Monthly income of 250,000 yuan, batches of AI beauties, harvesting middle-aged men's wallets

AI anchors are already very common on the Internet platform. These AI anchors can be said to be a link in the assembly line, and behind them, there is a batch replication industry chain. Let’s take a look at the disassembly and analysis in this article.

Middle-aged men, who are said to be "the most difficult to be influenced by e-commerce", have fallen at the feet of AI beauties.

The saying "middle-aged men are worse than dogs" has always been regarded as a true portrayal of middle-aged men in the consumer contempt chain. Women who love to dress up buy cosmetics and clothes, and women who stay at home buy kitchen utensils and food, but when it comes to men, it seems to be "soaking wolfberries in a thermos cup" or "conquering the world with a fishing rod."

On the content platform, a group of AI beauty experts with pretty faces and proud figures have turned their sharp eyes to the middle-aged men who have always been neglected.

"A single mother born in the 1980s," like most live-action influencers, "Xiao Yimei" wrote this in her personal introduction on her homepage. But if you look closely at the content of her short videos, you can still detect something wrong. In the video, she has a characteristic smile but a dull face, and a graceful figure but no interaction. With the same angle and background, sometimes the products displayed are different. If you listen carefully, you can even hear different tones in the video.

In response to the confusion of some viewers, the platform gave an answer at the bottom of the video: the content is suspected to be generated by AI. Although it is an AI beauty anchor, it does not affect some fans to send roses in the comment area, and some people directly greeted "Hello, beautiful lady".

With AI beauty videos, "Xiao Yi Mei" has 1.1 million fans. According to Chan Mama data, in February this year, "Xiao Yi Mei" released a total of 118 videos, with total sales of 75,000 to 100,000 yuan. In December last year, the number of videos reached 258, with total sales of 250,000 to 500,000 yuan.

On average, she posts about 10 videos a day, with each video generating nearly 1,000 yuan in output. It can be said that “Xiao Yimei” has surpassed quite a few small and medium-sized anchors in terms of her ability. On the Internet platform, AI anchors like “Xiao Yimei” are not isolated cases. They are part of the assembly line, and behind them is a mass-replicated industrial chain.

1. AI beauties, targeting male customers in the lower-tier markets

The previous second, the camera was still a beautiful woman wearing an off-shoulder dress, smiling at the camera, and the next second, a row of neatly arranged windproof lighters suddenly appeared on the screen. There was no extra voiceover introduction, and the yellow words on the screen clearly marked the key points of this video: lighters, a few cents each, limited time price, grab them quickly.

Tangtang, who has 1.276 million fans, is also an AI beauty anchor. There is no plot, no character setting, and Tangtang's label of selling goods is very obvious. According to Chan Mama data, Tangtang released a total of 71 videos in February, of which the number of selling goods accounted for about 93%, reaching 66.

Like the sexy dancing beauties, AI beauties also attract mainly male users. The number of male fans of "Xiaoyimei" is as high as 86.28%. Judging from the age data, users over 40 years old account for more than 60%. The proportion of male fans of Tangtang is as high as 92.11%. Nearly half of the fans are over 50 years old.

In the market, most of the influencers emphasize the young market, high-priced products, and female users. In contrast, AI beauty influencers seem to be taking an extremely "unpopular" path. Their targets are: sinking markets, low-priced products, and middle-aged and elderly male users.

This can also be seen from their selection of products. In addition to lighters that cost a few cents, there are also steel-core nylon ropes for 6.88 yuan and old Beijing cloth shoes for 6.99 yuan.

When seeing this price, many people will have doubts: Can you make money at such a low price? Looking at Tangtang's sales report, the top-selling product is a razor priced at 6.99 yuan, with a commission of 16%; the second-best-selling product is black pepper seeds priced at 9.9 yuan, with a public commission of up to 50%. These cheap and practical products not only have commission rates that exceed most people's imagination, but also have a very low return rate compared to categories such as clothing.

Among AI beauties, some rely on their looks, while others rely on providing emotional value. "Chocolate, Little Lemon" has 10.49 million followers on the Douyin platform. In most of her videos, she appears in a half-body image, and the content she posts is about 30 seconds long, with themes mostly centered around men. For example: "Why do many men now choose to live alone?" "Boys who can enjoy loneliness are not ordinary simple people." "If you leave a man alone for too long, even if he loves you, he will choose to leave"...

Many male fans call "Chocolate, Little Lemon" "the woman who understands me best." But if you look closely, the lip movements of "Chocolate, Little Lemon" in the video do not match the lines at all, and there are obvious signs of AI generation, but almost no one has raised any doubts.

On the Douyin platform, apart from the system's small text reminder, the main way to identify AI anchors is to use the naked eye. The edges between the digital people and the background are blurred, the postures are stiff, and the lip movements are not smooth. Young people who are familiar with Internet routines naturally have a certain ability to distinguish, but for users from the sinking market who do not understand AI technology, it is not easy to distinguish them.

2. Some people are busy making money, while others are busy defending their rights

After AI became popular, "how to seize the new trend and make money with AI" has become a hot topic for many people. On Xiaohongshu, there are more than 30,000 notes related to AI making money, and more than 20,000 notes related to AI anchors.

Success stories like "Xiao Yimei" and Tangtang have attracted many people to join in.

We found promotional content for AI product-carrying video generation software on many platforms. In the video, we can see detailed operation steps. First, select the product according to the product-carrying preference, enter the secondary creation page, and then edit the content according to the lines and copywriting generated by the example. After the product and content are built, in terms of people, you can not only choose the AI ​​model to appear on the screen, but also match different character voices for it. There are multiple options such as entertainment broadcast, sweet commentary, and strong girl.

In the promotional content, users only need to tap their fingers on their mobile phones to easily produce a product promotion video featuring an AI anchor within one minute.

In order to attract users, the software platform also released very attractive data, such as the commission output this month was 1.7566 million yuan, and the sales volume of new users in 7 days was 2,354 yuan. "After live streaming, AI pictures and texts will be the next outlet", such remarks can be found everywhere on the Internet platform.

From a technical perspective, it is not a very difficult task to batch copy the sales videos of "Little Sister-in-law" and Tangtang. Their videos hardly involve interactive effects, but are just a combination of pictures or fixed videos, sound effects and products. But whether the actual sales effect can achieve what is said in the promotional content requires a big question mark. Fraudulent companies, pure leeks, real pig-killing schemes... On the Black Cat platform, many people who are attracted by AI sales have voiced their rights. There are as many as 329 complaints related to AI sales, most of which are due to "false propaganda."

A consumer who spent nearly 400 yuan to buy a software membership told reporters that the video effects generated by the software were very rough, and the so-called tutor's companionship was almost ineffective. Some AI software even uses the method of earning commissions to encourage paid members to develop new offline channels.

3. AI virtual humans in awkward situations

Whether it is launching short video talents or replicating live broadcast hosts, AI digital people are no longer a new topic. In 2022, the top anchor Yu Dagongzi interacted with his twin through a live broadcast; in May last year, Li Jiaqi had a cross-dimensional conversation with the virtual person AYAYI; in order to fill some unpopular time periods, virtual people have also become a permanent member of many brand live broadcast rooms.

But we cannot deny that at present, AI influencers have not yet entered the mainstream market.

First of all, visually, there is still a certain difference between virtual people and real people. In the eyes of many consumers, virtual people are more like a soulless suit, lacking the intimacy of interacting with real people. Secondly, the technology of virtual people is still at the level of visual recognition, and the output of content information is still relatively thin. When leaving messages in the live broadcast room of virtual people without real people, most of them can only output prepared standard words by identifying fixed keywords. Finally, the key to keeping users sticky is usually the personality of the expert and the unique personality, which is also lacking in virtual people.

Not only has it failed to enter the mainstream market, but many businesses on the market have also used AI to exploit legal loopholes in order to make profits.

AI anchor who looks like Yang Mi

"I thought it was Li Kui, but it turned out to be Li Gui." During the 315 period, the news that fake Yang Mi and fake Liu Yifei sold slimming tea in the live broadcast room attracted a lot of attention. In order to leverage the influence of celebrities, some businesses use AI face-changing to get them to stand in their live broadcast rooms. Faced with consumers' doubts, they are very secretive. Not long ago, a business used AI technology to revive a deceased celebrity, which was also stopped by the celebrity's family and condemned by public opinion.

It is conceivable that with the continuous development of technology, the difficulty of mass-producing AI beauties will become lower and lower. But for the operators behind the scenes, technology is only one part of improving human efficiency. In order to achieve effective and sustainable business transactions, product selection, operation, and even luck are all indispensable.

Author: Liu Yiqi, Editor: Si Wen

WeChat official account: E-Commerce Online (ID: dianshangmj), see sharpness and insights, and focus on innovative media on the Internet and new business.