AI live streaming chaos frequently occurs, and the platform takes action to rectify the chaos of "AI beauties" and selling courses

With the rapid development of AI technology, the live broadcast field has also set off a wave of AI application. However, this trend is not entirely positive, and a series of chaos has emerged. Among them, "AI beauties" are created in batches, using AI technology to attract fans and bring goods; selling courses, distribution and other gray industries are also emerging in an endless stream. In response to these chaos, the platform has begun to take action to rectify and maintain the healthy development of the live broadcast industry.

The AI ​​trend has spread to live streaming. The first to reap the benefits are not only paid bloggers who sell courses, but also "AI anchors"

They are either foreign beauties who attract fans with eye-catching images and topics, and then bring in goods; or single women who output "chicken soup for the soul", with the purpose of either bringing in goods or attracting male fans to convert into paying users...

These "AI anchors" and "AI beauties" are being replicated in batches and templates through AI technology.

Not only that, but chaos such as selling courses and distribution has also emerged around this industry chain. Now, the platform has begun to rectify these chaos.

1. Douyin takes action to regulate AI virtual people

Recently, the official Weibo account of "Douyin Security Center" released Douyin's governance announcement on the improper use of AI to generate virtual characters. The announcement stated that the platform recently discovered that there are still accounts on the site that improperly use AI technology to generate virtual characters to publish content, and the platform has taken severe measures.

In response to the illegal use of AI to generate virtual characters, the platform will remove the illegal videos, cancel the illegal accounts' submission and profit-making permissions, erase the account's followers, ban the account, and use models, technical recognition capabilities and other means to conduct long-term systematic identification, discovery and disposal.

Regarding the violations of AI-generated virtual characters, the announcement lists several types, mainly including the use of AI to generate fake foreigners, fake elites, and the use of AI-generated images to deceive interactions.

Tik Tok’s move reminds people of the previously popular “Russian beauty” Natasha.

This is a Russian beauty created by the account "Natasha Imported Food". She said that she has lived in China for 8 years, loves Chinese culture, and wants to marry a Chinese man. After attracting fans, she cashed in by selling related Russian products. Her number of fans once reached more than 200,000.

The path of "beautiful girl + accurate topic to attract fans + selling goods to realize cash" seems to be fine. However, it was later revealed that the "Russian beauty" image created by the account was generated by AI face-changing, and the face and voice of Ukrainian blogger and YouTube celebrity "Olga Loiek" were used without authorization.

Now, the account has been banned.

2. “AI beauties” created in batches

In fact, AI anchors are not uncommon on Douyin nowadays, especially “AI beauties”.

After studying these accounts, we found that these "AI beauties" either directly generated virtual personalities, created the personalities of single mature women, and even "single mothers", "divorced women", etc., such as "Auntie's Sister" and "Pear, Do You Want It".

These accounts can be said to be generated in batches, and their template and routine nature is very obvious.

Another type is to use the image of the real anchor to generate a virtual image that is more consistent with her image, such as "Chocolate, Little Lemon". This is an entertainment anchor who currently has more than 10 million fans.

It uses AI to generate personal virtual images, mainly for short videos, with emotional "chicken soup" content. For example, "Cheating a man who is sincere to you" and "What kind of personality does a man who often cries have?", so as to attract fans and divert traffic. This kind of content looks very rough, and the lip movements do not match the picture, which is obviously generated by AI.

It can be seen that the target groups of both types of accounts are men.

Among them, the former will mount the shared bike in short videos and realize cash by selling goods, and the products are mainly daily necessities and men's products. For example, the AI ​​anchor "Chen Jiali" has 505,000 fans on the Douyin platform. The prices of the goods in her window range from a few yuan to dozens of yuan, and the sales of some products can reach millions.

The latter mainly attracts fans through short videos, and then monetizes through live broadcast rewards. Judging from the content of the short videos, they are also precisely targeted at men, both the image of the anchor and the topic of the short videos are to their liking.

In addition to Douyin, Xiaohongshu also has a group of bloggers who feature AI beauties as the protagonists.

This type of blogger has created a persona similar to that of a "travel blogger" or "street model", and the content they publish is almost the same, basically all beautiful photos generated by AI. For example, bloggers "cyberAngel" and "Wangzhi", who mainly publish street photography content, have more than 10,000 followers. At present, no obvious monetization channels have been found, and the most common way is to create groups to attract traffic.

3. Chaos caused by “AI live broadcast”

In addition to these mass-produced "AI beauties", the current hot trend of AI has also given rise to chaos such as selling courses and AI agent distribution.

According to media reports, some businesses sell so-called AI face-changing courses for 29.9 yuan, and the material package contains thousands of celebrity photos; some businesses sell deception as technology and also provide face customization, with customization prices ranging from 2,000 yuan to tens of thousands of yuan.

The industry chain surrounding AI courses has also formed a gray industry of distribution. During the 315 period, some media exposed the scams of "digital human source manufacturers" and "digital human agents".

Some unscrupulous businesses use the "digital human industry is the trend of the times" as a gimmick to sell AI agent services for up to hundreds of thousands of yuan, claiming that "as long as you pay to become an agent, you can distribute digital human technology to lower-level buyers layer by layer, without any qualification review, and you can set your own prices. Even novices with zero basic knowledge can participate and earn millions a year with their eyes closed."

However, "AI face-changing" is not only suspected of infringement, but also the live broadcast room is frequently blocked due to poor live broadcast effects, repetitive lines, stiff performances, etc.

Nowadays, with the increasing supervision of the platform, such chaos is being further rectified. When searching for keywords such as "AI anchor course" and "AI live course" on Douyin, no relevant content about selling courses can be found.

It can be seen that under the trend, the application of AI in the field of live broadcasting has given rise to a lot of chaos. In fact, if AI technology can be better utilized, it can not only reduce costs, but also bring new imagination space to live broadcasting.

Some industry insiders said that, from the current perspective, the current application of AI anchors still has many problems and challenges. They are more often used in scenarios that do not rely on content output, such as group buying live broadcasts in the local life track; or as a "stand-in" for real anchors, operating during time periods when broadcasts cannot be started.

4. Betting on AI live streaming, what are the prospects?

In fact, AI live streaming sales is nothing new.

In 2023, with the gradual maturity of AI technology, leading live streaming companies began to enter the AI ​​live streaming sales market in a big way, and Qianxun is one of them.

It is reported that Qianxun Holdings has started to lay out in the field of AI very early. Its two subsidiaries, Qianyu Intelligence and Lingke, are specifically used to develop AI live streaming sales.

On August 9, 2023, at the "Redefining the Vitality of Live Streaming-2023 AI Innovation Conference", Qianxun's Qianyu Intelligence and Lingke respectively launched the "AI Digital Human Live Streaming Business" and "One-Stop AI Intelligent Live Streaming Comprehensive Platform", among which Viya appeared in multiple AI digital humans.

Not long ago, Simba, the top live-streaming e-commerce anchor who announced his withdrawal from live-streaming e-commerce, also said that he would learn AI technology in the next two years.

Leading institutions and anchors are betting on AI because they see the new imagination brought by the combination of AI technology and live streaming.

At the same time, facing the vast overseas market, AI anchors also have greater room for development.

Nowadays, many AI developers are working hard to improve related products. The 2024 BocaLive AI Digital Human Intelligent Broadcast Control System hosted by Shanjian Intelligence held an online press conference on March 21. The newly launched AI can directly help merchants automatically write foreign language live broadcast scripts, supporting 29 languages ​​and rich AI dubbing.

The AI ​​anchor has a huge language library and can translate into dozens of languages. Merchants can input Chinese product introductions or live broadcast scripts, and it will be automatically converted into English, French, German and other languages.

According to the "China AI Digital Human Market Status and Opportunity Analysis, 2022", it is predicted that by 2026, the market size of AI digital humans in my country will reach 10.24 billion yuan.

The prospects for AI digital humans are broad, but to what extent they will be integrated with live streaming in the future remains unknown.

Author: Changmei WeChat public account: Xinbochang