The trend of virtual anchors selling goods is on the rise, but who can make it to the end?

In this article, the author analyzes the advantages and limitations of virtual anchors in bringing goods, as well as the impact of the attitude of live broadcast platforms on virtual anchors based on the current situation. It is suitable for readers who are interested in live broadcasting.

In an office, hundreds of computer screens show hundreds of virtual anchors live streaming and selling goods. During the live broadcast, the virtual anchors can introduce the products while interacting with the audience and answering users' questions.

However, there was no employee on duty in the office, which was really shocking. This is the office scene of an e-commerce live broadcast company. They have started live broadcasting with goods using virtual digital people (hereinafter referred to as virtual anchors).

With the popularization of virtual AI technology, using virtual anchors to replace real people for live broadcasts has become a trend, and this technical solution is becoming more and more mature and can be decentralized for personal use. These intelligent virtual people do not rely on human operation at all, but only rely on code drive, and can automatically broadcast and sell goods 24 hours a day.

1. Why use virtual anchors? What are the outstanding advantages?

Since everyone has started using virtual anchors, there must be some differences. After audio-visual observation, we have concluded that virtual anchors have the following outstanding advantages.

First: The content of virtual anchors is controllable, the personality can be set , they are highly malleable, and do not require specific talent training. This greatly solves the problem of anchor safety risks and the problem of difficulty in recruiting anchors.

Second: Virtual anchors can be different for different people, greatly enriching the content of live broadcasts. Because the content and personality of virtual digital anchors can be set and modified, they will run according to specific programs once they are set. With the development of new technologies such as AI technology and virtual digital people, virtual anchors have begun to be widely popularized in the industry, and as long as the script and content of the live broadcast are set, that is, as long as the settings of the virtual anchor are different, the content and image of the anchor will be different, which truly achieves different for different people.

Virtual anchors have greatly lowered the threshold for live broadcasting, allowing people to greatly unleash their live broadcasting productivity. In the past, if an organization wanted to do a large number of live broadcasts with different contents, it had to recruit a large number of anchors, and also provide hardware, software, live broadcasting venues, etc. In addition, the operator had to constantly teach the anchors various live broadcasting knowledge and bring the newcomers up to speed. Virtual anchors can be quickly trained and produced once for long-term use.

Third: Virtual anchors can broadcast live 24 hours a day without any salary or rest , which is an advantage that traditional anchors cannot have. Everyone must know the "involution" in the live broadcast industry. Anchors compete in all aspects, such as talent, big brother, maintenance, and time. A virtual anchor who does not need to rest can completely crush real anchors in terms of working hours, and also has the advantage of low cost.

2. Virtual anchors are not perfect and their application scenarios are still limited

Although the advantages of virtual anchors are obvious, their disadvantages are also obvious. That is, they can only answer questions according to established procedures under the premise of set content, and are unable to respond on the spot and adapt in real time.

At the same time, unlike real people, virtual anchors have no real feelings and cannot provide the so-called emotional value , which makes people feel stiff and cold, and lacks the affinity of real anchors. Low-cost virtual anchors are bound to be unable to compete with real anchors in visual presentation, which will reduce consumers' favorability towards virtual anchors.

For ordinary e-commerce live shoppers, if they see a virtual anchor selling goods, it may be novel at first glance, so it’s okay to buy them. But after seeing it more often, the initial novelty will become commonplace after it wears off.

Although the use of virtual anchors is a good form and can greatly save labor costs, there is a problem that virtual anchors do not have emotions, freshness, and humanistic care. Live broadcasting is a scene that pays great attention to real emotions, and one of its important functions is to provide emotional value.

Let’s not talk about entertainment live streaming for now. Even if you use it for live streaming to sell goods, you still need real emotions. Otherwise, once your audience gets bored and tired, they will feel that they are watching a virtual anchor, which will greatly reduce the conversion rate.

3. The platform’s attitude towards virtual anchors also affects their popularity

At the current stage, virtual anchors can greatly improve the live broadcast efficiency of creators. It can be said that they have greatly liberated the productivity of live broadcasts, allowing a company, a small team, or even one person to create a spectacular live broadcast of thousands of people.

As long as there is enough equipment and advance planning and design, virtual anchors can broadcast live non-stop, which greatly improves production efficiency for content producers. However, the consequence is that the platform is injected with inflated live content . If there is too much of this content, it will disgust the audience and become hateful.

If the traffic of the live broadcast platform is compared to a gold mine, virtual anchors are like mining. In the past, everyone was equal in live broadcasting, and they all relied on hard work and real skills to make a living. When everyone "mines" through live broadcasting, they contribute high-quality content to the live broadcast platform, which is conducive to the development of the live broadcast platform ecosystem.

Virtual anchors are a bit like cheats. When everyone is using hoes to dig gold mines, virtual anchors use multi-point blasting methods. Although they can dig up the traffic gold mine in the shortest time, they destroy the platform environment.

When thousands of virtual anchors broadcast live on the platform, for the platform, virtual anchors do not contribute high-quality content to the platform, but instead inject a lot of virtual content, which will only affect the audience's experience in the end. The live broadcast industry is always content-oriented, not relying on false content, otherwise it will become a swell-up face and end up hurting itself. Audio-visual Observation believes that the attitude of the live broadcast platform towards virtual anchors also affects their popularity.

Conclusion:

In the short term, virtual anchors are still in the exploratory stage and there are not many institutions or scenarios using them. I believe that with the continuous development of technology, more and more people will use this technology.

Finally, this technology will have a live broadcast industry, and what it will bring is still uncertain. But it is certain that technology will greatly improve people's productivity and bring convenience to people's production and life.

Author: Liu Bugong

Source: WeChat public account "Audio-visual Observation (ID: shitinggc)"