iResearch

Chinese name
艾瑞咨询
Pinyin
Àiruì Zīxún
Registered name
上海艾瑞市场咨询股份有限公司
Unified Social Credit Code
91310118744931940H registered in Shanghai 上海

Market observers and rankers

iResearch Consulting Group (艾瑞咨询) is a leading Chinese third-party market research and consulting firm headquartered in Beijing, founded in 2002, that has become one of the most frequently cited industry observers of China’s digital human (数字人) sector. Operating through its core consultancy alongside the data and intelligence sub-brand iResearch Smart (艾瑞数智) and its content portal iResearch.com (艾瑞网), the firm produces a continuous stream of white papers, vendor assessments, and market sizing studies that shape public, corporate, and investor understanding of virtual humans in China. Its digital human research portfolio spans the 2022 China Virtual Idol Industry Research Report, the China Virtual Streamer Industry Ecosystem Research Report, the 2024 China Virtual Digital Human Industry Development White Paper which valued the digital-human-driven market at 333.47 billion yuan in 2023 with a forecast of 640.27 billion yuan by 2025, the 2024 China AI Digital Human Industry Development Report, the 2024 China Digital Culture Space Development Research Report covering XR guides and digital human heritage interpretation, the 2022 China Conversational AI Industry Development White Paper, the China Chatbot Industry Development Research Report, and most recently the April 2026 Digital Human E-Commerce Livestreaming White Paper co-released with JD.com, which reframes digital human livestreaming as a scalable new quality productive force and forecasts a transition from labor-intensive operations toward an Agent intelligent body era surpassing human anchors. Adjacent reports on AIGC scenarios, AI smart interactive eyewear, online recruitment with AI virtual interviewers, the red influencer economy, and live commerce extend coverage across the full application stack from technology suppliers to commercial deployment. iResearch figures are routinely cited by Xinhua, People’s Daily, CBNData, Yicai, Sohu, Tencent News, and provincial government documents including Jiangsu’s 2026–2028 AI plus Cultural Tourism Action Plan, giving the firm disproportionate authority over how the virtual human market is measured, segmented, and projected within mainland China.