8 October 2026 News

Entertainment : The 10th China Opera Culture Week concluded at the Beijing Garden Expo Park, where AI digital humans “Xi Bao” and “Xi Mai” intelligent agents became technological highlights, bringing new digital voices to the opera garden; the pioneering trailer for the opera short drama “Startled Dream Express Line,” produced by renowned director Guo Jingyu, innovatively combines live-action and AI technology, telling the story of workplace professional Wu Qingye venturing into a Beijing opera garden fantasy through character costume changes, three-dimensional monsters, and space-time transformations, leveraging real-location shooting at the Beijing Changxindian micro-short drama base to explore the model of “transmitting culture through drama and promoting tourism through drama.” Hongguo Duanju (红果短剧) On the platform, virtual protagonists from multiple AI manga dramas are continuing to operate beyond the plot: Lu Chuan, the male lead from “Who’s Pretending to Be a Rich Second Generation When Everyone’s Already Reincarnated,” opened an exclusive account in Red Fruit Community and frequently launched live streams, creating interactions with character accounts including Zhao Yifan, Han Dong, and Chen Ziao; Gu Linfeng, the male lead from “He Arrived in a Helicopter to Marry Me on Our Wedding Day,” debuted in home-scenario live streaming with a “dominant CEO daddy” persona, achieving Red Fruit’s first AI virtual human skin-changing e-commerce live stream; Su Han, the male lead from “Survival for All, My Skills Are Quite a Few,” brings goods in wilderness survival scenarios; Qi You, the male lead from “Shocking! My Rival and I Have a Child Season Two,” Hailan Zhimi (海蓝之谜) collaborated to make a surprise appearance in the live stream; Jiang Yuezhu, the female lead from “The Ten Thousand Demons Illustrated Record,” and Yan Xu (Yan Jiming), the male lead from “By the Inkstone, Childhood Sweethearts,” continue to update their dynamics in Red Fruit Community, accumulating massive fan bases. Zaomengshi (造梦师) The company’s virtual idol “KONG” combines a “real-person core plus virtual suit” model with real-time motion capture technology, holding a meet-and-greet at Shanghai Jing’an Sports Center that sold out in seconds, and was invited to perform a support song for the film “Miracle Dream Team,” took the stage at Bazaar Night, and collaborated with brands including China Gold; the company also incubated a virtual artist ecosystem in the style of Yuehua Entertainment virtual girl group A-SOUL. Actress Qi Wei discussed her AI digital avatar “Han Qingxia” in an interview, frankly stating that in some scenarios AI performances are more outstanding than her own. In Shenzhen’s night landscape light show, high-rise exterior walls projected DeepSeek and the “Liang Shen” virtual image, sparking online discussion.

Cultural Tourism : Shandong Taishan Scenic Area has developed the Taishan Banyou (泰山伴游) mini-program, which features over 40 digital human IP characters from Taishan’s history and culture, including images of Confucius, “Taishan Shigandang,” Guan Yu, and Li Bai. When visitors reach key locations such as Hongmen, Zhongtianmen, and Yuhuangding, AI digital humans can proactively deliver lectures on stone inscription stories and imperial sacrifice culture based on geographic location. The mini-program also provides AI itinerary planning and real-time adjustment services. The AI companion tour project launched by Nanjing’s Changjiang Road Cultural and Museum District features the digital character “Ning Xiaoxuan,” who serves as visitors’ exclusive intelligent companion, providing 7×24 hour on-demand explanations of exhibits at Liuchao Bowuguan (六朝博物馆), Nanjing Zongtongfu Jingqu (南京总统府景区), and Jiangning Zhizao Bowuguan (江宁织造博物馆) venues through the district’s online mini-program, while supporting interactive features such as AR scanning check-ins and generating exclusive postcards through virtual photo-taking with digital humans. In the Ancient Garden Exhibition Hall at Beijing’s Zhongguo Yuanlin Bowuguan (中国园林博物馆), AI digital humans collaborate with AI glasses and MR glasses to provide real-time interactive explanations for visitors, making garden culture audible, queryable, and interactive. Heilongjiang’s Yichunshi (伊春市) has launched the cultural and tourism companion AI agent “Du Yi Ni” based on the “One Phone to Tour Yichun” app, deeply integrating DeepSeek and Qianwen (千问) large language models with virtual digital human technology to provide visitors after the opening of China’s northernmost high-speed rail with intelligent reasoning and human-machine interaction for smart cultural and tourism experiences.

Marketing : In response to the proliferation of AI-generated advertisements, industry insiders have advised consumers to identify whether advertisements feature AI virtual actors by verifying explicit and implicit labels, discerning visual details and flaws, remaining vigilant against rhetoric such as “personally tested and effective,” and utilizing tools like the National Anti-Fraud Center app. These practices are closely related to the relevant standards and the Artificial Intelligence Generated and Synthetic Content Labeling Measures to be implemented in September 2025. Actress Maggie Cheung has authorized her AI likeness from her prime years between ages 20 and 30 for commercial monetization projects such as games, and this parallel strategy of “preserving authentic image while commercializing virtual image” has sparked public discussion regarding her commercial value. During the 2026 World Design Cities Conference, Vector Emergence (FuturX AI) signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Shanghaidaxue Shanghai Meishuxueyuan (上海大学上海美术学院). The Artificial Digital Thinking Joint Laboratory previously co-established by both parties has constructed an “AI Chen Jialing” digital thinking avatar based on the thought extraction of Chen Jialing, a “New Haipai” ink painter, as well as an “AI Professor Jin” digital thinking avatar built based on Professor Jin Jiangbo, executive dean of Shanghaidaxue Shanghai Meishuxueyuan (上海大学上海美术学院). Both were opened to public interaction for the first time at the WDCC special exhibition hall, allowing visitors to ask real-time questions and receive responses on topics such as artistic creation and aesthetic judgment.

Public Services : At the 2026 China Open Tennis Tournament, Lenovo deployed four digital human intelligent customer service interactive devices based on an edge-cloud hybrid architecture on the Diamond Court, supporting multimodal interactions including voice and touch, providing viewers with services such as match schedule inquiries, match display, player introductions, and dining guidance—marking the first landing of this digital human solution on the China Open court. Xian Jiaojing (西安交警) opened dedicated holiday driving test sessions during the National Day holiday period and launched the “Yong’an Jun” digital human to provide 24-hour Q&A services, helping relieve pressure on roadside services. In the intelligent provident fund service system created by Hunan Province Changdeshi Zhufang Gongjijin Guanlizhongxin (常德市住房公积金管理中心), a 7×24-hour intelligent customer service, digital human terminals, and smart self-service devices were simultaneously introduced, enabling high-frequency business matters to be completed in one to three minutes, effectively alleviating pressure on offline counter services.

Education : Shenyang Chengshi Xueyuan (沈阳城市学院)’s foreign language teachers integrated AI technology and digital humans deeply into foreign language classroom instruction during the 2026 Excellent Works Collection Activity for Foreign Language Micro-Courses: Japanese teacher Liu Di leveraged AI to construct interactive role-playing conversation scenarios to train students’ cross-cultural pragmatic competence; teacher teams including Dong Jing and Zeng Xiaoqing explored intelligent teaching approaches to “telling Chinese stories in English” from the perspectives of writing and reading inference abilities respectively, combining AI digital human instruction with interactive modes, with related achievements receiving provincial second and third-place awards.

Enterprise AI : At Huawei All-Connect Conference 2026, the Zhang Lu team under Soul showcased a series of technical application results for SoulX large language models, and jointly released an intelligent audio-visual real-time interactive solution with Huawei Yun (华为云). The technical system encompasses multiple capabilities including speech generation, singing voice generation, full-duplex real-time interaction, and real-time digital human generation, providing complete coverage of the interactive closed loop of “understanding speech—recognizing emotion—providing feedback—multimodal presentation.” The team continues to iterate the model based on real social scenarios of Soul App, and has progressively open-sourced models including SoulX Podcast and real-time digital human generation, while Huawei Yun (华为云) provides cloud infrastructure services and ModelArts training and inference computing power support. Hong Kong enterprise-level AI intelligent office service provider Kuailu Keji (快鷺科技) (Kuailu) has launched a newly upgraded “Kuailuhuiyi (快鷺會議)” (Kuailu Meeting), one of whose core features, “digital human avatar,” can represent meeting participants on camera when they encounter urgent matters, temporarily leave the meeting, or face time zone conflicts, and accurately record the key points of discussions during their absence.

Consumption : A Shanghai National Day consumption report shows that this year’s “Double Eleven” livestreaming has comprehensively integrated multimodal AI hosting systems, with Li Jiaqi’s AI avatar capable of interacting with users and completing orders during late-night hours. Digital renminbi consumption red packets and scenarios such as “digital renminbi plus carbon credit deductions” have been incorporated into shopping district advertising copy, becoming part of Shanghai’s consumption technology narrative. A virtual idol stage case under a certain platform has been listed as a 2026 technology-enabled consumption innovation case, where players can log in at Kaifa Pingtai (凯发平台) China’s entry portal on the virtual idol stage to engage in real-time voice dialogue with AI digital humans, with the backend simultaneously processing speech recognition, facial expression synthesis, motion mapping, and 4K video rendering.