Can the AI ​​anchor in the live broadcast room create a new world?

Recently, the live streaming industry has been trending about AI anchors. After professional design and debugging, digital humans are often very similar to real people, saving labor costs and bringing good live streaming results. Can these AI anchors, which are lower in cost and can live stream 24 hours a day, replace real anchors? Will they bring competition to the current live streaming anchors? Take a look at this article, which may help you find the answer.

Recently, there has been a trend of AI anchors in the live streaming e-commerce industry.

Different from 3D hyper-realistic digital humans represented by Liu Yexi and 2D two-dimensional digital humans such as A-soul, the AI ​​anchor in the live broadcast room is a 2D hyper-realistic digital human. This technology is based on real people and replicates the language, movements, and expressions of real people through a video, thereby obtaining an AI anchor with a high degree of similarity to a real person.

It is not complicated to use and does not require real-person supervision all the time. All you need is a computer and a table to achieve 24-hour live broadcast.

The selling points of AI anchors are low cost and full use of time, but what is the live broadcast effect of AI anchors? Will AI anchors really become a trend?

1. AI anchors are involved in the live streaming sales track

Judging from the current market situation, the local life category is an area where AI anchors are relatively widely used, among which group purchase coupons and brand-name popular products are common commodities in live broadcast rooms.

Image source: Tik Tok screenshot

A key factor that motivates businesses to use AI anchors is to reduce labor costs. According to @Tech Planet, a company executive who uses digital humans for live broadcasts said: "Digital humans mainly save labor costs. The average monthly salary of an anchor is 20,000 yuan, which is 240,000 yuan a year. The customization fee for an AI anchor is 8,000 yuan, and the system usage fee is more than 80,000 yuan a year, which can save more than 100,000 yuan. With 20 anchors, we can save 2 million yuan a year."

At present, some MCN organizations have put AI anchors into use. During the interview with Mosquito Club, Clour learned that Mosquito Club is the earliest organization in the entire live e-commerce industry to use digital human live broadcasts and has the most cases. In 2022, CCTV conducted a series of interviews on the organization's digital human live broadcasts. The head of the organization said that it is currently widely used in the beauty, personal care, household cleaning, food and other industries. International leading beauty brands such as Procter & Gamble, L'Oreal, and Estee Lauder have already launched digital human anchors.

In addition, the person in charge of Mosquito Club also stated that among the customers they serve, the brands that have launched digital human anchors have achieved ROIs that exceeded expectations, with the highest reaching more than 30% in production, and the effect is visible to the naked eye.

However, many businesses and enterprises use a live broadcast format that combines real anchors and AI anchors. The real anchors are responsible for taking over the traffic during the prime time period to achieve a higher conversion effect, while the AI ​​anchors fill in the blank time after the real anchors go off the air, thereby maximizing time efficiency.

In an interview with the Operation Research Society, @1号职场, which does job search live broadcasts, revealed a relevant live broadcast data: they started using digital human anchors at 10 pm and broadcast until 6 am the next day. In 8 hours, nearly 30,000 viewers flocked to the live broadcast room to watch.

2. AI anchor business comes first

At present, we have not seen AI anchors being widely used in live broadcast rooms, but many businesses have started to do business with AI anchors. If you search for "AI digital human live broadcast" on Douyin, you can see that many businesses use live broadcasts to showcase their products and services.

Image source: Tik Tok screenshot

24-hour live broadcast of digital humans, 3D real-person driven digital humans, digital human short video production, voice and image cloning services, etc. are all products provided by merchants. Because there are many players entering the market, the prices in the market have even gone up.

According to @E-commerce Online’s survey: If you don’t need to customize the anchor image, the fee is 2,500-3,500 yuan per month, and the annual package will be even cheaper, only 5,980-9,980 yuan. If you want to customize, you will have to pay an additional 20,000-35,000 yuan per year.

One company also stated that it provides a full set of AI anchor programs, equipment and agency operation services, charging 6,000 yuan for non-customized anchors and 30,000 yuan per year for customized anchors. At the same time, it requires 50% of the user's live broadcast revenue.

If you search for "AI digital human live broadcast" on Taobao, the price is even lower, and you can use this technology for less than 100 yuan. However, the image of the digital human anchor cannot be changed, and you can only choose from the materials provided by the merchant.

Image source: Taobao screenshot

However, the head of the Mosquito Club organization said bluntly, "There is no market for low-priced digital humans. On the one hand, the result of low prices is low service capabilities and unsatisfactory product capabilities. The core of digital human anchors lies in the combination of SaaS products and real-life training teams to produce good data results. At present, the digital humans purchased by Mosquito Club from the brands it serves are mostly at the 100,000 level, and the output results are also impressive." The head of an organization also said that the presentation effect of low-priced digital human anchors looks rather stiff and it is difficult to connect with users.

3. What is the value of AI anchor?

From the perspective of cost, AI anchors do have advantages, but from the perspective of live broadcast effects, there is a big gap between AI anchors and real anchors. AI anchors do not have a large range of movements, and the sound and picture are not very synchronized, and the viewing experience is not as smart as that of real anchors.

In addition, the AI ​​anchor's speech is relatively fixed, and it will automatically reply only when the key words are triggered, and its ability to adapt to changes is not strong. Real anchors are still irreplaceable in improving fan stickiness, providing emotional value, and livening up the atmosphere of the live broadcast room.

The head of an MCN also said, "In my opinion, AI anchors are still far from being human. Consumers currently shop in live broadcast rooms rather than other channels largely because they rely on their trust in the anchors. How AI anchors can build this trust needs to be discussed. Of course, AI anchors' explanations of product functions and uninterrupted live broadcasts can free up some manpower, and perhaps to a certain extent they can cooperate with human anchors and complement each other."

In addition to technical issues, there are also some platform policy issues with digital human live streaming. Many platforms have strong supervision over digital human live streaming. If the live streaming rules are not followed, the digital human live streaming room will be banned by the platform.

During the 49-minute live broadcast test, Douyin celebrity @大王很哇塞 was warned of violations twice by the system. One time, the system mentioned a shopping cart in the voice template, but he did not use the shopping cart in the live broadcast room. Another time, he only input three or four sentences of text, which was detected by the system as an idle broadcast. This shows that platform supervision is also a factor that needs to be considered.

Recently, Douyin has also increased its supervision of virtual human technology. In the "Douyin Platform Specifications and Industry Initiatives on AI-Generated Content", the platform stated that "the use of artificial intelligence technology to assist in creation does not bring any special traffic advantages compared to other means of creation.

Douyin pays more attention to the quality of the content itself. If you think that using this technology can help achieve this, then you can consider using it to assist in creation. On the contrary, simply taking advantage of its low cost to generate low-quality content is not recommended by the platform. "

In addition, in this initiative, the official stated that the platform allows the appropriate use of virtual human technology, but it must follow the regulations. "When using virtual humans for live broadcasts, or creating accounts with virtual humans as personalities, the corresponding virtual human images must be registered on the platform. The real-person users behind the virtual humans must register and authenticate their real names. When using registered virtual human images for live broadcasts, real-time interactions must be driven by real people, and interactions driven entirely by artificial intelligence are not allowed."

The person in charge of Mosquito Club has a positive attitude towards the development of AI digital people. She said, "AI digital people will definitely help the development of the live broadcast e-commerce industry. Mosquito Club is currently implementing a 5050 plan. The "5050 plan" means that in the next 2-3 years, through the joint efforts of us and the brand side, we strive to achieve "brand self-broadcast GMV" accounting for 50% of "total store GMV", and 50% of the GMV of "brand self-broadcast GMV" comes from "digital anchors", and the remaining 50% comes from real anchors."

It is worth mentioning that the real person who produces 50% of the "Brand Self-broadcast GMV" only needs to live broadcast for 4-6 hours, and the remaining 18-20 hours are all completed by the "digital anchor". This not only proves the value and importance of people, but also adapts well to the development of the times. The use of technology to complete the live broadcast work in non-premium time periods has greatly reduced various costs and improved traffic efficiency.

Overall, AI anchors are still in the early stages in terms of technical capabilities and commissioning, but they have already generated certain economic benefits. I believe that with the advancement of technology, AI anchors will have greater development in application and live broadcast effects.

References:

1. Working 24 hours a day, are digital people going to take away anchors' jobs? | Tech Planet
2. No overturning, no tiredness, monthly cost is only 200 yuan: AI anchors conquer the live broadcast room｜Shen Xiang
3. 299 yuan per set, 24 hours a day, AI anchors roll into the live broadcast room｜E-commerce Online

Author: TopKlout

Source: WeChat public account "TopKlout" (ID: TopKlout)