5 September 2026 News

Healthcare : Mayi Jituan (蚂蚁集团)’s AI health application Afu (阿福) (formerly AQ) achieved rapid monthly active user growth exceeding 30 million following its brand upgrade, positioning itself as an “AI health companion” that leverages Ant Medical’s large language model to connect over 5,000 hospitals nationwide, 300,000 real physicians, and more than 500 renowned doctor AI avatars, providing services such as report interpretation and medication guidance. Six academicians including Liao Wanqing, Dong Jiahuo, Wang Jun, Chen Zijiang, Wang Jian’an, and Wang Ningli have led over 500 renowned doctors nationwide in replicating their expertise as AI avatars deployed on Afu (阿福), cumulatively handling more than 27 million health consultations. Mayi Jituan (蚂蚁集团) Vice President Zhang Junjie emphasized that Afu (阿福) is positioned as an assistant for resolving everyday health questions rather than a diagnostic replacement, focusing on serving third and fourth-tier cities with limited medical resources. Afu (阿福) doctor version simultaneously upgraded with two new features: “AI Medical Assistant” and “AI Avatar Assistant,” enabling doctors to leverage AI for patient management, research retrieval, and one-click activation of online consultations. Taiwan Aitewei (台湾艾特维股份有限公司) developed a “Physician AI Avatar Non-Pharmaceutical Prescription and Sleep Schedule Recommendation System” based on years of accumulated circadian rhythm, sleep, and smart environment technology from its brand Shuhuoshi SUVIOS (舒活适SUVIOS), integrating AI, LINE, wearable devices, and physicians’ clinical expertise to establish a digital support system bridging clinical assessment and home implementation, adopting Taiwan’s autonomous large language model and deploying Edge AI edge computing, facilitating human-in-the-loop collaboration to help AI organize long-term lifestyle data and improve physician interpretation and communication efficiency rather than making direct medical decisions. Additionally, the forum hosted by Nanbu Lianhe Fuwu Zhongxin (南部聯合服務中心) showcased intelligent in-home medical care applications analyzing vital signs, activity, gait, and imaging data through technology to help medical teams identify high-risk elderly and advance toward “pre-fall warning” objectives. JD Health collaborates with Yunqueyi (云鹊医) to build an “AI diagnostic assistance + grassroots physician + pharmaceutical supply chain” model, with Pingan Jiankang (平安健康)’s “AI doctor” upgraded to Pingan Zhi Xiangjiayi (平安智享家医), adopting a “AI second-level response + full-process human physician oversight” service model that has achieved precise diagnostic assistance for over 11,300 diseases.

Entertainment : China’s first full-AIGC long-form drama “Post Journey to the West” was produced by Mangguo TV (芒果TV), created by Mangguo TV AIGC Chuangxin Neirong Zhongxin (芒果TV AIGC创新内容中心), and undertaken by Bojing Wenhua (伯璟文化), leveraging the self-developed “Mangguo Lingchuang (芒果灵创)” platform and ByteDance (字节跳动) Seedance 2.0/2.5 model technology. Accumulating 109 character digital assets and 143 scene digital assets, it achieved top viewership among provincial satellite TV stations in its time slot during prime time on Hunan Weishi (湖南卫视) without the participation of real actors, becoming the first drama series following the release of “Broadcast 21 Provisions” to implement “simultaneous production, review, and broadcast.” This drove Mango Excellent Media, the production company, to achieve consecutive two-day daily limit-up increases, with market value gains exceeding ten billion yuan, while short-drama concept stocks including Huanrui Century, Bona Yingye (博纳影业), Zhong Guang Tianze (中广天择), and Xinju Wangluo (新炬网络) strengthened in tandem. Bona Film’s “Sanxingdui: Stories of the Future” has been positioned as China’s first AI-deeply-involved theatrical hyperrealistic animated feature film, with all digital characters being original creations rather than digital clones of real actors, to avoid portrait copyright disputes. Regarding actor portrait AI authorization, Qi Wei became the first first-tier actress to actively authorize an AI digital alter ego “Han Qingxia,” adopting a “limited authorization” model while retaining review and accountability rights. She personally disclosed that as early as 2022 she had attempted co-creating digital images with her daughter Lucky. Wu Qihua authorized his likeness from age twenty to create a “digital clone” for the film “Thousand Illusions” promotional poster. Wang Zuxian’s young-age image was used by NetEase Games’ “Tianxia” AIGC advertisement “Shadow” to recreate classic characters such as Nie Xiaoqian and Bai Suzhen. TVB actors Mai Chanqing and Huang Zhihan also authorized AI film shoots, expected to premiere on October 1st. In the AI short-drama sector, the AI-generated virtual character “Fang Taozi” went viral with “The Fired Girl,” commanding a commercial advertisement rate of 258,000 yuan per 60-second clip and landing on the cover of Vogue COSMO, but faced false advertising controversy for endorsing physical trial products like colored contact lenses, with related advertisement videos removed. Additionally, there are online reports that “male lead same style” bracelets from AI manhua “Deep Affection Invading the Rest of My Life” sold briskly but were actually unauthorized AI-synthesized promotional images. B Zhan (B站)’s virtual singer Luo Tianyi’s “Luo Tianyi Audio Dataset” successfully obtained Shanghai’s Data Product Intellectual Property Registration Certificate, becoming the nation’s first case of a completely virtual person audio data product achieving “rights confirmation,” with subsequent plans to implement tiered rights confirmation for finer-granularity “voice corpus unit libraries.” Shiyou Keji (世優科技)’s developed wandering-style VR large-space projects “Luwu Mountain—Water Character Remnant Scroll (Chapter)” and “Journey to the West: The Monkey Demon Emerges” respectively won the “VR Large Space 2024-2025 Industry Leading Award” and the Golden Rooster Award “Best Virtual Art of the Year,” while the company simultaneously launched Bota AI (波塔AI) digital human and VR large-space combination solutions, expanding into cultural tourism, commercial, and theme park scenarios.

Marketing : Shenzhen Zego Technology (即构科技) has launched an RTC+AI convergence solution targeting the pan-entertainment overseas market, encompassing AI interactive assistants for livestream rooms and voice chat rooms, AI virtual hosts, and AI avatar digital human image creation to help streamers build AI alter egos that enhance round-the-clock interaction and conversion rates, while supporting AI Agent applications for celebrity IP avatars in multimodal companion forms deployed across IM, voice, and digital human interaction scenarios. Advertising agency BlueFocus (蓝色光标), serving as a primary agent for overseas platforms including TikTok, Google, and Meta, is comprehensively rolling out AI-generated ad creative and cross-border marketing intelligent agents, with mid-year net profit growing 119.28% year-over-year; cross-border programmatic advertising leader Yidian Tianxia (易點天下) is collaborating with Ali Yun (阿里雲) to conduct AI manga overseas business by using AIGC to batch-generate overseas short video ad materials; Tianyue Digital Self-developed Tianxing large model and spatial intelligence large model, deploying virtual human, AI marketing, and digital content generation businesses, creating marketing intelligent agents targeting advertising and livestream scenarios, with mid-year net profit growing 72.41% year-over-year. In the gray industry chain of virtual artists exposed by Nan Dou (南都) investigators, certain MCN institutions have used the account “Obviously AI” to conduct “soft implantation” of prescription drug advertisements through virtual human images that have been subject to platform key monitoring, while other accounts leveraging virtual human “mukbang” videos for e-commerce were determined to violate regulations and faced platform penalties, reflecting compliance risks of false advertising in virtual digital human evaluation and grassroots marketing due to lack of authentic experience.

Gaming : Tianyu Digital Technology (天娱数科) has innovated a “virtual human plus short drama” model, with its digital human “Tianyu” launching a series of short dramas titled “Thousand Walls Quest” centered on collecting mural fragments as the narrative thread, which has garnered widespread attention and continued to attract net inflows of main force capital across multiple thematic sectors including AI applications, AIGC concepts, AI agents, virtual digital humans, and short drama interactive games; Shijihuatong (世纪华通) as a leading A-share gaming company has deployed layouts in emerging fields such as virtual digital humans and cloud gaming, leveraging Shengqu Youxi (盛趣游戏) and Diandia Interactive’s dual-engine approach to deeply cultivate the SLG track, while accelerating the large-scale implementation of AI tool chains in game research and development as well as operations.

Enterprise : Tencent AI-native desktop intelligent agent WorkBuddy and Leqi Rokid (乐奇Rokid) jointly released a co-branded AI glasses that invoke WorkBuddy through voice commands to complete office tasks such as organizing reports, retrieving enterprise knowledge bases, and generating weekly reports and meeting minutes. Weiyi (微医)’s core product “Weiyi (微医) Health Management Expert (Weixiao Yi (微小医))” from its medical AI capability open platform has also been integrated into the Tencent WorkBuddy ecosystem. Huaxiayinhang (华夏银行) proposed building a “5S” AI-native banking strategy, establishing a new human-machine collaboration landscape of “one post one assistant, one person one digital counterpart, one customer one steward,” configuring intelligent assistants for credit investigation and due diligence for customer managers, and creating a “digital twin” for corporate credit audit as an intelligent worker for audit staff, integrating knowledge accumulation, autonomous decision-making, and tool invocation capabilities to achieve end-to-end automation of corporate credit audit processes.

Cultural : Lianyungang Donghaixian (连云港东海县) The live broadcast room at the nail-wear exhibition center continues 24-hour uninterrupted streaming with AI digital humans taking over after human anchors clock off, precisely answering consumer questions about nail glue durability and other concerns, becoming a microcosm of the local nail-wear industry’s digital-intelligent transformation and showcasing Nanjing Silicon Intelligence Technology Group Co., Ltd. practical cases of replacing human anchors to complete extended customer service. Fu Dan Daxue Chuanbo Yu Guojia Zhili Yanjiu Zhongxin (复旦大学传播与国家治理研究中心) Director Zhang Zhi’an pointed out at the Guangzhou sub-forum of the Asia-Pacific Media High-level Forum that Henan Satellite TV’s digital characters such as Luo Xiaotian and Tang Palace Night Banquet have become cultural symbols of Central Plains cities, with mainstream media transitioning from content production toward the role of supplying urban culture AI corpus. At the Twenty-First China International SME Exposition, Sichuan enterprise Mingtu Technology launched “Tianfu Haowu Zhineng Tiguangchang (天府好物智能体广场)”, transforming over a hundred signature products including seasonings, agricultural products, alcoholic beverages, tea drinks, and intangible cultural heritage creative goods into digital humans for product introduction; Shenzhenshi (深圳市) promotes the action plan for artificial intelligence and application development, which proposes developing intelligent NPCs, dynamic narratives, AI comics and other new models in the cultural tourism sector, and exploring digital avatars, artificial intelligence emotional companionship and other new business formats.

Ethical Contexts : CCTV exposed AI matchmaking scams where criminals use AI to generate virtual “matchmakers” and “quality single guests” images and videos within five minutes, luring people seeking partners through short video platforms and livestream rooms to pay for joining so-called matrimonial agencies, with victims ultimately discovering that contact numbers are “zombie accounts” and the matrimonial companies do not exist; similar tactics have also appeared in dating app fraud where criminals use AI to generate female avatars and lifestyle photos to attract male users to recharge, and set up “intimacy” unlock mechanisms to extract money layer by layer; targeting elderly people living alone, “AI domineering CEO” accounts have proliferated in large numbers, attracting followers through sweet talk and kneeling proposals before mounting products in storefronts to induce purchases, and such accounts can be generated in batches with one person simultaneously operating dozens of accounts, having formed a mature gray industry chain. Shanghai lawyer Xu Xiaodanpoints out that facial recognition authorization trading platforms target influencers and university students to collect faces, with platforms planning to expand collection points and focus on entering universities, and for ordinary people authorization agreements contain hidden clause risks such as “perpetual authorization,” “permission for retransfer,” and “use for model training,” reminding the public to choose compliant platforms and refuse blanket terms. Zhongguo Jiaoyu Bao (中国教育报) published articles warning of the overstepping risks of “digital doppelgangers” in ideological and political education and cadre training, pointing out that digital doppelgangers constructed based on individual language materials may lead to replacement of teacher-student interaction and value guidance links, calling for coordinated governance from rule refinement, platform management, literacy enhancement, and resource support.