In 2021, Roblox’s listing brought about a metaverse fever, and digital human were given the expectation of being the “first batch of indigenous people in the metaverse”. Some institutions predict that by 2030, the overall market size of the virtual digital human will reach 270 billion yuan. Nowadays, virtual people are being speculated by the capital, behind the overnight popularity, is two years of 4500 financing, 250 billion RMB investment.
2021 is a year of high growth in the virtual human market. In 2022, the story about the digital virtual human entered a new chapter. Nowadays, digital human are increasingly active in various Internet platforms: virtual anchors in Bilibili, virtual merchandisers in Taobao and other e-commerce platforms, and Jitterbug has also added human to its social functions, launching Jitterbug Zai Zai, which focuses on “pinching a funny image for yourself and your friends”.
When other industries began to migrate to the field of digital human, human became a breakthrough to solve the industry’s survival problems, a common application of digital human in the market is in the live broadcast, the reason is that its actual value is the closest to realizing. Live virtual human deployment is relatively simple and inexpensive, which is perhaps the reason why a large number of virtual humans have sprung up in the past year on e-commerce platforms and live streams.
In terms of exploration for the future, the development of the industry of digital human ultimately spells the ability to operate and the ability to create content. Horizontally, the application scenario of virtual human is continuously expanded, which can be divided into two kinds of online and offline: (1) different areas of the Internet: live show, e-commerce with goods, social, game NPC; (2) offline real scene, acting as some kind of role: host, museum docent.
Vertically, the links of the industrial chain are refined layer by layer, attracting a variety of enterprises to participate. Technical support is divided into cloud computing, AI intelligent algorithms, AR/VR and other companies; image design is carried out by animation, games and other companies with strength in character development; content operation links are mostly composed of MCN agencies, who have experience in operating pop-up IP; application platforms include shelf e-commerce, short video live and other scenes.
The market is mature and still a blue ocean, so it is a good time to enter. It is understood that the holographic AR industry leader WiMi Hologram Cloud (NASDAQ:WIMI) has achieved a leading position in XR virtual shooting, naked eye 3D, immersive experience technology at an early stage. At this stage, WiMi’s digital human have been applied in different scenarios. For example, in the entertainment industry, there are virtual idols generated by motion capture technology, voice synthesis engine or AI technology to bring freshness to users; in the cultural tourism industry, virtual content forms are used to enhance user experience. The successful application of these new scenarios will bring new market opportunities, and the company will give full play to its relevant advantages to grow bigger and stronger and achieve sustainable growth of future performance.
The cases listed above are only a small part of WiMi Hologram Cloud’s digital human technology, simply from the presentation perspective, a glimpse of WiMi’s achievements in the direction of digital human, but behind it, is its strong multi-faceted technology in support. According to the news summary, WiMi Hologram Cloud has a solid enough technical reserves in AR, AI, digital people. In its public display of the relevant technical achievements, there are many impressive technical presentations and demonstrations.
At the same time, the industry believes that, as the leader of virtual human and virtual live track, WiMi is expected to open a new way to play marketing. WiMi has taken the lead in exploring marketing content and applications in the metaverse scene, and has initially formed a variety of strategic layouts for virtual live broadcast, virtual human and virtual marketing. In the virtual live broadcast business, the company has joined hands with partners to create virtual live broadcast rooms to complement live broadcasters with long-tail time slots; in the virtual human business, the company has created virtual brand spokespersons for leading enterprises, launched its own IP virtual human, and provided low-cost, high-efficiency and super-realistic digital doppelganger solutions; in virtual marketing, the company has adopted XR photography technology to realize marketing exploration of online and offline VR/AR scenes.
From the development of digital avatars, the emergence of virtual anchors symbolizes the application of related technologies tend to live field. From the live industry, the addition of virtual anchors will trigger a new race – sales through live streaming present real people and virtual anchors with the tendency of digital avatar technology. Show live in the virtual anchor elevated the overall level of facial value, can simultaneously meet the user’s demand for live and secondary yuan. In general, the boundary between virtual and reality is blurring, micro beauty holographic digital virtual human technology is setting off a cross-era change.
In the long run, the digital virtual human is a collision and verification of digital virtual economy and real economy under the fire of live broadcasting industry. In the future, the business market of virtual people will continue to broaden, service-oriented virtual people will become a major trend in the development of virtual people industry, cultural tourism, film and television, banking, variety arts, finance and other services account for a relatively high number of industries can seize the opportunity to enter the game. With the help of virtual people to bring tourism venues to explain, digital doubles, AI virtual hosts, digital employees and other service scenarios, in the case of limited costs to bring users a more immersive and fresh experience. The technology of the digital virtual human industry continues to mature, industry standards will also be gradually launched, the future development will become more and more standardized, and the application scenarios will become more and more extensive.