大讯飞星火) underpins Hefei-area GEO services from Zhaixing AI (摘星 AI) and others, which deploy "Zhaixing Wanxiang" vertical models, AI search placement, smart content generation, short-video SEO, and digital human livestreaming for B2B clients. NetDragon (网龙) won inclusion in the 2025 Metaverse Typical Cases list for its "high-fidelity digital human rapid construction and multi-module interaction system," powering the AI Tour Promoter, the rotating CEO digital human Tang Yu (唐钰), and immersive education, e-commerce, and digital news avatars across 192 countries. SenseTime (商汤科技) led the drafting of GB/T 46483-2025, China's first national standard for customer-service-type virtual digital humans, and continues to develop the Ruying digital human product line.

Cross-border, Diplomatic, and Promotional Deployments: During Lao President Thongloun's June 2026 visit to Zhejiang, he interacted with an Alibaba (阿里巴巴) AI digital human at the company's exhibition hall in Hangzhou, which correctly identified the Lao head of state and exchanged greetings in Chinese. Hangzhou's "Six Little Dragons" company Deep Robotics (云深处科技) presented quadruped and humanoid robots in the same delegation visit, situating digital humans alongside embodied AI in China's external image. The 10th China–South Asia Expo in Kunming features cross-border digital humans, multilingual real-time translation, and AI smart robots in its Service Trade Hall as part of its showcase for digital service exports to South and Southeast Asia. The 2026 World Mayors' Dialogue · Beijing featured immersive replication digital human installations and AR translation glasses, presented to mayors from 73 cities as examples of AI-enabled tourism services in Beijing.

Ethical, Legal, and Risk Contexts: Shanxi public security authorities publicized five typical cases of AI-generated rumor-mongering, including Datong resident Xing using an unauthorized AI digital human of Kuomintang Chairperson Cheng Li-wun (郑丽文) for livestream sales, leading to administrative penalties, plus AI-fabricated factory explosion, highway accident, and stadium fire videos. The Shanghai Association for Science and Technology's Legal Advisory Committee held a forum addressing "personality distillation," AI digital twins of employees, and rights of scientific workers, with contributions from East China University of Political Science and Law, the Shanghai IP Court, SenseTime's Ruying digital human team led by project director Liao Hu, and Paioyun Computing (派欧云计算(上海)有限公司) on agent sandbox safeguards; the Interim Measures for Anthropomorphic Interactive AI Services taking effect in July were highlighted as banning virtual kin and virtual companion services to minors, while existing labeling rules require identification of AI-generated content. Nanjing Super Brain articulated three operating principles—legality, ethical boundaries, and genuine benefit—and screens out psychologically fragile clients to avoid harm, illustrating responsible boundaries in the deceased-relative digital human market.

05 June News

Cultural Tourism: Beijing anchored much of the tourism activity, with the "2026 World Mayors Dialogue · Beijing," held 2 June at the Zhongguancun International Innovation Center under the theme of future tourism and smart-city development, featuring a "replica digital human" installation that visiting mayors experienced firsthand. At the same summit Haidian District released, to a global audience, its "Ten Scenarios of Beijing Cultural-Tourism Technology Application," structured around a virtual digital human travel blogger named Luke (卢克) whose video journey through Beijing framed the showcase, while the Summer Palace (颐和园) brought online an AI-plus-digital-human smart customer-service system built on artificial intelligence and digital human technology. In Guizhou, the "Huang Xiaoxi Scenic Agent" (黄小西景区智能体) was upgraded to carry six digital human sub-avatars covering roles such as a know-it-all guide, a touring guide, a service assistant, and an intelligent narrator. Shenzhen's Bao'an District responded to public proposals by committing to extend its existing digital human smart-inquiry system with multi-scenario translation terminals and personalized guided-tour functions for major events.

Government and Public Services: Several provinces deployed named digital human personas for civic functions. Guangxi paired a physical robot and a digital human, both called Zhuangzhuang (壮壮), within the regional judicial-administration AI application system, where the digital version improvised legal-education content on electronic screens. Sichuan's Dazhou launched a food-safety digital human to explain the work of a people's-congress food-safety supervision station, and Guangdong's "Yuezhihu" (粤智助) government-service terminals, alongside Shanxi's community employment and social-security service points, illustrated digital human interfaces replacing manual guidance. At Nanning's airport a digital human functions as an intelligent inquiry clerk answering flight and routing questions, and Jiangsu's meteorological service introduced a science-popularization brand, Susu (苏苏), realized as a cartoon, a digital human, and a physical mascot to serve youth content, digital communication, and offline outreach respectively.

Healthcare: Jiangsu's smart-hospital push featured prominently, with Changzhou No. 1 People's Hospital (常州第一人民医院) using a digital human to make navigation, questioning, and task completion easier for patients, and the Jiangsu Province People's Hospital (江苏省人民医院, also known as the First Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing Medical University) folding digital human and broader AI tools into its patient-facing services. The reporting framed these as part of a wider transition from screen-based digital humans toward physical service robots within hospital settings.

Banking and Finance: At the 15th Financial Expo (金交会) in Guangzhou, GRG Banking (广电运通) showcased its digital human smart teller, which it reported is accelerating deployment across multiple banks in Shanghai and Sichuan, using digital human interaction to replace human guidance and lower the barrier to using self-service terminals. China Construction Bank (建设银行) set up a digital human interactive zone at the same expo to draw public participation alongside its digital-currency and payment promotions, signaling that conversational digital humans are becoming a standard fixture of bank branch and exhibition experiences.

Industry, Energy, and Infrastructure: China Communications First Highway Engineering Group (中交一公局集团) released, in Tianjin on 4 June, a white paper on a "natural person plus digital human plus robot" three-party collaboration model for the infrastructure sector, reporting that the paradigm has already been applied at the West Tianshan extra-long tunnel on the Xinjiang G219 Zhaowen Highway and at projects in Zhejiang. Shiyou Technology (世优科技) extended its Bota (波塔) AI digital human multimodal interaction system—associated with virtual hosts such as A Yang (阿央)—into the energy sector, supporting exhibition halls and command-center large screens for electricity, coal, and water utilities through a "digital human factory" content pipeline, the Bota AI agent, virtual broadcasting, and digital exhibition tools. In Shandong's manufacturing upgrade, Zhongke Huahong (中科华宏) digital humans were among the technologies introduced across cities including Weifang and Jining, and a Hebei rubber-industry initiative in Jingxian described developing dedicated AI quality, R&D, and sales digital humans to move enterprises beyond merely "using software."

Media and Live Commerce: Baidu's (百度) Huiboxing (慧播星) AI live-streaming platform, built on its Ernie/Wenxin large model, was used to auto-generate the digital human presenters in news videos, including coverage of a Shandong banking disciplinary case and a Henan stadium running-track defect, demonstrating routine newsroom use of synthetic anchors. Jiangxi Radio and Television (江西广播电视台), through its iView platform (今视频), built a self-developed digital human broadcasting system enabling uninterrupted reporting as part of media-convergence work in Nanchang. In commerce, Hebei's Baoding High-Tech Zone promoted AI digital humans to enable round-the-clock industrial-product livestreaming and exhibition, the home-furnishing brand Goldenhome (金牌家居) created what it billed as the industry's first digital human IP, Jin Chanzi (金婵紫), to court younger consumers, and Shaanxi's Weikelian Technology (微轲联科技) positioned itself as a provider of AI digital human, AI livestreaming, and AI content-creation customer-acquisition services. NetDragon (网龙), based in Changle, Fujian, was the province's sole entry on the national 2025 Metaverse Typical Cases list and promotes a livestreaming digital human solution framed as the "soul of perceptive interaction" for assisting human anchors and live-commerce sellers.

Education: A vocational-education consortium discussed at a forum in Wuhan reported aggregating 329 institutions and 42 leading enterprises around the incubation of digital human teacher agents (数字人教师智能体) for cultural and arts disciplines. In Shandong's Jinan, a third vocational-education forum highlighted the use of digital human technology to produce roughly forty teacher-avatar courses anchored to job-skill requirements. Separately, an essay recounted children responding emotionally to an AI-generated virtual image of Sun Yat-sen (孙中山) that questioned them about the railway and port blueprints of his nation-building program, illustrating digital historical figures used in educational and cultural settings.

Technology Platforms and Capital Markets: JD.com (京东) open-sourced its JoyAI-Echo long audio-video generation framework on 3 June, releasing code and weights on GitHub and citing applications in digital human livestreaming, virtual story creation, brand-marketing video, education, and gaming; its cross-modal audio-video memory bank, a Director Agent for natural-language scripting, and a real-time super-resolution module are designed to keep character identity, appearance, and voice consistent across multi-shot videos up to five minutes long. iFlytek (科大讯飞) reported that its AI Virtual Human Interaction Platform, built on the Spark (星火) large model, became the first customer-service virtual digital human platform to pass full-function conformity testing under a new national standard, having earlier co-authored two ITU digital human standards and served clients including the National Open University, China Southern Power Grid, Ping An, Xinhua News Agency, and CCTV. In Hong Kong, the Hong Kong Generative AI Research and Development Center (香港生成式人工智能研发中心), an InnoHK-funded center led by HKUST and directed by Guo Yike, released its HKGAI V3 model on 3 June with an explicit goal of becoming a "Digital Hong Kong Person" (数字香港人), and its "Niannian" (念念) full-scenario digital-memory service uses multimodal interaction to deliver biographies, life micro-films, and interactive digital humans that together form a personal memory world model. Beijing's Luster LightTech (凌云光) was cited for self-developed light-field reconstruction and light-field imaging underpinning metaverse and virtual digital human applications. The sector's leading commercial milestone is Nanjing-based Silicon Intelligence (硅基智能), which filed for a Hong Kong main-board listing to become the prospective "first digital human stock," reporting roughly 7.89 billion yuan in 2025 revenue, an estimated 32.2 percent share of China's digital human agent market, and well over 100,000 digital human agents deployed across telecom, finance, healthcare, education, and public services via its DUIX platform and Yandi (炎帝) model, with Tencent and Sequoia China among its backers. The breadth of deployment was further underscored when visiting Lao President Thongloun, during a stop in Hangzhou, conversed in Chinese with a digital human at Alibaba.

Standards and Accessibility: National standardization is consolidating the field. The customer-service virtual digital human standard GB/T 46483-2025 (《信息技术 客服型虚拟数字人通用技术要求》), evaluated by the China Electronics Standardization Institute's testing laboratory, set the conformity benchmark that iFlytek's platform was first to clear in full. A parallel national-standard project, the technical specification for sign-language digital humans (《信息技术 手语数字人技术规范》), is being drafted by Zhejiang Lab (之江实验室), the China Electronics Standardization Institute (中国电子技术标准化研究院), NetEase (网易), Alibaba DAMO Academy (阿里巴巴达摩院), Zhejiang Special Education Vocational College (浙江特殊教育职业学院), and the Hunan firm Changguang Qianbo Technology (长广千博科技), and is positioned to move sign-language digital humans, which provide hearing-impaired audiences with translation and broadcasting, from fragmented projects toward unified, regulated development.

Ethical and Regulatory Contexts: Legal and reputational tensions around synthetic humans surfaced repeatedly. A Shanghai science-and-technology association legal forum warned that the rapid growth of the virtual digital human industry is generating unresolved personality-rights questions, and a commentary arguing that AI "can model a face but not a heart of empathy" called for enforcement under the Digital Virtual Human Technical Requirements (《数字虚拟人技术要求》) and the Measures for Labeling AI-Generated Synthetic Content (《人工智能生成合成内容标识办法》) against unauthorized face-swapping and infringing avatar creation. The Youku (优酷) period drama Qiaochu (《翘楚》), starring Chen Duling (陈都灵), drew a viral controversy when a supporting actress, Liu Jin (刘瑾), was wrongly suspected of being an AI "virtual human" because of a "modeling face," a misfire that commentators tied to broader anxieties exemplified by iQiyi's (爱奇艺) AI-artist-library dispute and a rights claim against Yaoke Media (耀客传媒) over a face-clashing AI artist, amid a sharp rise in AI-generated short-drama output. Reflecting the same blurring of lines, the singer He Junlin (贺峻霖) publicly insisted he is a real person rather than an AI-generated virtual image.

04 June News

Healthcare: Large-model-based "doctor AI avatars" are moving from pilot programs to broad clinical deployment across multiple regions of China, with hospitals building specialty-specific versions tied to their own clinical strengths. These systems are framed as a way to extend scarce expert capacity beyond the physical limits of top-tier institutions and to advance medical equity, while regulators and commentators stress the need to draw clear boundaries around liability and appropriate use.

Cultural Tourism: Beijing has positioned digital humans at the center of a three-year "AI plus culture and tourism" push for 2026 through 2028, with the Summer Palace launching an AI-and-digital-human intelligent customer-service system and planners describing multilingual pocket AI tour guides alongside a conversational AI digital human of the writer Lu Xun (鲁迅). At the Hunan Tourism Development Conference, the Hengyang city IP "Huo Chu Quan," modeled on the fire god Zhurong with hair rendered as traditional flame patterns, was showcased as a 3D digital human to illustrate the production advantages of synthetic characters over live filming. Baidu (百度) supplies digital humans in this space as well, including the "Art Goose" character for the National Centre for the Performing Arts and a virtual human for the National Museum, and it maintains a strategic mapping partnership with Amap (高德地图). The "2026 World Mayors Dialogue · Beijing" event likewise featured a digital human installation pitched at overcoming language barriers in city tourism.

Entertainment and Micro-Drama: Industrial bases are clustering synthetic-character production into dedicated zones, with the Optics Valley AI Film and TV Drama Industry Base in Wuhan hosting OPC creator communities focused on AI comic dramas, short dramas, AI games, AI digital humans, and AI livestreaming, drawing in studios such as Wuhan Lingdong and partners including Hubei Zhiyin Media (知音传媒). A parallel Jilin Youth Film and TV OPC Innovation Center in Changchun trains "super-individual" creators in digital human modeling, cloud rendering, and short-drama production. The Chinese micro-drama and comic-drama market was estimated at roughly 16.8 to 20 billion yuan for 2025, and digital human anchors are now being folded into content regulation that requires labeling of AI-generated figures. Audience pushback also surfaced around the virtual-human music variety format "Huanyin Geshou," which critics compared to the long-running virtual idol Hertz (荷兹) from nearly a decade earlier.

Marketing and Livestream Commerce: Baidu's Huiboxing (慧播星) platform anchors much of the digital-human livestreaming market, offering one-click cloning that reproduces a presenter's voice, appearance, and studio set from a short video, supporting round-the-clock automated selling, and appearing as the production tool behind a large volume of short news videos. Hebei Dingkang Grain and Oil (鼎康粮油) runs AI digital human anchors on its JD self-operated livestream around the clock under a "one product, one broadcast" e-commerce program in Handan. Kaitui Technology (开推科技) provides a full-chain AI short-video service spanning talking-head digital human clips, product videos, and short-drama creation, with the option of independent enterprise deployment. Tiandi Online (天地在线) is positioned as an AI digital human and marketing application leader whose digital human and virtual digital content services remain at an early development stage, while Monster Intelligence (怪兽智能) differentiates a "GEO optimization" offering that combines a knowledge base, vertical models, content agents, an AI digital human, and sentiment monitoring.

Enterprise and Government Services: Operational digital humans are being embedded into logistics, civic, and financial workflows. Wintime (维天运通) reported that its AI digital human "Road Bro" (路小哥) processed 58,304 online workflows while cutting paper use, and Neusoft (东软) built the AI digital human "Changbao Kangkang" (常宝康康) into the "My Changzhou" portal as part of a first regional "one person, one file, one code" service. In Guangzhou, the "Guangxinyu" prepaid-card platform introduced a digital human smart counter integrated with anti-money-laundering and cross-border payment functions. Silk Road Vision (丝路视觉) is advancing a digital twin and digital human platform powered by its self-developed Tia engine (提亚引擎) in Henan, while Wuhan's Housing and Urban Renewal Bureau, with Changjiang Net, opened a public competition to design an official "Wuhan property digital human" image conveying reliable grassroots governance. Public-facing deployments extended to diplomacy, with Lao President Thongloun interacting in Chinese with a digital human during a visit to Alibaba (阿里巴巴) in Hangzhou.

Media and Broadcasting: Shandong Radio and Television (山东广播电视台) built an AIGC platform that provides digital human broadcasting alongside AI topic selection, smart editing, media-asset restoration, and multimodal generation, presented by its editor-in-chief as a way to activate regional Qilu culture for production across the broadcaster.

Education: Schools and universities are integrating digital humans into instruction and creative training. Fuzhou University of Business (福州工商学院) partnered with iFlytek (科大讯飞) to establish an AI industry college where students experienced iFlytek virtual humans, and Huairou District Experimental Primary School in Beijing used a dialogue digital human as a teaching assistant in art class. Ma'anshan hosted an "AIGC Digital Human Li Bai Application Contest" built around a digital human of the poet Li Bai (李白), and the VR College of Jiangxi University of Finance and Economics (江西财经大学) wove AI digital humans and VR narration into "red drama" coursework in Nanchang. Leyun Technology (乐运科技) markets digital human teaching assistants and multi-scenario digital humans for university MOOCs, and China Unicom (中国联通) ran digital human interaction stations within its Unicom Wo Music AI showroom under a Guangdong "i-Companion" youth program.

Accessibility: A national standard for sign-language digital humans has taken effect, supporting deployments across smart-city apps that span real-time sign-language news broadcasting, government-hall service guidance, and museum navigation. Changguang Qianbo Technology (长广千博科技), a second-tier state enterprise controlled by Changsha Radio and Television (长沙市广播电视台), has specialized in AI sign-language broadcasting, digital humans, and intelligent translation since 2023 and helped author the standard.

Technology, Platforms, and Standards: SenseTime (商汤) led drafting of China's first national digital human standard, the General Technical Requirements for Customer-Service Virtual Digital Humans (GB/T 46483-2025), working with more than thirty industry, academic, and research units under the guidance of the China Electronics Standardization Institute, and its SenseAvatar platform (如影) underpins earlier showcases including the first large-model-driven Laozi (老子) and Qian Xuesen (钱学森) digital humans. iFlytek's AI virtual human interaction platform separately passed national-standard certification across its full feature set. FaceUnity (相芯科技), incubated from Zhejiang University in Hangzhou and now partnered with the Gongshu district, builds digital humans through its photo-to-avatar (P2A) technology and AvatarX platform across five categories ranging from cartoon to hyper-realistic "full-real" figures. Silicon Intelligence (硅基智能) of Nanjing, attempting a second Hong Kong listing, is described as China's largest digital human agent provider with a 32.2 percent share by 2024 revenue and second place globally, marketing its outputs as a "silicon-based labor force" spanning video generation, livestreaming, and multimodal interaction. Chingmu Vision (青瞳视觉) of Shanghai set a publicly verifiable record for the largest real-time multi-person motion capture using infrared optical systems applied to animation, film, games, virtual humans, and robot training, and Xiaoduo Intelligent Technology (小哆智能科技) of Beijing filed a patent for streaming text-to-digital-human real-time conversion.

Memorialization: The Hong Kong Generative AI Research and Development Center released its HKGAI V3 model with the explicit ambition of becoming a "Digital Hong Kong Person," and its full-scenario digital memory service Niannian (念念) offers three core capabilities centered on biography creation, life micro-films, and interactive digital humans intended to form a personal memory model.

Ethical and Regulatory Contexts: The Shenzhen Consumer Council issued a warning on AI virtual companion apps, citing revealingly dressed virtual personas and conversations laden with vulgar suggestion and extreme "violence" or "emotional fighting" scenarios that threaten the wellbeing of minors. Enforcement actions targeted misuse of synthetic likenesses, including an administrative penalty against the unauthorized use of Kuomintang chairwoman Cheng Li-wen's (郑丽文) image as an AI digital human for livestream selling, alongside a set of AI rumor cases publicized by Shanxi cyber authorities. Regulatory tightening around micro-drama now brings digital human anchors under AIGC labeling requirements, and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has signaled a broad consensus on disciplining digital human development.

03 June News

Industry Leadership and Commercialization: The clearest commercialization signal comes from Silicon Intelligence (硅基智能), the Nanjing-based provider that has become the reference point for the digital-human sector in China. Founded in 2017 by Sima Huapeng, the company ranked first among Chinese digital-human intelligent-agent providers in 2024 with about 32.2 percent market share, and had cumulatively supplied more than 80,000 "silicon-based workers" to the telecommunications, finance, and government sectors. Its technology centers on the self-developed model that was upgraded into the multimodal system DUIX ONE, simulating appearance, voice, and expression, and its digital humans are applied across AI telephone voice service, AI clone video generation, AI livestreaming, and AI intelligent interaction. On 31 October 2025 it filed for a Hong Kong main-board listing, positioning itself as a prospective "first digital-human stock," with Tencent holding roughly 16.59 percent as the largest external investor and Sequoia among other backers. The company has also moved into international expansion, partnering with municipal science-and-technology bodies in Yuxi, Yunnan, to push digital humans toward South and Southeast Asian markets and beyond.

Media and Broadcasting: Provincial and municipal media organizations are embedding synthetic presenters into newsroom workflows. Guangxi Daily Media Group (广西日报传媒集团) launched a digital-human anchor named Xiyun and linked it across city- and county-level convergence-media centers for regional content distribution. Shandong Radio and Television (山东广播电视台) built an AIGC platform whose functions include AI topic selection, intelligent editing, media-asset restoration, digital-human broadcasting, and multimodal generation. Zhengzhou Youth Daily (郑州少年报) introduced an AI digital human called Zheng Xiaozheng at its launch ceremony as an interactive newsroom presence aimed at younger readers. Oriental Pearl (东方明珠) consolidated its activity around a proprietary digital-human platform supporting virtual livestreaming and cultural-tourism augmented-reality guided tours, alongside set-top-box AIGC agents and related services.

Commerce, Retail, and Livestreaming: Digital humans are being deployed extensively across e-commerce and on-site retail. Douyin (抖音) launched a "City Treasures" initiative under its "national heavy equipment" series, first landing in Zhejiang, using digital-human livestreaming to inject activity into traditional markets. Leqi Group (乐其集团) described providing dozens of brands with a "real-person broadcast by day, digital-human broadcast by night" livestreaming service during the 618 shopping period in Hangzhou. JD.com (京东) was cited offering free digital-human livestreaming with what was described as hundreds of digital-human "CEO" presenters appearing in its livestream rooms. PetroChina (中国石油) piloted a Hongmeng-based smart refueling machine carrying a digital-human intelligent-guidance function at a Shenyang station in its Liaoning sales operation. Jushanghui (巨商汇) filed a patent for a guided-shopping interaction method using a digital human running on a locally deployed open-source large model and a brand-specific knowledge base, while Tianyu Digital (天娱数科) framed its transition around AI marketing and virtual humans. The same period saw AI virtual fashion models gaining traction, with algorithm-generated lifelike figures used by brands and platforms to compress garment-display production cycles and costs.

Public Services and Accessibility: Government and public-interest bodies are adopting named digital humans for outreach and inclusion. In Wuhan, an anti-illegal-finance AI digital human named Xiaowu delivered safety reminders at a 2026 municipal prevention fair. At Shenyang Railway Station, a sign-language digital-human system named Silvia was launched to translate text and speech into standard sign language and broadcast travel notices for hearing-impaired passengers. In Nanning, Guangxi, an AI digital human named Xiaoguang was released as the public face of a disabled-employment promotion campaign. China Unicom (中国联通) hosted children at its Wo Music AI hall during a Guangdong "i-Companion" care program, where participants engaged in digital-human interaction, AI music creation, and volunteer-themed virtual reality. In Longgang, a digital human named Xiao Yucong featured in an AI short film linking anti-corruption cultural sites, and a Tibet legal-popularization short-video campaign encouraged unified virtual images carrying Tibetan cultural features.

Cultural Heritage, Education, and Training: Digital humans are being used both as cultural artifacts and as taught skills. Nanning Vocational and Technical University (南宁职业技术大学) worked with Zhuang-brocade intangible-heritage masters to create an AI heritage digital human, using high-definition imaging to preserve the weaving and patterning process and to build a dedicated "Zhuang brocade digital gene library." A Liaoning education program applied digital-human technology to stage time-and-space dialogues with historical heroes and to offer full-scene virtual tours of red-culture venues. In Shaanxi, a national science-and-technology week featured digital-human interaction and dexterous-hand demonstrations opened to the public, and vocational training in digital-human production appeared in curricula at institutions including a Shandong city-service college and a Jilin youth film-and-television innovation center covering scripting, intelligent editing, digital-human modeling, and cloud rendering. A digital educator rendering of Tao Xingzhi appeared in Hechuan, Chongqing, as a teaching-oriented application, and AI-generated short dramas and animation introduced a "digital-intelligent worker" rendering of Lei Feng to retell stories of ordinary labor.

Entertainment and Micro-Drama: The micro-drama and interactive-content field is rapidly incorporating synthetic performers. Bingo Group (比高集团), associated with Stephen Chow, took a stake in Interactive Star (互动之星), which focuses on AI animated drama, AI realistic-human drama, interactive film-and-games, and live-action mid-length short dramas. The broader AI short-drama segment expanded sharply, with reporting that more than 2,100 AI short-drama-related companies had registered in China in 2026, and that AI-generated content such as digital-human anchors was being drawn into supervision.

Enterprise Clones and Professional Applications: A distinct strand of activity centers on professional "digital clones" and platform certification. China International Capital Corporation (中金公司) launched digital clones of six analysts as callable agents on its research platform, allowing users to converse directly with an analyst's digital twin to obtain services. Digiwin (鼎捷数智), through executive Yip Tzu-chen, argued that a person's future AI clone could execute work on their behalf, progressing from assistant to decision-support "second brain" to authorized autonomous execution, while RongCloud (融云) presented an AI-clone product among award-cited offerings. iFlytek (科大讯飞) was reported to have passed national-standard certification for the full functionality of its AI virtual-human interaction platform. Sinodata (中科金财) developed a digital-human content-production engine and metaverse scene-development tools delivered through AIGC, and Xinchen Technology (新晨科技) outlined plans to build cooperation around metaverse digital humans, VR and AR wearables, and cloud rendering. On a Jiangsu expressway-paving project, a "three-person collaboration" model paired remote human operation with digital-human real-time analysis and precise robotic execution.

Regulatory and Ethical Contexts: Governance of virtual beings advanced significantly during this period. On 3 April 2026 the Cyberspace Administration of China issued the draft Measures for the Administration of Digital Virtual Human Information Services for public comment, defining digital virtual humans as non-physical figures that use graphics, digital image processing, or artificial intelligence and are driven by a real person or by computation to simulate human appearance with voice, behavior, interaction, or personality. The draft requires that a prominent "digital human" label be displayed continuously throughout the service, and it prohibits offering minors virtual relatives, virtual companions, or other virtual intimate relationships that induce overconsumption, religious inducement, or content harmful to minors' physical and mental health. The public-comment window ran to 6 May 2026. Industry reporting tied these requirements to falling digital-human technology costs and a shift toward scaled application, noting the draft's stipulation that modeling authorized on a natural person's sensitive information requires separate single consent and that providers establish safety-risk monitoring, while the parallel expansion of AI short dramas brought obligations to label AI-generated human imagery.

02 June News

Entertainment: Several China-based productions are moving virtual performers into mainstream film and short-form drama. The costume-fantasy series Shenxian Rou (《神仙肉》), since retitled Nian Xiangsi (《念相思》) and produced by Jinhe Film and Television (金禾影视), is reported to retain only its four core human leads while casting AI digital humans in all remaining supporting, background, and functional roles, an approach framed as a cost-reduction pilot associated with iQIYI (爱奇艺) and seen as a test case for whether AI extras will spread into long-form drama. In Shanghai, the Songjiang culture-tourism and film sector is integrating AI interactive short dramas and immersive theatre, with digital humans introduced into scenic areas to revive intellectual property and support VR immersive experiences. Migu (咪咕) is advancing AI-generated micro-dramas as a model for Chinese audiovisual content aimed at overseas distribution, while a separate Shanghai initiative, the Bund Creation Festival, highlighted creators using digital humans to build English-language video accounts that gained large followings within months. In the northeast, the Changchun International Film Capital in Jilin is building an AI-plus-film lightweight production track in which digital humans feature in low-cost, intelligent content creation.

Marketing: Digital-human livestreaming and AI video generation now anchor much of China's e-commerce and content marketing. Baidu (百度) operates Huiboxing (慧播星), a full-stack AI digital-human livestreaming solution with one-click real-person cloning that lets merchants generate lifelike presenter avatars from a short video, and the same technology has been adopted by news publishers to produce short news clips on subjects ranging from a food-safety case in Hubei to an employer distributing cash bonuses in Henan, with a widely noted instance being a Baidu-powered digital human of entrepreneur Luo Yonghao whose broadcast reportedly surpassed his in-person sales figures in a fraction of the time, alongside a Baidu AI Cloud digital-economy base in Yuncheng where digital humans greet visitors and support MCN operations. JD.com (京东) fielded its digital human JoyStreamer during the 618 shopping period, with the system used by merchants to open automated broadcasts. Bola Smart Computing (博拉智算科技有限公司) in Chongqing combines top-tier Kuaishou and Douyin local-services credentials with AI intelligent video generation and digital humans to serve catering, tourism, and lifestyle-consumption businesses. All in AI (酱油文化), a Zhejiang content team of roughly 1,200 staff, uses AIGC pipelines in which digital-human models lock onto facial features and cloud computing renders finished clips, with its output increasingly aimed at overseas audiences.

Technology: A cluster of Chinese developers released or certified core virtual-human technologies. Soul App, through its Soul AI Lab and the Soul Zhang Lu team, open-sourced a family of real-time digital-human generation models, including the 14-billion-parameter SoulX-FlashTalk, which reaches sub-second startup latency of 0.87 seconds at 32 frames per second with stable long-video output, the lightweight 1.3-billion-parameter SoulX-FlashHead for consumer GPUs, and the streaming-focused SoulX-LiveAct. Meituan (美团), via its LongCat team, open-sourced LongCat-Video-Avatar and its 1.5 revision, an audio-driven avatar framework that generates lip-synced talking videos from a single portrait and audio, with upgraded encoding for smoother lip dynamics, multi-character interaction, and stable long-form identity consistency. iFlytek (科大讯飞) became the first vendor whose AI virtual-human interaction platform passed full-functionality certification against the national standard GB/T 46483-2025 for customer-service virtual digital humans, evaluated by the China Electronics Standardization Institute. CHINGMU Vision (青瞳视觉) staged a hundred-performer real-time motion-capture digital-action showcase in Shanghai as part of the 2026 Shanghai Information Consumption Festival, with AMD as senior computing partner and participation from Unitree Robotics (宇树科技) in an embodied-intelligence segment in which one performer teleoperated several humanoid units, demonstrating large-space optical capture driving live digital avatars. FaceUnity (相芯科技) in Hangzhou contributed photo-to-avatar technology that builds a fully dynamic three-dimensional virtual figure from a single phone photo, together with face-tracking and virtual-employee solutions, and featured among the technology firms anchoring a joint-laboratory launch in the city's Gongshu district.

Healthcare: In Guangdong, JD Health (京东健康) joined with the First Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University (广州医科大学附属第一医院) to release a respiratory-medicine artificial-intelligence dataset, within which a digital human performs the consultation step of a standardized patient pathway that runs from registration and reach-out through digital-human triage, health-history confirmation, report upload and analysis, and synchronization with medical records. The deployment positions the virtual being as a front-line intake and questioning interface rather than a back-office tool.

Tourism: Cultural and travel institutions are embedding digital humans into visitor services and exhibitions. In Beijing, the Summer Palace launched AI-plus-digital-human smart customer service and a portable AI tour-guide function under the municipal three-year action plan for artificial intelligence in culture and tourism covering 2026 to 2028. In Yunnan, the tenth China–South Asia Expo in Kunming featured digital humans alongside multilingual real-time translation and a cross-border computing-power corridor as showcased frontier technologies. In Heilongjiang, the Wanjuan Pavilion Ancient Books Digital Exhibition Hall in Qiqihar, described as the province's first hall of its kind, uses three-screen linkage, AR modeling, and a digital human across themed sections devoted to regional and frontier cultural history.

Cultural: Digital humans are being built as cultural intellectual property and public-messaging vehicles. In Anhui, the AIGC Digital Human Li Bai application competition concluded in Ma'anshan on 29 May 2026 with a results showcase, and the city announced plans to develop Li Bai and further digital cultural IP around the classical poet. In Shenzhen, the eighth clean-governance micro-film and short-video contest in Longgang featured the digital human Xiao Yucong in the AI short film Congxing Sihai (《琮行四海》), which linked anti-corruption cultural sites across multiple locations. In Guangxi, a disability-employment promotion effort launched an AI digital-human image named Xiaoguang as the public face of its outreach.

Education: Schools and community programs are introducing digital humans into instruction. In Hunan, the Changsha No. 2 Experimental Primary School integrated an AI digital human and smart-rhythm tools into a patriotic music lesson. In Inner Mongolia, students at a primary school in Horqin Right Middle Banner used Beijing-supplied AI courses to create their own digital humans in the computer classroom, an example of efforts to narrow the urban-rural digital divide.

Enterprise: Industrial bases and conferences are organizing around the digital-human sector. In Beijing, the municipal Digital Human Base operates an innovation community for one-person companies at Zhongguancun, offering ten-minute registration and a virtual-real fusion sports platform combining space computing, mixed reality, and motion capture for resident entrepreneurs. In Hubei, the province's first AI Yuanshengli Ecological Innovation Conference in Wuhan featured Modal Leap (模态跃迁), whose founder hosted a roundtable, and presented an AI digital-human persona named Transcender on stage with multiple guests. In Guangzhou, authorities began a nationally early standardized pilot for intelligent public legal services that embeds AI large models, digital humans, and intelligent algorithms into smart legal consultation, automatic legal-document generation, and case-handling assistance.

Ethical Contexts: Regulatory and labor questions are advancing alongside deployment. The Cyberspace Administration of China issued draft Measures for the Administration of Digital Virtual Human Information Services in April 2026, which the law firm JunHe (君合) characterizes as the country's first regulation dedicated specifically to digital virtual human information services, consolidating requirements that had previously been scattered across rules on AI-generated content management, algorithmic recommendation, and personal-information protection. In parallel, the prospect of AI digital humans replacing supporting actors and extras in long-form drama has prompted public debate over displacement of working performers, the ownership and consent basis for the faces used to train such avatars, and the risk of uncanny, stiff performances when synthetic characters move beyond minor background roles.

01 June News

Entertainment and Music: The "Youth Xiangtan · Bubugao Night" concert, produced by Hunan Satellite TV (湖南卫视) and simulcast on Mango TV (芒果TV) at the Xiangtan Sports Center on 30 May 2026, was built around an AI-technology stage and a "Xiangtan-limited AI avatar" (AI分身) concept. Singer Bibi Zhou (周笔畅) performed "Use All of Me to Run Toward You" together with her own AI avatar, which ran out onto the stage to interact with her across space. In a companion AI roaming drama titled "Thousands of Mountains and Rivers" (万水千山), an AI avatar of singer Hailai Amu (海来阿木) traveled through time across five Xiangtan landmarks—Zhaoshan, the Xiangjiang "Smile Curve" bend, a Qi Baishi ink painting, the 1,700-year-old Yaowan district, and Wanlou tower—to gather the city's treasures and awaken his musical energy before his live set. Separately, Yuehua Entertainment (乐华娱乐) sustained its long-running virtual-being strategy: founder and CEO Du Hua, who has shown consistent interest in virtual humans, launched her own virtual image "Huahuazi" (华华子) and, at a 29 January "Entrepreneurs' Night," positioned 2026 as the company's transformation year toward becoming a "robot + AI + designer-toy" technology-entertainment company. The Huahuazi avatar was cloned by the Beijing firm Fengping Intelligence (风平智能), and the label previously ran the motion-capture virtual idol group A-SOUL. In March 2026 Yuehua debuted HeyDream, billed as Asia's first "AI-driven real-person girl group," using a real-person-face plus full-process AI production technique, a move treated as a milestone for domestic AI idols.

Marketing and Content Creation: Baidu (百度) operates Huiboxing (慧播星), presented as the industry's first full-stack AI digital-human livestreaming solution, which lowers the barrier to live commerce by letting merchants complete a digital-human livestream in as few as three steps. Built on the Ernie large model, its one-click cloning feature reproduces a person's voice, image, and livestream-room decoration from a roughly three-minute video, with lip-sync technology supporting wide side-turns and handheld product demonstrations. The same digital-human capability was credited in promotional video work tied to the drama "The Little Alley Family 2" (小巷人家2). ByteDance (字节跳动) offers a competing tool through its Ocean Engine "Jichuang" (即创) AIGC platform; its digital-human finished-video capability lets businesses generate realistic presenters, with users producing more than 400,000 AIGC assets daily and advanced merchants commissioning private bespoke digital humans. At the municipal level, Shanghai's newly launched "Bund Creation Festival" (外滩创作节) spotlighted ordinary creators using digital humans to build English-language accounts that gained tens of thousands of followers within three months, and in Guiyang the cross-border e-commerce firm Guizhou Lingquan Cross-border Supply Chain Management (贵州领圈跨境供应链管理服务有限公司) reported developing "smart mixed-cut" and "digital-human cloning" features for solo overseas sellers.

Enterprise, Customer Service, and Technical Standards: iFlytek (科大讯飞) announced that its AI Virtual Human Interaction Platform was the first in China to pass full-function conformance testing for the national standard GB/T 46483-2025 on customer-service virtual digital humans. The evaluation by the China Electronics Standardization Institute covered 2D and 3D image generation and driving, visual and voice capture and wake-up, speech recognition, semantic understanding, speech synthesis, knowledge management, and emotion capture, recognition, decision-making and expression. Built on the company's Spark large model, the platform spans products including mobile digital humans, smart interaction machines, the iFlytek Smart Production tool, and a PC-side virtual-human assistant, and serves clients such as the Open University of China (国家开放大学), China Southern Power Grid (南方电网), Ping An (中国平安), Xinhua News Agency (新华社), and CCTV.com (央视网). Its digital human "Xiaofei" can listen and see, retain conversational history, distinguish whether it is being addressed in a multi-party setting, converse in foreign languages, and assume personas such as the literary figure Lin Daiyu; the company also led two ITU-T digital-human international standards. Alibaba Cloud (阿里云) filed a patent for a digital-human control method (publication number CN122120528A, filed November 2024) intended to make digital-human state transitions more natural and fluid, complementing its existing virtual digital-human open platform offered as a PaaS and SaaS solution for retail, government, finance, telecom, and media scenarios. Tianditech (天地在线) clarified, following abnormal stock movement, that its digital-human, digital-content, and VR large-space virtual content services remain at an early development stage with minimal revenue, while internet advertising placement and agency operations made up 90.5% of its 2025 main-business revenue. In the southwest, Chongqing Huijingxuan Network Technology (重庆汇景宣网络科技有限公司) markets AI digital-human narration within a "digital content plus smart hardware" model that also spans VR panoramic shooting and drone aerial photography in the smart-robot rental market.

Cultural Heritage and Tourism: A "Digital Human Li Bai" (数字人李白) created with AIGC technology was formally unveiled in Ma'anshan, Anhui, on 29 May 2026 at the results showcase of the "AIGC Digital Human Li Bai Application Competition," themed "AI Imagining Poetic Ma'anshan." The national youth competition is hosted by the Huashan District People's Government of Ma'anshan (马鞍山市花山区人民政府), organized by CTV Media (中视传媒), and supported by the national research society for computer-based education in higher institutions, focusing on digital-human technology, AIGC content generation, intelligent interaction, and digital storytelling to fuse AI with traditional culture for cultural communication, the digital-content industry, and cultural-tourism commercialization. Its five tracks cover contemporary Li Bai character design, an original animated story pairing a young Li Bai with a panda, AI cultural-tourism scene applications, AIGC cultural-creative product design and marketing, and public co-created short videos, supported by a district incubation fund to commercialize the resulting cultural IP. In Heilongjiang, the Wanjuan Pavilion ancient-books digital exhibition hall in Qiqihar opened to the public using three-screen linkage, AR modeling, and digital humans to present its collections.

Public Sector and Civic Services: Several provincial initiatives placed digital humans in civic-facing roles. The 2026 Shaanxi Citizen Science Quality Competition (陕西省公民科学素质大赛), launched in Xi'an, deployed a digital human alongside intelligent science-popularization analysis and a virtual-image creative dress-up feature to engage target groups including youth, farmers, industrial workers, the elderly, and civil servants. In Nanjing, a digital human named "Caibao" (财宝) provided on-site interaction as the Nanjing Finance Vocational College (南京财经高职校) presented at a regional science-and-innovation exhibition, while Jiangsu's highway sector demonstrated a "three-person collaboration" unmanned-construction model that pairs remote human operators with a digital human. In Shenyang, the city's 19th Xiyuan Queqiao matchmaking event introduced an AI matchmaker (AI红娘) jointly developed by Liaoning Beidou Cloud Digital Technology (辽宁北斗云数字科技有限公司) and Shenyang Medical College (沈阳医学院), described as an assistant-type digital human providing cloud-based services with a gentle and professional manner.

Industry Developments and Ethical Debates: At the opening of the "2026 National AI Agent Innovation and Development Competition" and Hubei's first AI ecosystem innovation conference in Wuhan on 28 May 2026, an AI digital human called "the Leaper" (跃迁者) joined five human guests on a roundtable hosted by Wuhan Modal Leap Technology (武汉模态跃迁科技有限公司) co-founder and COO Chang Yuanhe, discussing technology iteration, industry penetration, and computing-power supply around open-source large models. Industry measurement continued through the China Digital Human Influence Index Report compiled by the Communication University of China (中国传媒大学); the report ranks the sector across three core categories—virtual idols known for IP operation, virtual anchors transforming under policy norms, and industry-empowering digital employees—drawing on multi-platform data collection, expert scoring, and user voting, with charted virtual idols including Luo Tianyi (洛天依), Liu Yexi (柳夜熙), and Xingtong (星瞳). On the cautionary side, Shen Honggang, an official of the screenwriting committee under the China Television Drama Production Industry Association (中国电视剧制作产业协会), argued that although AI has penetrated film and television from scriptwriting, storyboarding, and intelligent editing through to digital humans, with short-form drama emerging as a new frontier, it cannot replace core human creativity. Cost was cited as a continuing constraint in the same period, with hyper-realistic virtual-human rendering estimated at roughly 8,000 to 15,000 yuan per second and a fifteen-second clip reaching production costs in the millions of yuan.