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Healthcare and Accessibility: Several China-based virtual-being deployments focus on health, care, and inclusion. Chengdu Kairui Medical Technology Co., Ltd. (成都市凯瑞医疗科技有限公司), known primarily for its intelligent blood-drawing robots integrating infrared and ultrasound vascular positioning, was the sole medical-device developer among more than thirty institutions that co-authored China's first national standard for sign-language digital humans, Information Technology — Sign Language Digital Human Technical Specifications (GB/T 47517-2026), effective November 1, 2026. According to the company's co-founder Wang Qiulin, the standard requires sign-language comprehension scored no lower than 70 by deaf evaluators, ensuring digital humans accurately convey meaning rather than producing meaningless gestures; such digital humans are already used in news broadcasting, government-hall guidance, museum navigation, and major-event information release. Hansong (Nanjing) Technology Co., Ltd. (汉桑(南京)科技股份有限公司) filed a patent for a voice self-adjustment method that extracts multimodal user features, identifies emotional states, and adjusts a virtual digital human's real-time voice output parameters accordingly. In Chongqing, the Bayu New Public Welfare digital-talent cultivation program, run by the Chongqing Land and Sea International Communication Public Welfare Foundation, empowers rural workers, veterans, graduates, people with disabilities, and other groups to master digital tools in the AI era. In a Yunnan financial-inclusion context, the China Banking Regulatory Wenshan branch and the Wenshan branch of China Construction Bank launched a "Financial Consumer Protection AI Digital Human" to popularize enterprise rights-protection knowledge during a financing matchmaking event.

Cultural Heritage and Tourism: Cultural digital humans are widely deployed across Chinese museums, heritage sites, and tourism venues, though many face the problem of being visually impressive yet culturally hollow. The Shanxi Museum created the digital docent "Qingniao" based on the bird-shaped zun of the Marquis of Jin, using hyper-realistic modeling and intelligent interaction for relic explanation. The Jingzhou Museum in Hubei deploys "Jingxiaochu," developed by Shuming Technology, embedding a knowledge system of over 110,000 relics, supporting explanation in 143 languages, and already in use at more than thirty museums. In Datong's ancient city, a holographic digital human of "Hua Mulan" wears Northern Wei armor and narrates frontier history; in Qixian's Wang Wei art gallery, a "Wang Wei" digital human recites poetry and explains painting. Wuhan's Donghu High-Tech Zone offers subsidies of up to ten million yuan covering 30 percent of investment for "AI+" cultural innovation platforms. Net Dragon Networks (福建网龙网络公司) had its "high-fidelity digital human rapid construction and multi-module interaction system" selected as a 2025 national metaverse typical case—the only such case from Fujian—built using its self-developed character editor, virtual host, and scene editor through face-sculpting, motion-capture, and facial-capture, connected to an AIGC dialogue large model; the company appointed virtual digital human Tang Yu as rotating CEO in 2022, alongside AI assistant Tang Xiaoqing and AI project manager Tang Sheng, and operates an "AI travel ambassador" digital human and education products across 192 countries. In Tibet's Baqing County, the "Lingcao Traceability" virtual digital human debuted at the sixth caterpillar fungus collection experience event, with AR check-in scenes and live-streamed traceability. In Liaoning, the provincial social-science federation built a "Liaoning Mei" digital human and short-video series and a "Red Mountain Culture AI Digital Immersive Science Popularization Exhibition." At the Second World Classics Conference, sages such as Socrates and Confucius appeared as digital humans interacting with attendees. The Central Radio and Television Station's innovation technology exhibition in Chongqing showcased hyper-realistic digital humans, voiceprint cloning, and intelligent dubbing among eight AI media applications, with a CGTN report on intelligent Chongqing. At the 2026 Chongqing International Animation Film Week, the "Animation China" Western Creation Center is being built relying on a CCTV Animation × Yongchuan Technology Studio AI creation base, featuring a digital-human platform and multilingual translation for IP projects such as Journey to the West.

Commerce, Trade, and Customer Service: Virtual digital humans are transforming retail and cross-border trade in China. At the Global Digital Trade Center in Yiwu, Zhejiang, pearl-jewelry merchant Chen Junwei placed an AI digital human customer-service display screen at his stall; the digital human, mirroring a real person's appearance, fluently switches between English, Arabic, Spanish, and other languages to answer foreign buyers' inquiries, replacing translation software, handling preliminary questions, and freeing staff to serve high-value clients, helping him reach deals with clients in the United States and Southeast Asia. The center integrates AI transparent translation screens and multilingual digital humans, and the "World Yiwu" trade large model offers thirteen AI application tools. At the tenth China–South Asia Expo in Kunming, the service-trade hall featured cross-border digital humans, multilingual real-time translation, and AI cross-border data services alongside the tea-brewing robot "Chayedan." Guangdong's Fifteenth Five-Year Plan explicitly writes in digital-human creation, generative AI in content creation and translation, and overseas distribution of web series and games. Bestek Group's智科平云 women's football digital agent, an AI digitized image of Guangdong women's football captain Luo Yu, was launched as the country's first provincial professional women's football digital IP, jointly developed by Guangzhou Digital Technology Group and Guangzhou New Generation Company.

Media, News, and Broadcasting: Chinese media platforms increasingly use digital humans for news delivery. NetEase Hao's news videos covering the Hong Kong Wang Fuk Court fire prosecutions, the Yuncheng "rotten-egg smell" environmental alert, the Harbin man drinking beer by the river, and the Guangdong single-candidate exam room all explicitly state they "use the Huiboxing digital human." Baidu's reorganization merged its e-commerce and commercialization units into a "Big Commercialization Business Group" led by Ping Xiaoli, with digital-human business spun off as an independent unit reporting to her; Baidu's Huiboxing digital-human live-streaming tool was upgraded to "Baidu Yijing," extending from live-commerce to multi-form digital humans, while its self-developed Nuwa AI digital-human platform supports enterprise digital employees. Xinhua Securities' Hongan studio and Net Dragon products appear across multiple reports. Moore Threads' MTT AIBOOK AI computing laptop integrates a 2D digital human named "Xiaomai." iFlytek's AI Virtual Human Interaction Platform, whose full functionality passed national-standard certification, powers digital docents, smart guides, and IP operation across museums and scenic areas, including the "Tang Xiaobao" cultural tourism ambassador created for Xi'an's Tang Dynasty Everbright City and an IP "唐小宝" entering the official mini-program, plus offline digital humans for weak-network venues.

Short Drama, Film, and Content Production: AI-driven virtual characters are reshaping China's short-drama and film industries. Soul App's AI team Soul AI Lab open-sourced the real-time digital-human generation model SoulX-FlashTalk, achieving 0.87-second sub-second latency and 32fps, followed by SoulX-FlashHead (1.3B parameters, 96fps on a single RTX 4090) and the high-robustness SoulX-LiveAct, forming a three-model matrix from consumer GPUs to high-end computing. JD.com open-sourced the JoyAI-Echo long audio-video generation framework for digital-human assistant scenarios. AI仿真人 (AI simulated-human) dramas grew rapidly, with simulated-human comic dramas accounting for 38 of the top hundred in January 2026. At Beijing's Mentougou Jingxi Drama Valley, the company Beijing Xingguiwuxian and Zhongjiao Interactive produce AI comic dramas, and Jingxi Zhiying used the "Tanzhe Zhikong" text-to-video model to "revive" martyr Zhao Yiman in San He Jia Shu, donating it to a memorial hall; the XR Immersive Audiovisual Joint Laboratory features a digital-human production center. Across Hengdian, AI short dramas displaced many real-person crews, prompting concern from actors and foreign performers over digital-portrait authorization, voice copyright, and AI usage clauses. PixVerse, the product of Aishi Technology, offers digital-human and lip-sync video generation for short dramas and e-commerce, while Jingying Technology, Jingdong, and others build AI short-drama Agent-native companies. Star Spark Media (星火传媒), founded by Li Jing, runs an internalized "content factory" using digital-human cloning, AI multilingual dubbing, and AI editing to revive classic Hong Kong films; the Hong Kong audiovisual industry envisions reactivating dormant IP through "digital human permanent personality assets," with Sima Huapeng of Silicon Intelligence cited. Chengdu's Kemeng science-fiction OPC community, led by Chen Shi, focuses on virtual digital-human performance among AIGC film production fields.

Enterprise, Training, and Digital Employees: Chinese enterprises are deploying digital humans as digital employees and corporate ambassadors. At Net Dragon, virtual digital human Tang Yu serves as rotating CEO performing AI management duties. Jiawei Lanjing's智能运维 solutions include IT-process digital humans and standard-operation digital humans as operational智能体. A Chinese game-media company "refined" a departed HR specialist's work data into an AI digital human to continue performing consultation, invitation, and form-making tasks, raising labor-law and personality-rights concerns analyzed by Northwest University of Political Science and Law scholars regarding "炼化同事" and the limits of employee consent. In Yueqing-based Tianzheng Electric, "virtual digital human" appears as a concept-board label. Midea Group's Thailand smart air-conditioning factory established an overseas training base using AIGC, digital humans, and VR for multilingual talent cultivation. In Yiwu and Hangzhou, OPC (one-person company) creators use digital-human operation as a core track; Shandong Zhongkai Digital Technology Group's Jinghua AI incubator in Rizhao supports digital-human operation teams serving local businesses, while Hangzhou's market regulator competition showcased digital-human explanation for individual businesses.

Education and Public Sector: Digital humans support teaching and ideological-political education across China. Hailiang Technology, the only education-technology firm on the 2026 Zhejiang Merchant AI Agent Top 40 list, deploys "Xingledu," which customizes digital-human teaching assistants for teachers and provides digital-human guided reading and intelligent voice assessment, used for morning reading at Hangzhou Chunhui Primary School, reaching 31 provinces. Anhui University of Finance and Economics developed digital-human video cases and AI-enabled cross-segment collective lesson preparation, while Anhui Vocational College of Electronics and Information Technology built an ideological-political virtual simulation center with red-themed VR courses and a 3D digital-human Q&A system. Southwest Minzu University's School of Journalism and Communication, with Sichuan Observation, ran a "Virtual Digital Human IP Full-Process Practical Training" session. At Wuhan Institute of Technology Science and Engineering, an ideological-political work used immersive VR with digital-human narration. In Changchun's optoelectronics expo, the AI digital human "Caixiaomeng" served job-seekers. At a Ningbo family-building event and Dongnan Primary School, children conversed with AI virtual images of cultural figures via an AI "Curiosity Window." The Chongzhi Media OPC in Rizhao and the Soul智源 conference SoulAgent, with eleven AI experts' digital avatars, extend digital-human interaction into knowledge and learning contexts.

Compliance, Regulation, and Ethical Risks: China's regulatory framework for digital humans is rapidly developing alongside concerns over misuse. The Interim Measures for the Management of AI Anthropomorphic Interactive Services and the draft Measures for the Management of Digital Virtual Human Information Services have been published, and a 2026 Beijing Internet Court ruling held that AI-tool use cannot evade infringement liability. The "Xinzhua AIGC" platform, run by Chengdu New Claw Culture Technology Co., Ltd. (成都新爪文化科技有限公司), partnered with Beijing Tengrui Cloud Culture Technology Co., Ltd. (北京腾瑞云文化科技有限公司) to build a full-chain "evidence-monitoring-forensics-rights protection" system for AI digital-portrait assets, using blockchain存证 and hash-fingerprint comparison via Tengrui's CPSP platform with a fingerprint library exceeding 1.7 billion entries. Giant Mobile Technology Co., Ltd. (巨人移动技术有限公司) in Shanghai filed a patent for a super-resolution-algorithm-based digital-human image detail reconstruction method using U-Net and StyleGAN2. A serious ethical problem involves "AI老霸总" (AI old tycoon) digital humans targeting elderly users: accounts such as "Laoyou Suole" deploy AI-generated suave male figures calling viewers "sister," with eleven accounts sharing one identical face but different personas, generated from mature templates for as little as 20 yuan per 30-second video, luring打赏, showcase-带货, and婚介 referrals; one elderly榜一大哥 reportedly spent nearly four million yuan over three years on a married streamer in a related case ruled on by a Wuhan court. The United States' New York State "synthetic performer" advertising-disclosure law took effect, requiring clear labeling of AI-generated virtual figures in ads, a development relevant to Chinese cross-border advertisers and digital-human asset providers facing tightening compliance thresholds.

10 June News

Healthcare: 喵小禾科技 (Miaoxiaohe) operates a Neuro AI platform for child brain development that leverages avatar-style interactive interfaces and proprietary DBx digital biomarker technology for millisecond-precision microbehavior data capture; deployed across China, the US, and Canada, it has reached over 15,000 paying users with 8-week interventions reportedly improving children's cognitive function by an average of 40%. Pet medical AI company 宠语科技 (Chongyu Technology) partners with Ant Digital Technologies (蚂蚁数科) to deploy its "宠智语" pet medical virtual assistant and the co-developed "宠灵宝" AI agent across more than 300 veterinary clinics; the virtual veterinary digital persona handles roughly 80% of routine nighttime consultations with 85%+ monthly active usage. 芳华正茂 (Fanghuazhengmao) released the "夕鸟 Agent" digital human elderly-care manager, a multimodal AI companion integrated with home sensors and the company's FIM algorithm engine to provide emotional companionship, health interaction, and emergency response for seniors aging in place, with deployments in Beijing's Shichahai street community and adaptive showrooms.

Entertainment, Film and Microdramas: Zhejiang Huace Film & TV launched the AIGC High-Tech Film Creation Center in Tonglu, with an AIGC digital sound stage breaking ground in October to support virtual shooting, real-time rendering, digital human synthesis, AI motion capture, and LED virtual production; partners include Zhixiang Future, Shengshu Technology, and Qunhe Technology on film large models and spatial intelligence, with the AIGC creation pipeline embedding digital humans across scripting, shooting, and post-production. The Tonglu government's "影 cultural tourism" scenario explicitly converts virtual shooting, digital humans, and real-time interaction into consumable cultural-tourism products. Hangzhou's Tonglu AIGC center plans to host more than 100 crews annually under a one-stop "AI-enabled" model. Hangzhou-based Jingxi Drama Valley (Jingxi Drama Valley) in Mentougou produced over 60 AI dramas including AI real-person manga drama (AI live-action manga drama), with Jingxi Zhiying, led by Jin Yan, uses the "Tanzhe Zhikong" text-to-video large model to "revive" martyr Zhao Yiman in the short film "Shanhe Jia Shu: Zhao Yiman Pian" for the Zhao Yiman Memorial Hall in Yibin, and to produce "A Rough Porcelain Bowl"; Beijing Xinggui Wuxian, led by Pei Liqun and Hu Xuedi, signed a 10,000-minute AI animation framework agreement with overseas platforms, with a 7-person team producing a 30-minute episode in 3 days; Zhongjiao Hudong builds full-pipeline AIGC short dramas in Mentougou and is establishing a northern AI industry-education base; Yunjian Media, the first OPC (one-person company) to land in Jingxi Drama Valley, uses Tanzhe Zhikong to enable solo digital-human creators; Fengyuzhu operates virtual hosts, AI digital humans, and Zhejiang Shenbai Digital subsidiary is developing virtual idols and AI digital human IPs; it participates in the Lingjing Oasis metaverse content. Guomai Culture produces over 200 AI short dramas via China Telecom Telechat and other multi-model integration, deploying virtual digital humans Irene and Xiaolin as enterprise digital spokespersons. CCTV Media created the CCTV virtual character "Xiao 8" via its subsidiary Zhongshi Beifang. Tianyu Digital Technology operates the virtual human Tianyu, whose short-drama series "Qianbi Xunzong" accumulated over 400 million views and nearly 30 million Douyin likes within a year. Baotong Technology develops digital humans via its BOTON SPACE 1 platform combining naked-eye 3D mixed reality, deployed for industrial scenarios alongside its overseas mobile game publishing business. Tianzhou Culture operates four virtual streamers, including Linjia Xiaoxian (8 million followers) and Xiaoya Tongxue (2 million followers), on multiple platforms, plus Xianyu and Yingke on Bilibili. Fushi Holdings subsidiary DISMedia launched a "Digital Human Program" within its DISAI Smart Chain platform. Shengtong Technology launched China's first GPT-driven digital human assistant for youth education camps.

Marketing, Advertising, and Live-Commerce Digital Humans: Baidu consolidated its MEG (Multi-Enterprise Intelligence Group) into a Big Commerce business unit led by Ping Xiaoli, while separating the Digital Human Innovation Business Unit (DHU) as an independent department. The Huibo Star brand was upgraded to Baidu Yijing, launched as a global, multi-agent digital human platform covering live streaming, video, and real-time interaction, with an overseas version. Baidu Yijing surpassed 100,000 digital human streamers serving over 30 industries; Luo Yonghao's digital-human livestream debut achieved over 13 million views and 55 million yuan GMV, with average conversion increased by 29%, delivery efficiency increased by 150%, and production cost reduced by 63.3%. Robin Li defined digital humans as "visible intelligent agents" and proposed DAA (Daily Active Agents) as the new AI-era metric. Baidu also filed a patent for large-scale model training methods applicable to virtual human scenarios. Miaowu AI, operated by Miaowu Universe (Shenzhen) Artificial Intelligence... It lets users generate their own AI digital avatar in 15 minutes with 100+ styles and 99.8% voice similarity, with one operator managing 1,000+ digital agents, applied to IP building, product endorsement, smart customer service, and live commerce; founder Qiu Nan is positioned as an early founder of desktop robots. iFlytek released Spark Marketing Assistant, an AI digital employee platform that creates a 1:5 human-machine collaboration mode where each human agent has multiple voice-matched AI digital avatars for parallel outreach, raising daily effective reach 36.5% in financial marketing scenarios. Seeyon and Huawei Cloud jointly launched CoMi Intelligent Agent Digital Avatar at the Huawei Cloud INSPIRE creator conference, providing per-employee AI digital avatars for office, process, risk control, and sales scenarios, built on the AI-COP collaborative platform with Call Me natural language interaction. Digiwin showcased its Athena EIOSpace Enterprise Ontology, with Digital avatars, expert agents, and commander agents were stratified for industrial use at Shanghai United Bearing and a Zhejiang foreign trade case where digital avatars act as order-taking and order-following assistants. Baixing Intelligence released the OntoZ platform, deploying AI digital avatars across 1,000+ Chinese-outbound enterprises with nearly 1,000 agents active in 160+ countries, including a Zhejiang fastener manufacturer landing 200+ inquiries through smart digital avatar outreach. XunTu Technology develops financial-research AI digital avatars trained on user information flows for subjective strategy private equity use cases. MIO Exhibition plans a 150 million RMB investment in Jieyue Xingchen to support a "digital avatar agent + platform matching agent" multi-agent architecture for outbound trade, alongside its subsidiary Aochuang Tianxia doing AI agent video marketing. Midea deploys AI-translated digital humans with VR for multilingual overseas employee training, cutting course production from 2.5... Days to 4 hours. Guaishou Intelligence provides a pipeline of "knowledge base + vertical model + content writing agent + AI digital human + public opinion monitoring"; its Guaishou digital human-driven algorithm passed CAC deep-synthesis algorithm filing, supporting 7×24 multi-platform digital-human livestreaming. Miao Xiaohe (separately) also overlaps in digital interaction. Goldenhome launched the home-furnishing industry's first digital-human spokesperson, Goldcicada, and now uses digital human livestreaming via partnerships with the Xiaomi ecosystem. Oriental Pearl partners with Shanghai MiniMax and Jieyue Xingchen on digital human and multi-model e-commerce applications, and runs the Magnolia Livestream Room with digital-human commerce. Xuanya International co-founded the Julang Metaverse Joint Laboratory to deliver virtual digital humans, virtual spaces, and XR livestreaming services. Kaipuyun. Self-developed digital humans Yun Xiaoyang and Yun Xiaoyu ("Digital Human Assistant for Travel During the Epidemic") and powers AI digital humans for smart government services. Jiafa Education introduced 3D digital AI human English teachers for K-12 oral-English coaching. Hengfeng Information is positioned in virtual digital humans within elderly care service systems. Jincai Internet launched a digital virtual human in 2023 for financial and tax services. Filinger integrates virtual humans into simulation exercise modules. Bluefocus (via Fengyuzhu) and Leo Group are referenced as constituent AI-marketing companies of the China Securities Entertainment Media Index. Leqi Group, based in Hangzhou Binjiang, is positioned as an AI-driven smart retail service provider in the AI+e-commerce full-chain.

Cultural Heritage and Tourism: The Wuxi Stele Forest in Qiyang, Yongzhou, in partnership with the Hunan Malanshan Panoramic Cultural Digital Innovation Center, opened the world's first digital experience museum for cliff carvings. Through 3D laser scanning and lighting-matrix capture, 505 inscriptions were digitized and 80 weathered tablets were restored. A holographic digital image of Yan Zhenqing quizzes visitors on the "Three Immortals," and visitors interact with digital humans of Yuan Jie and Yan Zhenqing, as well as generating AR group photos with ancient figures. The Wuhan Municipal Property Management Bureau and Changjiang.com launched a campaign for a Wuhan property digital human IP, with submissions such as Wang Bo's "Jiang Xiaoan," Tang Chuling's "Chu Xiaotun," and Hu Bin's "Han Xiaotun," all reimagining the Yangtze finless porpoise as smart-property digital ambassadors. The Shanghai intelligent agent "Hu Xiaoyou" handles AI custom itineraries and AIGC travelogues for over... With 45,000 cultural-tourism resources and 13 million users, Hangzhou's "Hang Xiaoyi" digital human integrates DeepSeek across 40,000+ service points for tour guidance, hotel booking, and itinerary planning. Yiwu Global Digital Trade Center features the World Yiwu Model, AI digital human customer service that quickly switches between English, Arabic, and Spanish to support cross-border merchants such as Chen Junwei's pearl-jewelry stall, plus the humanoid robot "Wukong" greeting foreign buyers in 60 languages ​​and "one-click generation of short videos in 36 languages" and "digital human live streaming." Douyin's "Ignite! Great Power Equipment, City Treasures" campaign with the China Association for Public Companies features the Yiwu digital human live streaming alongside Sikan Technology's 3D digital modeling. Jiangsu launched the 2026 Jiangsu Province New Consumption Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition in Suzhou, encouraging new business models including digital human services and token services. Shenzhen published a three-year action plan promoting digital human multi-scenario deployment across smart commerce. including unmanned retail and live-streaming e-commerce.

Sports and Broadcasting (China-relevant): For the 2026 USA-Mexico World Cup, Lenovo, led by Senior Vice President and CIO Hu Guanzhong, co-developed the "Football AI Pro" digital base with FIFA, scanning 1,200+ players into millimeter-precision 3D digital humans for semi-automatic offside judgments and broadcasting offside replays, replacing static TV freezes with 3D digital-human animations.

Enterprise and Industrial Digital Workers: Shanghai United Bearing, partnered with Digiwin Digital Intelligence for over 18 years, is deploying AI digital avatars alongside expert and commander agents within its Jiading smart factory. Zheng Lei, Vice General Manager of United Bearing, described digital avatars as replacing scheduling roles with process coordination, material matching, and predictive maintenance. Sany Heavy Truck deploys digital avatars for marketing-side customer support alongside AI assistants for service. Fengyuzhu collaborates with Xinhua News Agency's AIGC and uses the MR Research Institute to deliver 3D reality experiences across time and space with virtual hosts and AI digital avatars. Quzhou Development backs full-stack integration of digital human technology into the HarmonyOS ecosystem and indirectly holds Cloud Deep Technology via Hangzhou Yunqi Venture Capital Fund. The National Data Administration, in its 2025 Digital China Report, cited digital humans as a key application across smart tourism, smart government, and education, listing city IPs like "Hu Xiaoyou" and "Hang Xiaoyi." (The remaining text appears to be a list of companies: Guomai Culture, Fengyuzhu, Fushi Holdings, CCTV Media, Tianyu Digital Technology, Baotong Technology.) Oriental Pearl, KaiPu Cloud, Jiafa Education, Hengfeng Information, JinCai Internet, Jinpai Home Furnishings, FuShi Holdings, XuanYa International, FeiLiXin, ShengTong Shares, Tianzhou Culture, and ZhangYue Technology all reported portfolio activities in virtual human, AIGC, or digital-human-driven applications across A-shares.

AI Companions, Personal Avatars, and Knowledge Agents: The Beijing Academy of Artificial Intelligence (BAAI) launched SoulAgent at the Beijing Academy of Artificial Intelligence Conference, a personal intelligent agent designed to grow with users. It supports cross-session listening, observation summarization, and integrates 11 AI avatars from top AI experts for multi-round dialogue, extending into daily learning and office assistance. Wuhan East Lake High-tech Development Zone, jointly with Huazhong University of Science and Technology, founded the Optics Valley Artificial Intelligence Creative Technology Research Institute, releasing the self-developed multimodal AI production platform "ARTIOO" for AI film industry and digital human expression and motion control. Beijing Miaoyin Digital Technology shifted from traditional anime to XR large-space immersive cultural tourism and AI digital human business, with Chinese culture digital human content lines targeting children. They also sell products through Taobao, including digital biological corners and Snoopy plush products. Wuhan Shiguangli Culture Technology builds AI-generated memorial micro-films using AI face-swapping to revive deceased relatives for participation in stories, plus digital human videos for elders' birthday celebrations. Huibo Star was... Referenced in news segments produced with Huibo Star Digital Human in NetEase reports about provincial government accountability. Digital human "Xiaotian" delivers AI-perspective Guizhou news coverage for Tianyan News. The Wuhan Optics Valley incubator backs digital human interactive platforms. Bangyan Technology, with Alibaba Cloud, launched NuwaAI, an "AI performing digital human" using a dual-brain collaborative architecture (IQ brain + EQ brain) generating commercial performing digital humans in 3 minutes, with 30+ performer templates targeting live performances, cultural tourism exhibitions, shopping mall exhibitions, and new product launches. AI digital humans are integrated into GEO and other GEO platforms competing for AI-search visibility, including Yangmingyu Doubao and Douyin ecosystems via Miaowu AI and GEO service providers. Heilongjiang Daily articles describe the deployments of digital human teachers in ideological and political education via Baidu Smart Cloud Xiling and Xunfei AI Virtual Human to handle knowledge questions and provide free human teachers for emotional guidance.

Investor Education and Public Services: Orient Securities opened its Investor Education Base (Tibet) in Lhasa, featuring a Tibetan-Chinese bilingual AI digital avatar in a local Tibetan-style attire for securities and futures knowledge dissemination, marking the first bilingual, dual-track investor education platform in the Tibetan Plateau.

Regulatory and Ethical Contexts in China: In Wuhan, digital avatar design submissions revolve around motifs of the Yangtze finless porpoise to humanize property services. Well-known AI "boss" accounts on Douyin—including the "Jianhua," "Jianguo," and "Dongdong" digital-human personas in livestreams such as "Ruyi Langjun 618" and "Tianxuanzhiren@"—were exposed for using AIGC video customization (as low as 20 yuan per video) to manipulate elderly viewers for tipping and product sales. Investigations identified the 11-account "Laoyou Suole" cluster sharing one AI face, and the dating company "Yushengyuan Chief Matchmaker Xiao Wu Laoshi" using synthetic AI image profiles to harvest personal information. Controversies surrounding AI digital avatars, including the "Tongxun.Skill" technique allegedly used to clone departed employees' work styles, were debated by experts including Chen Bing, Vice Dean of the Law School of Nankai University; Fan Wei, Professor of the School of Labor Economics at Capital University of Economics and Business; and Zhang Chenggang, raising concerns about labor rights and personal information protection under China's... PIPL. The National Data Administration issued the data infrastructure framework supporting digital human development. Hainan released its 15th Five-Year Plan for High-Tech Development, supporting token export, sovereign big data model R&D, and high-quality AI datasets enabling further digital human deployment. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission launched the 2026 Special Action for Humanoid Robots and Embodied Intelligence Real-Scene Training, indirectly supporting digital-human and embodied avatar applications. China's Cyberspace Administration of China has filed 748 generative AI services and updated content-labeling standards relevant to synthetic digital humans. AI digital human tools like Huibo Star are increasingly cited in China-related US regulatory analogs such as New York's "Synthetic Performer" disclosure law, which applies to digital humans used in advertising.

09 June News

Healthcare: Chinese medical device firm Chengdu Kairui Medical Technology (成都市凯瑞医疗科技有限公司) participated as a core drafter of China's first national standard for sign-language digital humans, "Information Technology Sign Language Digital Human Technical Specifications" (GB/T 47517-2026), approved by the National Standardization Administration and set to take effect on 1 November 2026. Co-drafted with more than 30 enterprises, research institutes, and disability service organizations, the standard defines the technical framework, core technical requirements, and evaluation methods for sign-language digital humans, supporting standardized deployment in government services, news media, special education, and public services for hearing-impaired groups. Kairui Medical is the sole medical-device R&D enterprise among the drafters, contributing expertise in intelligent perception, human-machine collaboration, and sign-language rehabilitation.

Livestreaming, E-commerce, and Marketing: Baidu (百度) restructured its Mobile Ecosystem Group (MEG), merging the commercial and e-commerce units into a new Big Commercial Business Group and upgrading the Digital Human Innovation Business Unit into an independent BU reporting to group vice president Ping Xiaoli. At the Create 2026 developer conference in May, Baidu upgraded its digital-human brand Huibo Xing (慧播星) into "Baidu Yijing" (百度一镜), positioned by Robin Li as the world's first full-scenario multi-agent digital-human platform combining live-streaming, video, and real-time interactive digital humans, with an overseas version also launched. By end-2025, Baidu Yijing had surpassed 100,000 digital-human anchors serving more than 30 industries, and powered Luo Yonghao's digital-human livestream debut, which drew over 13 million viewers and more than RMB 55 million in GMV. Baidu Yijing's high-persuasion digital humans support real-person cloning, generative live broadcasting, and multi-product switching, lifting average livestream conversion rates by 29%, delivery efficiency by 150%, and cutting production costs by 63.3%; skincare brand Qingyan (倾颜) saw a 32% conversion uplift, 31% GMV growth, and 25% daily-order growth on its digital-human toothpaste channel, while its "spokesperson solution" has been deployed at media organizations including Dahe Bao. JD.com (京东) and Kuaishou (快手) jointly launched China's first AI-plus-live-action sci-fi short drama "Coming from the Stars" (来自星星的我们) for the 618 shopping festival, starring Yue Yuting and Ka Rong alongside AI digital humans built with Kuaishou's Kling AI, with viewers able to jump from Kuaishou episodes to JD pages to buy "Karon-style" and "Yuting-style" fans. At Yiwu's (义乌) Global Digital Trade Center, pearl-jewelry merchant Chen Junwei (陈俊伟) deployed an AI digital-human customer-service avatar on an in-store smart display that switches between English, Arabic, and Spanish to handle foreign-buyer enquiries, helping him close deals with clients in the US and Southeast Asia, while the city's "World Yiwu" trade large-model platform offers AI tools spanning design, production, and marketing for cross-border merchants. Guangdong Radio and Television's report on a Guangxi traffic case used a Huibo Xing digital human as the on-screen presenter, and a Yancheng Border Inspection Station deployed Jiangsu Frontier Inspection's AI digital anchor "Su Yan" (苏言), created by Yanfu Mass Media Group, to deliver 90-second standardized policy explainers on Taiwan-resident travel documents and online lodging registration for foreigners, with the format praised by the Ministry of Public Security. Yancheng's Yanfu Mass Media Group is also rolling out an AIGC Application Engineer training programme to expand the local digital-human and AIGC workforce. Xiaoying Technology (小赢科技) deployed virtual digital human "Win-Daidai" as a 24/7 generative-AI service agent handling dispute mediation, emotion recognition, and risk warnings, and turning anti-fraud cases into anthropomorphic consumer-protection science communication.

Film, Television, and Short Drama: Hangzhou Tonglu's (桐庐) Fuchunjiang Film Industry-Education Demonstration Zone launched the AIGC High-Tech Film Creation Center operated by Zhejiang Huace Film & TV Group (浙江华策影视集团), founded by Zhao Yifang, anchoring Tonglu's third "AI+" flagship scenario covering AIGC technology research, full-process film production, vocational training, and "film+culture+tourism" consumption. Seven core scenarios include the AIGC Super Academy and Super Factory, the AIGC Premium Mid- and Short-Drama Creation Base, and an AIGC Digital Studio, with strategic agreements signed with Communication University of China and AIGC firms including Zhixiang Future (智象未来), Shengshu Technology (生数科技), and Manycore Tech (群核科技) on film large models and spatial-intelligence services. Tonglu also unveiled a roadmap to convert virtual shooting, digital humans, and real-time interaction into immersive film-tourism products, and projects like Mei Rong Village's "Taiping Nian" themed village, Shen'ao ancient village's "You Are the Late Joy" location punch-cards, and the Hangzhou Future Imaging Lab's "Taiping Nian" production are examples of AI-driven film-IP-to-tourism pipelines. The Future Imaging Lab at Zhejiang University's Yangtze River Delta Smart Green Oasis Innovation Center, with researcher Wu Yuwei and Yu Xinping, used AI to deliver 2,515 VFX shots, 1,370 rendering hours, and digital-human-driven concept design for the historical drama "Taiping Nian," and is now combining live action with AI VFX in the anti-Japanese war micro-drama "Returning, I See the Mountains and Rivers Anew" (《归来方知山河重》) with Tencent (腾讯) and Xinhua. Henan-listed Guigang Network (贵广网络, 600996), under Guizhou Broadcasting Group, integrates its Red Ribbon (红飘带) Long March digital memorial with AI digital "Red Army" holograms, AI-generated personalized "Red Army digital persona" experiences for visitors, and the Huang Xiaoxi (黄小西) provincial travel large model that supplies AI guides and AR navigation across the "One Code Tour Guizhou" platform. The independent A-share short-drama market is being reshaped by AI漫剧 (AI anime drama) studios such as Wang Qiuyun's (王秋云) Guangdong studio, Lao Bai (老白), Doudou (豆子), Le Qi's (乐琪) Huanggang studio, and Youkela (浙江优克拉智能科技) using ByteDance's Seedance 2.0/Jimeng (即梦) and other tools to generate digital-human-driven episodes, with Baidu's Yijing and Kuaishou-supported AI-drama production now central to platforms like Hongguo (红果); industry data cite AI漫剧/video accounting for 55% of national token consumption, more than double software development. Production-side innovation also appears in Xi'an Eurasia University's (西安欧亚学院) XR Virtual Creation order class, jointly run with Xi'an Film Group's Xi'an Immersive Wonder Film Technology, training students to build XR virtual shoots, digital humans, and immersive films, while drama "Qiao Chu" (《翘楚》) and Tian Xiwei's "AI Xiao Tian" livestream drew criticism for AI-style stiffness, and director-led campaigns against unauthorized AI use of Xiao Zhan's likeness in AI short dramas reached Shanghai courts. The Manbo (漫播) "Voice in Campus" college dubbing competition, run by Youka Interactive Group (有咖互动集团) with Weiying Xinghuo Digital Media Industry Academy, trained over 12,000 student works for IPs including "Black Myth: Wukong" and the upcoming classical audio drama "Listening to Dream of the Red Chamber" (《听说红楼》), explicitly identifying digital humans and metaverse spaces as new frontiers for student voice actors. AI short-drama-driven recruitment of OPC (one-person-company) studios is being institutionalized at Wuxi Software Park's "Double O" social area, the country's first Volcano Engine AI-anime-drama OPC community, and at Hangzhou Sandun town's "Yinran 66 Dream-Start Summer" job fair, where digital-human host "Shuiyue Baobao" (水月宝宝) served as on-cloud "job recommender" linking Yunshenchu Technology, Feibu Technology, Linghai Culture (the Black Myth: Wukong IP operator), and other firms with Gen-Z candidates.

Tourism and Cultural Heritage: Datong's Yungang Grottoes (大同云冈石窟) launched the "Tan Mi Yungang" (探弥·云冈) XR immersive exhibit, developed over eight months by Datong Yungang Cultural Tourism Industry Development Co., using 3D-lighting matrices, holographic projection, and a VR digital human modeled on a Northern Wei princess (with garments referencing Yungang honeysuckle motifs) to guide visitors through replicated grottoes including the otherwise inaccessible Cave 38; since July 2025 it has hosted over 30,000 visitors. At the Hanging Temple in Mount Heng, the "Lingjing Hanging Temple" (灵境悬空) MR project by project lead Liu Rui produced a 1:1 digital-twin replica using UAV photogrammetry and ground LiDAR, enabling visitors to "fly" above the temple with synchronized digital narration. In Xining, Yuanto News Client's snow-leopard digital human Xiao Yuan (小源) acts as virtual guide to the "Bao Street" (豹街) night market, using a permanent 3D model of the rescued wild snow leopard "Bei Bei" and snow-leopard murals and lighting to support the "Snow Leopard Capital" city brand. Wuxi's (无锡) Qingming Bridge runs the "Jin Ye Liang Xiao" night cruise blending real actors with holographic water curtains and AI-driven characters along the Grand Canal, while the city's broader cultural-tech push includes the "Zhongshu Fang" reading-house network and Mland Taihu Music Town as anchors for digital culture consumption. Guangdong's report on Lingnan culture proposes a "culture + digital twin + cross-border trade" scenario where digital-human Cantonese opera stars introduce Lingnan goods to global buyers and virtual try-ons of Xiangyunsha silk feed direct-purchase channels, and Hubei's Wuhan media-integration push includes the "AI Shang Huanghelou" (《AI上黄鹤楼》) AI-magic stage drama developed by People's Daily Online's Mengtu Lingjing AI exhibition center, blending 4K holography, intangible-heritage illusion, and AI-built Tang-Dynasty figures.

Enterprise, Smart Office, and HR: Alibaba's (阿里巴巴) "Wukong" (悟空) enterprise-grade AI-native work platform, incubated inside DingTalk and presented in Hangzhou by East China solution director Li Chen (李宸), is positioned as a "digital double" and "AI team" for organizations rather than a consumer chatbot; combined with the DingTalk A1 hardware, it captures customer voice in sales calls and uses enterprise knowledge bases to generate deliverable plans, manage local-and-cloud model routing, and serve as a personalized digital double for each employee. Lunan Pharmaceutical (鲁南制药) deployed a portfolio of named AI agents on its self-developed "Lunan Zhiqing" (鲁南智擎) platform powered by an 11.6 PFLOPS in-house cluster: the "Smart HR Youyou" (智慧HR呦呦) recruiting agent screens 12,000+ resumes and schedules interviews for HR director Song Xiangyun; trademark, pharmacovigilance, equipment-maintenance, and sales-data agents handle 1,594.7 hours/month of repetitive work; and 24/7 digital-human anchors run multi-account livestreams on its e-commerce channels, lifting consumer-query response from 3 minutes to 15 seconds and conversion by 25%. The Dingjie Digital Intelligence (鼎捷数智) chairman Ye Zizhen used his AI digital double on stage at the fifth Digital Intelligence Future Summit to deliver a keynote alongside a humanoid robot, and the company is now filing for a Hong Kong listing while promoting its "Yadianna" (雅典娜) Enterprise Intelligence Operation Space and "Agent Space" to position digital humans as enterprise governance front-ends. Shiyou Technology's (世优科技) "Shiyou Bota AI Digital Human" middleware, headed by founder Liu Zizheng, layers 2D/3D digital-human avatars over existing data dashboards and digital-twin systems for Beide Group's Jiangyin AI cockpit (where the avatar voices and visualizes production-line KPIs), Shandong Guohui Group's smart showroom, Linyi Logistics City's logistics digital human "Ji Bao" (集宝), Hai-Kai Group's Zhongguancun Dongsheng Park 3D guide "Yunbao" (云宝), and Xin'ao Group's (新奥) "Enniu Zhiban" (恩牛智伴) chief digital lecturer, with deployments also at Fengtai District government service center, Shanxi Cultural Tourism's "Qingniao" promoter, and the Yili General's Mansion MR tour; the company has built more than 2,000 digital humans across 1,000+ brand customers using a 95% lip-sync engine, 180+ facial control points, and integrations with DeepSeek and Qwen. Xinyuan Network (新华网) is investing RMB 1.12 billion in the state-backed "Xinhua Yudian" (新华语典) political-news AI agent, combining its Xinhua Zhiyun (新华智云) MAGIC short-video platform, AIGC-Safe deepfake detection, virtual digital humans, and "Yuanmao" (元卯) metaverse system to serve party-government, SOE, university, and research-institute customers.

Education and Public Sector: Suzhou's Shanghai-area expanded skills-evaluation platform "Shuzhi Tong" (数智通), built by Guizhou Lingang Vision (贵州领航视讯) in Guiyang High-tech Zone under chairwoman Luo Linrao, supports digital-human-relevant trades such as AI trainer, network and information-security manager, internet marketer, animation producer, and e-commerce specialist, providing online practical simulations and certification for 77 occupations and 59,000+ candidates. Langfang's (廊坊) public-employment service deployed digital-human "AI job housekeeper" Lang Ruyi (廊如意) on the "Langfang Employment" platform and the Hongxing Meikailong job station, generating standardized resumes in three minutes, recommending matching positions, and pushing policy explainers to graduates, new-citizen residents, and difficult-to-employ groups via 58 livestream sessions and 1,300+ vetted jobs. Smart Era (厦门智能时代), founded by AI expert Chen Kunxiang, packages digital-human livestream marketing, AI short-drama production, and digital-human voice cloning for clients across government, schools, hospitals, banks, listed companies, and SOEs in 12+ provinces and Hong Kong. Smith Vision Lab at Hubei's Optics Valley (华中科技大学) launched the Optics Valley AI Creativity Technology Research Institute, headed by Cai Xinyuan, which released the multimodal AI production platform "Aiwu" (ARTIOO) for AI cinema and digital-human facial and motion control, with the institute's first showcase being the Wuhan cultural-tourism promo "Xin Jianghan Lansheng Tu" (新江汉揽胜图). Beijing's Zhiyuan Research Institute (智源) is debuting personal smart agent "SoulAgent" at the Beijing Zhiyuan Conference with 11 named AI expert avatars that users can converse with for multi-round Q&A, follow across parallel sessions to summarize talks, and retain as a long-term, personalized AI companion; each registrant receives a dedicated agent and 100 million tokens. Anhui-based Kimi (月之暗面 Kimi) released Kimi Work and its 300-agent K2.6 Agent Swarm with web automation and built-in financial-market connectors, enabling tasks such as parallel consulting reports, Apple stock analysis from local files, and a 300-agent World Cup forecast that ranked German football as the most-undervalued contender; though the swarm is task-oriented rather than persona-driven, its specialized "researchers," "strategists," and "designers" function as named role-based agents in user workflows.

Banking and Financial Services: Xi'an Bank (西安银行) deployed "i Xi'an" digital-RMB and digital-life APP services and was named a benchmark in Shaanxi's financial digital-transformation case list, with consumer-protection campaigns highlighting digital-human-enabled service channels for senior citizens under the "Xiyin Xi'an" elder-finance brand. Generic ESG reporting aside, the bank's broader public communications increasingly use AI digital hosts to explain green-finance products such as biodiversity loans and water-rights-pledged loans, sitting alongside its mobile-banking "Carbon Energy" gamified low-carbon engagement.

Ethical and Regulatory Contexts: Reports continue to surface of fraud rings using AI to generate "refined and wealthy" or "elder tycoon" digital humans to seduce elderly users, harvest private information, and induce live-stream tipping, prompting Chinese commentators to position silver-haired travel as a remedy to the resulting "digital loneliness." Director-led complaints expose AI short-drama studios systematically replicating actor Xiao Zhan's face and voice without authorization, with court filings in Shanghai Pudong and references to Civil Code Article 1018 and the draft "Digital Virtual Human Information Service Management Measures" treating any AI-generated likeness recognizably tied to a real person as actionable infringement, while disguises such as partial mosaics or renaming to "Xiao Zhan-soundalike" do not exempt operators. Guangzhou's Zongheng Technology (广州纵恒科技) filed a patent for an AI-and-big-data system that automatically configures multimodal attributes of virtual humans and drives them to deliver voice broadcasts and body movements within auto-generated advertising videos. Industry analysts note that as AI digital humans, AI short dramas, and AI-marketing supply chains scale, regulators have begun cooling the once-overheated AI short-drama market through stricter pre-registration rules (with "register first, broadcast later" enforced from 31 March), forcing many OPC studios into closure even as platforms like Hongguo and Kuaishou redirect resources toward premium, high-token-consumption digital-human productions.

08 June News

Baidu's Digital Human Business Expansion: Baidu (百度) implemented a major organizational restructuring of its Mobile Ecosystem Group (MEG), merging its commercial and e-commerce departments into a new Big Commerce Business Unit, while elevating its Digital Human Innovation Business Unit to independent status reporting to Vice President Ping Xiaoli. This marks the first time Baidu has spun digital human operations into a standalone BU, signaling the strategic importance of the segment. At the Create 2026 Baidu AI Developer Conference on May 13, Baidu upgraded its digital human brand Huiboxing (慧播星) into Baidu Yijing (百度一镜), positioned as the world's first full-scenario multi-agent digital human platform, integrating digital human livestreaming, video, and real-time interactive digital humans, with an overseas version (Yijing Haiwaiban) also launched. By the end of 2025, Baidu Yijing had surpassed 100,000 digital human anchors serving over 30 industries, and notably supported Luo Yonghao's (罗永浩) digital human livestream debut, which drew over 13 million viewers and generated GMV exceeding 55 million yuan. Baidu founder Li Yanhong (李彦宏) described digital humans as "visible intelligent agents" and the universal interaction interface for the AI era, proposing Daily Active Agents (DAA) as a new core metric. In the e-commerce context, the high-persuasion digital human technology used by skincare brand Qingyan (倾颜) for a toothpaste-focused livestream room reportedly lifted conversion by 32%, GMV by 31%, and daily orders by 25%, while Baidu Yijing's "spokesperson solution" was deployed at media organizations including Dahe Bao (大河报), with real-time interactive response times under two seconds.

Livestreaming, Short Video, and Content Production: Beyond Baidu Yijing, Chinese AI video and digital human platforms are pushing into long-form and entertainment content. JD.com (京东) released JoyAI-Echo, an open-source long video generation framework featuring a cross-modal audio-visual memory library to maintain character and voice consistency across 5-minute videos, DMD-based post-training that accelerates inference 7.5x, lightweight real-time super-resolution, and a Director Agent for dialogue-based editing; the framework targets virtual IP storytelling, digital human content, brand marketing, education, virtual anchors, and short drama creation, and JD already uses AI digital humans in its livestreaming business. Huiboxing digital humans are extensively used by NetEase's Kankan News (看看新闻Knews) to narrate news videos covering events ranging from Chongqing Hechuan floods, gaokao coverage, and Shanxi Qinyuan official investigations to viral stories about koi auctions, escaped pet snakes, and kindergarten admission disputes. The Jiangsu Satellite TV virtual host Leyi (乐伊), created by the channel's AIGC Media Application Lab as a "sweet, energetic AI female anchor" and launched on March 21 to cover the Su Super (苏超) football league, debuted in a high school exam encouragement video alongside Su Super Suzhong Team 3 players, marking her transition from sports broadcaster to cross-scenario AI idol. In the drama sector, the costume series *Qiao Chu* (《翘楚》) was dubbed an "AI doll drama" by viewers who initially mistook live actress Liu Jin for a digital human due to porcelain-smooth skin and stiff movements, and critics noted heavy reliance on AI-generated backgrounds and dialogue, reflecting broader industry concerns that AI may displace mid-tier actors, with漫剧 (AI manga drama)占比 rising from 7% to 38% of the top 100 chart. A separate analysis discussed AI face-swapping of celebrities, the "won't sign, won't get cast" pressure on actors over facial data authorization, and platforms' incentive to deploy AI performers.

Personality Distillation, Ethics, and Governance: At the "Innovation Without Borders, Rule of Law With Measure" salon co-hosted by the Shanghai Association for Science and Technology and East China University of Political Science and Law, an open-source project called "Personality Distillation" sparked debate about AI replicating not just appearances but human knowledge, thinking patterns, and behavioral styles into reusable skill packs. Wang Yanfeng of Shanghai Jiao Tong University's AI Institute warned that researchers risk being replaced by AI trained on their own work, while ECUPL Professor Wang Qian argued AI should not be granted legal personhood. SenseTime (商汤科技) digital human project director Liao Hu introduced its Ruying (如影) digital human program and the principles of "authorizable, controllable, traceable" trustworthy digital humans developed with industry partners. Xiaohongshu (小红书) public affairs head Yuan Shidong revealed the platform had handled 180,000 AI-faked notes and systematically governed over 1.2 million AI-hosted matrix accounts under its newly issued "AI Governance Proposition."

Enterprise, Customer Service, and Vertical Agents: iFlytek (科大讯飞) won a 933,600 yuan contract from Fujian Expressway Information Technology Co. for a digital human tool development collaboration service project. Shenbi (Nanjing) Software (神笔(南京)软件) filed a patent for a multi-dimensional matching-based digital human generation method combining text or image input, dynamic anthropomorphic label libraries, voice and motion libraries, and large-model video generation for digital content and virtual interaction. Guangzhou Zonghen Technology (广州纵恒科技) filed a patent for an AI big-data-driven virtual human advertising video system that automates script, storyboard, virtual human configuration, voice, action, and scene rendering to compress production cycles. Bytype Intelligence (百型智能) released OntoZ, a third-generation enterprise AI infrastructure built around an "enterprise ontology" and group-agent architecture for cross-border B2B sales, serving over 1,000 Chinese出海 enterprises with nearly 1,000 agents active across 160+ countries; founder Han Mei outlined plans for an "unmanned A2A ecosystem" in which each enterprise has its own super-agent acting as a digital twin in global commerce. Yunton Suixiu (云动悦修), launched by Ma Renye, positions itself as an AI + cultural修身 ecosystem combining AI digital human content workflows (digital human synthesis, cloud-based smart editing, scheduled publishing) with traditional culture-based personal development. In recruitment technology, 360 Education Online (360教育在线) presented at Jinzhong Information College an AI matrix including the AI Smart Selection (AI智选) major recommendation system, 24/7 AI smart phone agents, AI volunteer simulation, and "mentor AI avatars" used at 800+ universities. Bytype's related concept of corporate "personality distillation" further illustrates the trend of digital分身s representing professionals.

Healthcare Digital Humans and Agents: Zhejiang Provincial Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine (浙江省中医院) deployed a layered medical agent system covering clinical diagnosis (Copilot tools for voice-to-record and intelligent quality control), medical imaging agents that analyze tens of thousands of reports at mid-level radiologist standards, research literature agents, ICU risk-warning agents, insurance quality-control agents, and mobile voice ward-round agents, with future plans including "famous doctor digital avatars" and a smart TCM pharmacy. Zhidan Technology (智诊科技) presented its WiseClaw medical agent platform, which has built AI digital avatars for over 2,000 medical experts to extend specialist-level guidance to grassroots doctors, and its consumer-facing Haoban AI (好伴AI) personal health management app, credited with the industry's "first AI life-saving case" for detecting acute kidney-stone risk early. Wuxi Binhu's "Agentic AI" forum unveiled the Tsinghua AI Hospital online virtual clinic, with 26 Chinese-language and 21 English-language departments, AI patient agents for diagnostic interaction, and user-specific doctor avatar agents simulating consultations, examinations, and diagnoses with image-text dialogue and automatic medical record drafting, opened to global public testing in April 2026.

Public Services, Anti-Drug Education, and Cultural Heritage: The Tianjin Drug Rehabilitation Bureau (天津市戒毒局) deployed AI animation, VR, and digital humans including "Officer Xiaoqiao" (小桥警官) and "Police Xiaobei" (警小蓓) for community and school anti-drug education, combined with Tianjin-specific cultural assets such as crosstalk and intangible heritage. The Liaoning Provincial Federation of Social Sciences built a "Liao AI Social Sciences" platform with "Liaoning Beauty" digital humans, short video showrooms, and a "Hongshan Culture AI Immersive Science Exhibition," accompanied by AR restorations of prehistoric scenes and Red Mountain culture. The National Museum of Natural Sciences (国家自然博物馆) designed five digital human figures for virtual exhibitions in its new museum slated to open October 2029, alongside dense point-cloud maps, three visiting routes, and over 300 AR effects to bring fossils and specimens to life. In Tibet's Naqu Baqing County, the sixth Cordyceps harvest experience event launched a "Lingcao Source Tracing" virtual digital human and AR check-in scenes for traceability and tourism. Chongqing's Yongchuan Tech Film Studio, host of the 2026 Chongqing International Animation Film Week, integrates two international virtual production systems and a 16,000-square-meter digital intelligent set workshop, conquering 23 core technologies including digital humans and motion capture, with a national-level sci-tech film digital asset platform node hosting 50,000+ digital assets and 1,000+ digital scenes. The Guangu AI Creative Technology Research Institute (光谷人工智能创意技术研究院), launched by Wuhan East Lake High-Tech Zone with Huazhong University of Science and Technology as lead, focuses on AI creative generation and digital human interaction, with Director Cai Xinyuan unveiling the self-developed multimodal AI production platform ARTIOO (爱乌) demonstrating AI film industry workflows and digital human expression and motion control. Hangzhou's Shidun Town held an招聘 fair at the variety-show landmark "Planting Planet" using AI digital human anchors as "job recommendation officers" for livestream career fairs.

Hardware, Robotics, and XR Adjacencies: Yunshenchu Technology (云深处科技) hosted Lao President Thongloun Sisoulith during a visit to Hangzhou featuring humanoid and quadruped robots, illustrating digital-physical convergence; Alibaba (阿里巴巴) demonstrated an AI digital human at the same visit that answered the question of who Laos's president is. Sightful (视涯科技) plans to sell up to 1.6 billion yuan of silicon-based OLED microdisplays to Goter (歌尔), underpinning AR glasses and digital human display hardware. Reports referenced ongoing development of Nvidia's Korea AI Tech Center focused on physical AI, digital twins, and robotics, including OpenUSD-based Omniverse virtual world building—context relevant to China's competing digital twin and digital human supply chains.

Market Outlook: iiMedia Consulting data cited in the coverage put China's core digital human market at 33.92 billion yuan in 2024, projected to reach 93.56 billion yuan by 2030, with industry observers framing Baidu's organizational moves as a signal that the digital human track is shifting from technology showcase to a mainstream commercial battlefield, with major Chinese platforms, vertical AI firms, and institutional users all racing to embed digital humans across livestreaming, enterprise services, healthcare, education, public communication, and cultural heritage.

07 June News

Healthcare: A wave of medical virtual beings is reshaping Chinese clinical practice and patient services. Tsinghua University's Institute for AI Industry Research (AIR) launched the Ziwei (Zijing) AI Hospital online virtual consulting room (紫荆AI医院), led by Professor Liu Yang's team and signed as a cooperation project with the Wuxi Liyuan Economic Development Zone Management Committee; the platform offers large-scale, hyper-realistic AI patient agents across 26 Chinese clinical departments and 21 English departments, supports bilingual full-process simulated diagnosis, real-time medical record writing, deep reasoning recommendations and authoritative evidence retrieval, and lets users build personalized doctor-clone agents that co-consult alongside real physicians. Baidu Health (百度健康) has signed a strategic cooperation with the First Affiliated Hospital of the University of Science and Technology of China to deploy its AI smart outpatient solution—covering AI triage, online appointment add-ons and AI pre-consultation—across nearly twenty top-tier hospitals, while also providing digital human AI tools to help doctors build personal IPs. Aier Eye Hospital (爱尔眼科) introduced an "AI Ophthalmic Management System" featuring AI digital human "Eyecho" (爱科) for nationwide myopia prevention education; the First Affiliated Hospital of Guangxi University of Chinese Medicine opened an "AI Traditional Chinese Medicine Smart Service Experience Zone" with an AI digital human meridian display; and Ant Group's AI doctor product Mayi Afu (蚂蚁阿福) provides hundreds of AI clones of top doctors as on-demand consultants. Lingxi Cloud (灵犀云), incubated from Tsinghua's neural engineering lab, raised nearly RMB 100 million to build "digital brain" virtual human models for brain-machine interface diagnostics in depression and Alzheimer's disease.

Accessibility and Public Services: Sign-language digital humans have moved from sports broadcasting into daily civic life. The Hangzhou Metro (杭州地铁), working with the Hangzhou Deaf Association, deployed a standardized sign-language digital human announcer on dynamic map screens of Lines 1 and 19, developed by a local technology-for-disability company; the rollout coincides with national standard GB/T 47517-2026 "Information Technology Sign-Language Digital Human Technical Specifications." The Palace Museum (故宫博物院), with the Beijing Sign Language Research Association, has expanded its digital sign-language guide via the Yiyu Sign Language Translator (译语手语翻译官) product, which centers a sign-language digital human that auto-recognizes full sign-language sentences; the same product appeared at the 22nd China (Shenzhen) International Cultural Industries Fair. Qujiang District's Disabled Persons' Federation hall in Quzhou, Zhejiang has installed an intelligent sign-language translation system, complementing earlier on-bus sign-language announcement digital humans on Suzhou bus routes 5002 and 661.

Live Commerce and Enterprise Marketing: Digital human livestreaming has become the workhorse of China's 618 shopping festival. JD.com (京东) reported a sixfold year-on-year increase in merchants using its JoyStreamer digital human platform and over RMB 70 million in digital-human-driven GMV in the opening hours, while its AI customer service Jingxiaozhi (京小智) saw a 14-fold surge in large-model service volume; JD's consumer AI assistant Jingyan (京言) has served close to 80 million users. Baidu (百度) elevated its digital human business unit to an independent department within MEG and rebranded the Huiboxing (慧播星) digital human as "Baidu Yijing" (百度一镜), a full-scenario digital human platform spanning livestreaming, video and real-time interaction, with an overseas version "Yijing Haiwai Ban"; founder Robin Li framed digital humans as the "visible agents" of the AI era, and the company has registered the "Baidu Yijing" logo and trademarks. Numerous news clips from Kankan News (看看新闻Knews) covering stories such as the Macau prostitution ring bust, the Sichuan Tianfu New Area street-vendor case, the Nanjing Massacre wording dispute and the Xiangya Second Hospital tender controversy are explicitly noted as produced using Huiboxing digital humans. Alibaba's (阿里巴巴) Alimama (阿里妈妈) "Wanxiang" agent engine and Douyin's (抖音) Doubao "Help You Choose" feature push AI-driven discovery, while Meitu's (美图) "Kaipai" (开拍) tool, which integrates Seedance 2.0 and offers AI short-drama and Digital Human 2.0 functions, saw AI compute-point consumption surge 360% in Q1. Soul App (Soul) released its open-source SoulX-LiveAct model for real-time digital human generation, targeting long-duration livestreaming digital hosts, AI education, smart services and virtual interaction spaces, achieving 20 FPS streaming at 512×512 on two H100/H200 GPUs. JD also open-sourced JoyAI-Echo for long-form digital human video generation with stable identity and lip-sync. Baixing Intelligence (百型智能) launched OntoZ, a third-generation "enterprise ontology" platform whose digital twin "company body" links to thousands of cross-border B2B agents serving Chinese exporters in 160+ countries.

Cultural, Tourism and Events: Virtual beings are anchoring China's smart-tourism push. Beijing's three-year "AI + Culture and Tourism" Action Plan highlights deployments such as the Summer Palace's bilingual AI digital human customer service, Kexun Feiyun (科大讯飞) AI glasses acting as a "wearable AI tour guide," and the Beijing Economic-Technological Development Area's Robot Mall and Baidu Apollo Park AI tourism showcases. Guangxi's June 5 Environment Day main event in Nanning featured digital human hosts "Xiaoshan" and "Xiaoshui" (小山、小水) opening the ceremony. Shaoguan's Chuanshan Academy uses an AI digital human of philosopher Wang Fuzhi (王夫之) for cross-time dialogue, while the Tengwang Pavilion deploys "AI tour guide Wang Bo" (王勃) that scores recitations of the Tengwang Pavilion Preface. The Hangzhou cultural-tourism agent "Hangxiaoyi" (杭小忆) and Xi'an's Tang Dynasty etiquette robot "Chang'an Daolan Cheng" (长安导览丞) provide immersive AI guidance, and Guizhou's Huangxiaoxi scenic-area agent (黄小西景区智能体) bundles six digital human roles—Baishitong, tour guide, service assistant, smart docent, travel-photo assistant and surroundings expert—with multilingual AI Q&A. Bazhong County in Tibet's Naqu launched a "Lingcao Suyuan" virtual digital human for its Cordyceps festival. The Baoji municipal cultural-tourism plan calls for AI micro-dramas and digital human guides under a "Cultural-Tourism + Digital" track. CMG's Shengshi Magnificent City of Yongchuan in Chongqing hosted the third Film Golden Digital Honor Gala, supported by an LED virtual production stage with digital human motion capture; Yangquan's 1947 AIGC Digital Audio-Visual Industrial Park opened with optical motion capture, MR, AI virtual digital human and XR virtual film-shoot studios, signing AI manhua-drama and simulated human-drama contracts. China Youth Travel Service (中青旅) opened its "Pet-the-Guest Plan" conference with virtual digital human "Zhong Xiaoqing" (钟小青) flying on a kunpeng. The Mercer Labs report contextualizes Chinese sinic immersive players, with Shuhu Image (数虎图像) noted as a Chinese digital-creative firm tracking these trends.

Sports, Entertainment and Fan Culture: Jiangsu Broadcasting Corporation's virtual host Le Yi (乐伊) teamed with players from the Su League's five northern Jiangsu city teams (Xuzhou, Yancheng, Huai'an, Lianyungang, Suqian) in an AR appearance to cheer 2026 gaokao candidates, blending a digital human emcee with real footballers. Hong Kong celebrity Du Rufeng (杜如風) used a Vtuber-style stunt costume during her Korea trip, while TVB former child star Xian Diqi (冼迪琦) warned the public about AI clone scams after fraudsters captured her image and voice over FaceTime—both stories highlight rising public awareness of unauthorized AI digital doubles. Quickkan Comics (快看漫画), founded by Chen Anni, launched the AI "digital life" product Livo aimed at relationship-based monetization.

Short Drama and AI Video Production: Beijing-based JD released JoyAI-Echo with cases like a five-minute "Day at Home" narrative maintaining consistent male-lead identity and voice, illustrating digital actor stability for AI shorts. Capital Online (捷成股份) operates AI creation engine ChatPV with digital human capabilities and partners with Shiyou Technology (世优科技), which has "revived" more than 600 IP virtual figures via motion capture; Huayi Brothers (华谊兄弟) and Huasheng Tiancheng (华胜天成) jointly develop AR/VR digital human IPs; Fengshang Culture (锋尚文化) subsidiary Fengshang Huyu runs four business lines around its virtual digital human IPs including a virtual idol platform; Hengrui (Huanrui) World Century (欢瑞世纪) collaborated with N World on AI digital human characters for its "Lotus Tower" (莲花楼) drama; Tianzhou Culture (天舟文化) operates four virtual VTuber hosts including Linjia Xiaoxian and Xiaoya Tongxue, and its game subsidiary uses virtual mascot Xiao'ai Tongxue. Aoya Co. (奥雅股份) subsidiary Millennium LA in the US develops AIGC digital marketing, digital film studios and virtual human applications. Crazy Stone Studio's interview confirmed Chinese platforms Jiuzhou and Maiya are leading the AI short-drama overseas wave with low-cost, standardized digital-human production, while the article "AI Wheel Should Not Reverse" debates protections for human actors against AI clones in micro-dramas; relatedly, Shanxi police prosecuted resident Xing for unauthorized livestream selling using an AI digital human of Taiwan KMT chair Zheng Lifang. Volcano Engine, Huoshan and Rokid collaborate with Hangzhou-based Huace Film & TV (华策影视), which deploys self-developed "Youfeng" (有风) and "Guose" (国色) film vertical large models, AI digital characters and 50 digital scenes in productions such as "Taipingnian" (太平年), saving over RMB 20 million in costs.

Sign-Language, Government and Enterprise Assistants: Beyond Hangzhou Metro, virtual digital humans staff Chinese enterprise and public-service workflows. SenseTime (商汤科技) was appointed deputy group leader of the national Virtual Digital Human Standards Working Group, received the first batch of GB/T 46483-2025 customer-service virtual digital human conformance certificates alongside iFlytek (科大讯飞) and Baidu, and delivered a keynote on "AI Digital Humans—From Virtual to Reality" while updating its Ruying digital human product line. Chinese International Capital Corporation (CICC) (中金公司) launched "Analyst.Skill" digital clones of more than 300 analysts to deliver one-stop investment research. Dingjie Digital Intelligence (鼎捷数智) unveiled its Athena EIOSpace enterprise intelligent operating space, where digital-twin agents, commander agents and expert agents collaborate with employees and smart equipment, with workers progressively authorizing their digital clones to act autonomously. ST Huayang (ST华扬) and its subsidiaries created the virtual digital human "YOUNG" and upgraded it for Xiamen's "Wenbao Wonderful Night" Huli Cannon Fortress immersive tour. Songtian Education (中公教育) introduced virtual digital lecturer "Xiao Lu" (小鹿) for its AI Digital Class. Jincai Internet (金财互联) launched a "digital virtual person" for fintech operations, while New Beiyang (新北洋) embedded virtual digital human modules into its smart bank teller machines. Jiafa Education (佳发教育) built an AI English tutor as a 3D digital human teacher, and Tianyu Digital Technology (天娱数科) and Guomai Culture (国脉文化) anchor virtual digital human content services for telecom and media, with Guomai's "Ailin Irene" and "Xiaolin" promoting brand and 5G businesses. Nengke Technology (能科科技) advanced digital twin services, Xinhuanet (新华网) announced an RMB 1.122 billion investment in its "Xinhua Yudian" AI Agent platform and is grouped in the virtual digital human concept, and ChuangYe Heima (创业黑马) operates a "metaverse digital human accelerator." Bao Tong Technology (宝通科技) leverages its BOTONSPACE1 platform to build virtual digital humans with naked-eye 3D mixed-reality experiences for gaming and AR/VR via its Hainan Yuanyuzhou subsidiary. Xuanya International (宣亚国际) co-founded the "Julang Metaverse Joint Laboratory" to develop virtual digital humans and XR live broadcasting. Xinchen Technology (新晨科技) explores blockchain-anchored metaverse digital human applications for finance, while Hubei Mobile and Yancheng Polytechnic's media arts college are co-developing AIGC digital human curricula with Yanfu Daily Newspaper Group, whose newsroom showcases AI digital human news anchors and holographic interactive cabins. Mass Reading TCL's smart hotel solution integrates customizable AI virtual digital humans—such as the Suiyuan-branded cartoon mascot "Xiao Suzi" for Sushi Hotel—into in-room TVs for guest services. Lenovo's FIFA World Cup project, although foreign-led, performs 3D scans of roughly 1,200 footballers including Chinese players to generate hyper-realistic digital doubles potentially feeding video-game IP.

Anti-Fraud and Ethical Contexts: Chinese authorities and platforms are increasingly confronting digital-human misuse. Shanxi public security publicized five AI-rumor cases including the unauthorized AI digital human livestream impersonating Taiwan politician Zheng Lifang. Haier appliance executive Zhong Zheng called for mandatory registration of digital humans amid livestream fraud. Kuaishou (快手) reported using a self-developed anti-fraud AI model that blocks 98% of scam risks while operating 23 million-job-creating creator products, alongside its female-virtual-human service "Nüwa Digital Human" and "π Digital Employee" for merchants. A Wuhan single father case sparked national debate over using AI digital humans to "revive" a deceased mother for a grieving toddler, with the father cautiously refusing despite netizens' offers. Li Tingting's FansNetwork in Taiwan demonstrates monetized "AI girlfriend" virtual companions modeled on her own persona, while highlighting risks of emotional dependency.

Education and Knowledge Work: Beyond classroom robots and tutoring digital humans, Xinhua's "Tech Week" probe with the China Association for Listed Companies leveraged douyin creators to bring "national heavy weapons" coverage to 13 billion views; Shenzhen Xinkewei's exhibition-design rosters list digital human guides as standard, and Guangzhou's exhibition-design rankings spotlight AI interaction and digital human applications. Suzhou's pioneer AI startup Xin Shi Yuzhou (心识宇宙), led by Tao Fangbo, is building "Second Me" AI digital clones positioned as a "clone internet" successor to mobile internet, where each user's digital ontology represents them across society. Yueshi Education's Chuanglian Education AI Short Video Master Class trains learners on Doubao, Jimeng, Keling AI digital human livestream and AI office workflows, while Hefei-based Zhaixing AI's Moonzhou Hangxiang model claims 280 million cross-platform recommendations for client Hanrun Home Furnishing and integrates digital human livestream into its "Zhaixing Fangzhou" product suite. Bazhong's Computex demonstrations spotlighted GameOn Group's AI virtual human "Xiao Yuan" (小缘) doubling as a venue navigator at the Taipei show, and Hong Kong streamer Xiao Zhengming (Eason) collaborated with AI VTubers "Qinqin Zi" (亲亲子) and Xiao Yuan, illustrating that mainland and Taiwan livestream cultures are co-shaping AI virtual being acceptance.

06 June News

Healthcare and Digital Life: Multiple Chinese organizations are deploying virtual humans in healthcare and end-of-life contexts. Neusoft (东软集团) developed an AI digital human named "Changbao Kangkang" (常宝康康) for Changzhou's "My Changzhou" residential health platform, serving 5 million citizens with health assessments, medical report interpretation, and chronic disease management; the system is powered by Neusoft's Tianyi medical large model and connects to the city's unified health code. Shandong Digital Human Technology (山东数字人科技股份有限公司), a Jinan High-tech Zone-based national-level "little giant" enterprise led by chairman Xu Yifa, produces virtualized human anatomy through frozen-sectioning and 3D reconstruction to replace traditional cadaver specimens in medical education, and is expanding into clinical applications and digital twin humans. The First Affiliated Hospital of Guangxi University of Chinese Medicine (广西中医药大学第一附属医院) opened an AI Traditional Chinese Medicine Smart Service Experience Zone featuring an AI digital human meridian display and self-test area that performs 3D reconstruction of twelve meridians from 24 acupoint palm scans, alongside AI constitution identification and robotic guides. In the deathcare and emotional comfort space, Nanjing Super Brain Information Technology (南京超级头脑信息技术有限公司), founded by Zhang Zewei, has served over 100,000 clients by recreating deceased relatives as digital humans from photos, videos, chat records, and recollections, used for ongoing conversation, wedding appearances, and parental legacy recordings for terminally ill clients. Xiaoying Technology (小赢科技) launched a corporate virtual digital human called Win-Daidai that converts anti-fraud cases into 24/7 financial consumer education content, and operates the WinAgent intelligent agent platform for smart customer service.

Live-streaming Commerce and Customer Service: Chongqing Guanmei Technology (重庆冠美科技有限公司), working with Hangzhou Maitu Live (杭州麦兔直播), evolved AI livestream hosts through three generations, culminating in a 3.0 "digital twin host" that clones a real anchor's face, voice, and mannerisms, taps an industry large model for real-time Q&A, recognizes viewer behaviors such as add-to-cart, and operates 24/7 with about 20% of Guanmei's clients adopting the technology, addressing the late-night Z-generation shopping window first raised by an international cosmetics client. Hebei Daocheng Electronics (河北道成电子) used digital human livestreaming to achieve over 36 million yuan in cross-border signed deals, while in Fucheng County 340 enterprises including Hebei Baida Mingsheng Integrated Housing (河北佰达铭盛集成房屋有限公司) reached 200 million yuan in livestream-driven sales. Hefei Department Store Group (合百集团) launched a 3D digital IP "AI Xiaobai" (AI小百) covering live commerce, marketing, corporate communications, and customer service. CCB Guangdong Branch (建设银行广东省分行) introduced digital customer service IPs "Long Zhiwei" (龙知微) and "Long Zhiyuan" (龙知远), which handle over 10,000 service scenarios, answer 99% of common questions, and support more than 200 self-service operations, drawing crowds at the Guangzhou International Finance Expo. Guangdong Mingzhu (广东明珠) and other A-share companies were tagged with related concept activity around such deployments.

Media, News, and Cultural Tourism: Jishi Media (吉视传媒) developed the Jilin Cultural Tourism Digital Human, locally deploying a top-tier Chinese large model and a RAG-based knowledge base on the "One Phone Tour Jilin" platform and the Jilin Cultural Tourism Bureau's high-quality dataset, achieving sub-1.5-second latency, 92%+ speech recognition accuracy, Northeast dialect optimization, and multi-terminal deployment; it has served the Northeast Asia Expo and the 2025 China World Heritage Tourism Promotion Alliance (Ji'an) Conference, and was recognized at DCIC 2026 and entered the Golden Lingguang Cup national finals. Laibin Media Center (来宾市融媒体中心) operates an AI digital human exhibition area and an AI manga drama OPC industrial base, with Mingtai (Beijing) Technology (铭台(北京)科技有限公司)—a partner of Volcano Engine (火山引擎), Baidu (百度), and Alibaba (阿里)—visiting to deepen cooperation on AI manga campus curricula and intelligent agent services. Yancheng Daily Media Group (盐阜大众报报业集团) demonstrated a vertical-domain digital human intelligent agent designed for repetitive service-heavy industries, alongside a WorkBuddy intelligent agent and AIGC certification scheme. Wireless Media (无线传媒), serving Hebei IPTV operators, built an AI-based digital human interaction system covering avatar modeling, motion binding, and multimodal model integration for IPTV set-top boxes, smart TV operating systems, OTT, and other end devices. Zhongshi Media (中视传媒) noted that CCTV's virtual character "Xiao 8" was produced via 3D animation by its subsidiary CCTV North (中视北方). Hubei Sanxia Xincai (三峡新材) and other firms surfaced in related concept trading. The Xinhua-affiliated Huiboxing (慧播星) digital human was used to deliver multiple news segments by Kankan News (看看新闻Knews), Netease, and others, including coverage of the Lao president's China visit, official corruption prosecutions, and travel safety reports.

Government, Public Services, and Smart Cities: Hangzhou Yuhang District Ecological Environment Bureau (杭州市生态环境局余杭分局) launched environmental AI digital human "Yu Xiaohuan" (余小环) at the 2026 World Environment Day event in Nanhu Future Science Park, a pilot under the Ministry of Ecology and Environment Information Center; it provides 24/7 multilingual policy and approval guidance for enterprises and the public, mobile decision support for frontline inspectors via Zhejiang's Zhezhengding platform, and PC-side AI Q&A, AI data search, AI mapping, AI archives, AI case files, and an AI EIA think tank for managers. Zhucheng City Federation of Trade Unions (诸城市总工会) launched a 24-hour official livestream on WeChat and Douyin combining real staff during work hours with AI digital human hosts at night and on holidays, covering labor mutual aid, women workers' protections, and safety production. Wuhan Housing and Urban Renewal Bureau (武汉市住房和城市更新局), with Yangtze River Net (长江网), opened a public call to design the IP image and name of a "Wuhan Property Management Digital Human" to communicate policy, popularize knowledge, and mediate disputes in smart community governance. Zhangjiakou Qiaodong District is using digital human technology connected to Hebei provincial systems for streamlined business registration under capital subscription reforms. Jiangsu Bank (江苏银行) and Bank of Nanjing (南京银行) advanced digital RMB smart contract and hard wallet projects whose use cases include controlled prepaid consumption monitoring and supply-chain finance, while Guangzhou Digital Technology Group (广州数科集团) showcased its "Guangxinyu" (广信预) prepaid funds regulatory platform, "Guanghuitong GPX" cross-border platform, and digital RMB smart counters and agricultural terminals; subsidiary Guangdian Yuntong (广电运通) and Chaozhi Machine (超智机器) demonstrated the G100 bank-branch AI robot piloted at a state-owned bank and the G200 humanoid teller robot, plus digital human smart counters deployed in Shanghai and Sichuan banks.

Industrial, Infrastructure, and Specialized Deployments: China Communications Construction First Highway Engineering Group (中交一公局集团) released the "Natural Human + Digital Human + Robot" Tri-Agent Collaboration White Paper at the 2026 Transportation Science and Technology Conference in Tianjin, defining ten knowledge systems and a "43210" target framework, with deployments on the G219 Zhaowen Highway West Tianshan Extra-Long Tunnel, Zhejiang Yilongqing Highway tunnel cluster, and Haitai Yangtze River Tunnel. Unilumin Technology (洲明科技) disclosed a digital human action library and a patented non-wearable motion-capture technology designed to train both digital humans and embodied robots. Baotong Technology (宝通科技) integrates digital twin scenes with virtual humans through its BOTON SPACE 1 platform, including naked-eye 3D mixed-reality presentations. Shandong Zhongwei Century Technology (山东中维世纪科技股份有限公司), located in Jinan High-tech Zone, focuses on AI-vision smart monitoring rather than virtual beings directly, while Shenzhen Xinshiqi (新石器) entered JD.com for unmanned delivery cooperation. Yiwu's vocational education ecosystem trains students for "AI digital human livestreaming" inside Yiwu International Trade City. Mingqing County (闽清) attracted Fuzhou Jingwei Media Technology (福州市鲸纬传媒科技有限公司), an AIGC firm partnering with ByteDance Volcano Engine, iQIYI, Tencent, and Bilibili, to develop AI manga dramas, cultural tourism digital human IPs, and smart cultural tourism projects, supported by the local "Zhiyun Minqing AIStore" computing-power platform. Wuxi-based JoyAI-Echo, open-sourced by JD.com (京东), targets long video, digital human livestreaming, brand marketing, education, and gaming with cross-modal audio-visual memory for consistent character identity. Dali Robot (大晓机器人), with the Chinese University of Hong Kong Multimedia Lab and Shenzhen Hetao Academy, launched the Kairos-HomeWorld interactive whole-house world model for embodied AI and robotic training. SentiPulse, with Renmin University of China's Gaoling School of AI, released the SentiAvatar framework, the SUSU 3D character, and the SuSuInterActs Chinese-dialogue motion dataset to drive expressive, emotion-aware 3D digital humans. iFlytek-backed Spark Cognitive Model (科大讯飞星火) underpins Hefei-area GEO services from Zhaixing AI (摘星 AI) and others, which deploy "Zhaixing Wanxiang" vertical models, AI search placement, smart content generation, short-video SEO, and digital human livestreaming for B2B clients. NetDragon (网龙) won inclusion in the 2025 Metaverse Typical Cases list for its "high-fidelity digital human rapid construction and multi-module interaction system," powering the AI Tour Promoter, the rotating CEO digital human Tang Yu (唐钰), and immersive education, e-commerce, and digital news avatars across 192 countries. SenseTime (商汤科技) led the drafting of GB/T 46483-2025, China's first national standard for customer-service-type virtual digital humans, and continues to develop the Ruying digital human product line.

Cross-border, Diplomatic, and Promotional Deployments: During Lao President Thongloun's June 2026 visit to Zhejiang, he interacted with an Alibaba (阿里巴巴) AI digital human at the company's exhibition hall in Hangzhou, which correctly identified the Lao head of state and exchanged greetings in Chinese. Hangzhou's "Six Little Dragons" company Deep Robotics (云深处科技) presented quadruped and humanoid robots in the same delegation visit, situating digital humans alongside embodied AI in China's external image. The 10th China–South Asia Expo in Kunming features cross-border digital humans, multilingual real-time translation, and AI smart robots in its Service Trade Hall as part of its showcase for digital service exports to South and Southeast Asia. The 2026 World Mayors' Dialogue · Beijing featured immersive replication digital human installations and AR translation glasses, presented to mayors from 73 cities as examples of AI-enabled tourism services in Beijing.

Ethical, Legal, and Risk Contexts: Shanxi public security authorities publicized five typical cases of AI-generated rumor-mongering, including Datong resident Xing using an unauthorized AI digital human of Kuomintang Chairperson Cheng Li-wun (郑丽文) for livestream sales, leading to administrative penalties, plus AI-fabricated factory explosion, highway accident, and stadium fire videos. The Shanghai Association for Science and Technology's Legal Advisory Committee held a forum addressing "personality distillation," AI digital twins of employees, and rights of scientific workers, with contributions from East China University of Political Science and Law, the Shanghai IP Court, SenseTime's Ruying digital human team led by project director Liao Hu, and Paioyun Computing (派欧云计算(上海)有限公司) on agent sandbox safeguards; the Interim Measures for Anthropomorphic Interactive AI Services taking effect in July were highlighted as banning virtual kin and virtual companion services to minors, while existing labeling rules require identification of AI-generated content. Nanjing Super Brain articulated three operating principles—legality, ethical boundaries, and genuine benefit—and screens out psychologically fragile clients to avoid harm, illustrating responsible boundaries in the deceased-relative digital human market.

05 June News

Cultural Tourism: Beijing anchored much of the tourism activity, with the "2026 World Mayors Dialogue · Beijing," held 2 June at the Zhongguancun International Innovation Center under the theme of future tourism and smart-city development, featuring a "replica digital human" installation that visiting mayors experienced firsthand. At the same summit Haidian District released, to a global audience, its "Ten Scenarios of Beijing Cultural-Tourism Technology Application," structured around a virtual digital human travel blogger named Luke (卢克) whose video journey through Beijing framed the showcase, while the Summer Palace (颐和园) brought online an AI-plus-digital-human smart customer-service system built on artificial intelligence and digital human technology. In Guizhou, the "Huang Xiaoxi Scenic Agent" (黄小西景区智能体) was upgraded to carry six digital human sub-avatars covering roles such as a know-it-all guide, a touring guide, a service assistant, and an intelligent narrator. Shenzhen's Bao'an District responded to public proposals by committing to extend its existing digital human smart-inquiry system with multi-scenario translation terminals and personalized guided-tour functions for major events.

Government and Public Services: Several provinces deployed named digital human personas for civic functions. Guangxi paired a physical robot and a digital human, both called Zhuangzhuang (壮壮), within the regional judicial-administration AI application system, where the digital version improvised legal-education content on electronic screens. Sichuan's Dazhou launched a food-safety digital human to explain the work of a people's-congress food-safety supervision station, and Guangdong's "Yuezhihu" (粤智助) government-service terminals, alongside Shanxi's community employment and social-security service points, illustrated digital human interfaces replacing manual guidance. At Nanning's airport a digital human functions as an intelligent inquiry clerk answering flight and routing questions, and Jiangsu's meteorological service introduced a science-popularization brand, Susu (苏苏), realized as a cartoon, a digital human, and a physical mascot to serve youth content, digital communication, and offline outreach respectively.

Healthcare: Jiangsu's smart-hospital push featured prominently, with Changzhou No. 1 People's Hospital (常州第一人民医院) using a digital human to make navigation, questioning, and task completion easier for patients, and the Jiangsu Province People's Hospital (江苏省人民医院, also known as the First Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing Medical University) folding digital human and broader AI tools into its patient-facing services. The reporting framed these as part of a wider transition from screen-based digital humans toward physical service robots within hospital settings.

Banking and Finance: At the 15th Financial Expo (金交会) in Guangzhou, GRG Banking (广电运通) showcased its digital human smart teller, which it reported is accelerating deployment across multiple banks in Shanghai and Sichuan, using digital human interaction to replace human guidance and lower the barrier to using self-service terminals. China Construction Bank (建设银行) set up a digital human interactive zone at the same expo to draw public participation alongside its digital-currency and payment promotions, signaling that conversational digital humans are becoming a standard fixture of bank branch and exhibition experiences.

Industry, Energy, and Infrastructure: China Communications First Highway Engineering Group (中交一公局集团) released, in Tianjin on 4 June, a white paper on a "natural person plus digital human plus robot" three-party collaboration model for the infrastructure sector, reporting that the paradigm has already been applied at the West Tianshan extra-long tunnel on the Xinjiang G219 Zhaowen Highway and at projects in Zhejiang. Shiyou Technology (世优科技) extended its Bota (波塔) AI digital human multimodal interaction system—associated with virtual hosts such as A Yang (阿央)—into the energy sector, supporting exhibition halls and command-center large screens for electricity, coal, and water utilities through a "digital human factory" content pipeline, the Bota AI agent, virtual broadcasting, and digital exhibition tools. In Shandong's manufacturing upgrade, Zhongke Huahong (中科华宏) digital humans were among the technologies introduced across cities including Weifang and Jining, and a Hebei rubber-industry initiative in Jingxian described developing dedicated AI quality, R&D, and sales digital humans to move enterprises beyond merely "using software."

Media and Live Commerce: Baidu's (百度) Huiboxing (慧播星) AI live-streaming platform, built on its Ernie/Wenxin large model, was used to auto-generate the digital human presenters in news videos, including coverage of a Shandong banking disciplinary case and a Henan stadium running-track defect, demonstrating routine newsroom use of synthetic anchors. Jiangxi Radio and Television (江西广播电视台), through its iView platform (今视频), built a self-developed digital human broadcasting system enabling uninterrupted reporting as part of media-convergence work in Nanchang. In commerce, Hebei's Baoding High-Tech Zone promoted AI digital humans to enable round-the-clock industrial-product livestreaming and exhibition, the home-furnishing brand Goldenhome (金牌家居) created what it billed as the industry's first digital human IP, Jin Chanzi (金婵紫), to court younger consumers, and Shaanxi's Weikelian Technology (微轲联科技) positioned itself as a provider of AI digital human, AI livestreaming, and AI content-creation customer-acquisition services. NetDragon (网龙), based in Changle, Fujian, was the province's sole entry on the national 2025 Metaverse Typical Cases list and promotes a livestreaming digital human solution framed as the "soul of perceptive interaction" for assisting human anchors and live-commerce sellers.

Education: A vocational-education consortium discussed at a forum in Wuhan reported aggregating 329 institutions and 42 leading enterprises around the incubation of digital human teacher agents (数字人教师智能体) for cultural and arts disciplines. In Shandong's Jinan, a third vocational-education forum highlighted the use of digital human technology to produce roughly forty teacher-avatar courses anchored to job-skill requirements. Separately, an essay recounted children responding emotionally to an AI-generated virtual image of Sun Yat-sen (孙中山) that questioned them about the railway and port blueprints of his nation-building program, illustrating digital historical figures used in educational and cultural settings.

Technology Platforms and Capital Markets: JD.com (京东) open-sourced its JoyAI-Echo long audio-video generation framework on 3 June, releasing code and weights on GitHub and citing applications in digital human livestreaming, virtual story creation, brand-marketing video, education, and gaming; its cross-modal audio-video memory bank, a Director Agent for natural-language scripting, and a real-time super-resolution module are designed to keep character identity, appearance, and voice consistent across multi-shot videos up to five minutes long. iFlytek (科大讯飞) reported that its AI Virtual Human Interaction Platform, built on the Spark (星火) large model, became the first customer-service virtual digital human platform to pass full-function conformity testing under a new national standard, having earlier co-authored two ITU digital human standards and served clients including the National Open University, China Southern Power Grid, Ping An, Xinhua News Agency, and CCTV. In Hong Kong, the Hong Kong Generative AI Research and Development Center (香港生成式人工智能研发中心), an InnoHK-funded center led by HKUST and directed by Guo Yike, released its HKGAI V3 model on 3 June with an explicit goal of becoming a "Digital Hong Kong Person" (数字香港人), and its "Niannian" (念念) full-scenario digital-memory service uses multimodal interaction to deliver biographies, life micro-films, and interactive digital humans that together form a personal memory world model. Beijing's Luster LightTech (凌云光) was cited for self-developed light-field reconstruction and light-field imaging underpinning metaverse and virtual digital human applications. The sector's leading commercial milestone is Nanjing-based Silicon Intelligence (硅基智能), which filed for a Hong Kong main-board listing to become the prospective "first digital human stock," reporting roughly 7.89 billion yuan in 2025 revenue, an estimated 32.2 percent share of China's digital human agent market, and well over 100,000 digital human agents deployed across telecom, finance, healthcare, education, and public services via its DUIX platform and Yandi (炎帝) model, with Tencent and Sequoia China among its backers. The breadth of deployment was further underscored when visiting Lao President Thongloun, during a stop in Hangzhou, conversed in Chinese with a digital human at Alibaba.

Standards and Accessibility: National standardization is consolidating the field. The customer-service virtual digital human standard GB/T 46483-2025 (《信息技术 客服型虚拟数字人通用技术要求》), evaluated by the China Electronics Standardization Institute's testing laboratory, set the conformity benchmark that iFlytek's platform was first to clear in full. A parallel national-standard project, the technical specification for sign-language digital humans (《信息技术 手语数字人技术规范》), is being drafted by Zhejiang Lab (之江实验室), the China Electronics Standardization Institute (中国电子技术标准化研究院), NetEase (网易), Alibaba DAMO Academy (阿里巴巴达摩院), Zhejiang Special Education Vocational College (浙江特殊教育职业学院), and the Hunan firm Changguang Qianbo Technology (长广千博科技), and is positioned to move sign-language digital humans, which provide hearing-impaired audiences with translation and broadcasting, from fragmented projects toward unified, regulated development.

Ethical and Regulatory Contexts: Legal and reputational tensions around synthetic humans surfaced repeatedly. A Shanghai science-and-technology association legal forum warned that the rapid growth of the virtual digital human industry is generating unresolved personality-rights questions, and a commentary arguing that AI "can model a face but not a heart of empathy" called for enforcement under the Digital Virtual Human Technical Requirements (《数字虚拟人技术要求》) and the Measures for Labeling AI-Generated Synthetic Content (《人工智能生成合成内容标识办法》) against unauthorized face-swapping and infringing avatar creation. The Youku (优酷) period drama Qiaochu (《翘楚》), starring Chen Duling (陈都灵), drew a viral controversy when a supporting actress, Liu Jin (刘瑾), was wrongly suspected of being an AI "virtual human" because of a "modeling face," a misfire that commentators tied to broader anxieties exemplified by iQiyi's (爱奇艺) AI-artist-library dispute and a rights claim against Yaoke Media (耀客传媒) over a face-clashing AI artist, amid a sharp rise in AI-generated short-drama output. Reflecting the same blurring of lines, the singer He Junlin (贺峻霖) publicly insisted he is a real person rather than an AI-generated virtual image.

04 June News

Healthcare: Large-model-based "doctor AI avatars" are moving from pilot programs to broad clinical deployment across multiple regions of China, with hospitals building specialty-specific versions tied to their own clinical strengths. These systems are framed as a way to extend scarce expert capacity beyond the physical limits of top-tier institutions and to advance medical equity, while regulators and commentators stress the need to draw clear boundaries around liability and appropriate use.

Cultural Tourism: Beijing has positioned digital humans at the center of a three-year "AI plus culture and tourism" push for 2026 through 2028, with the Summer Palace launching an AI-and-digital-human intelligent customer-service system and planners describing multilingual pocket AI tour guides alongside a conversational AI digital human of the writer Lu Xun (鲁迅). At the Hunan Tourism Development Conference, the Hengyang city IP "Huo Chu Quan," modeled on the fire god Zhurong with hair rendered as traditional flame patterns, was showcased as a 3D digital human to illustrate the production advantages of synthetic characters over live filming. Baidu (百度) supplies digital humans in this space as well, including the "Art Goose" character for the National Centre for the Performing Arts and a virtual human for the National Museum, and it maintains a strategic mapping partnership with Amap (高德地图). The "2026 World Mayors Dialogue · Beijing" event likewise featured a digital human installation pitched at overcoming language barriers in city tourism.

Entertainment and Micro-Drama: Industrial bases are clustering synthetic-character production into dedicated zones, with the Optics Valley AI Film and TV Drama Industry Base in Wuhan hosting OPC creator communities focused on AI comic dramas, short dramas, AI games, AI digital humans, and AI livestreaming, drawing in studios such as Wuhan Lingdong and partners including Hubei Zhiyin Media (知音传媒). A parallel Jilin Youth Film and TV OPC Innovation Center in Changchun trains "super-individual" creators in digital human modeling, cloud rendering, and short-drama production. The Chinese micro-drama and comic-drama market was estimated at roughly 16.8 to 20 billion yuan for 2025, and digital human anchors are now being folded into content regulation that requires labeling of AI-generated figures. Audience pushback also surfaced around the virtual-human music variety format "Huanyin Geshou," which critics compared to the long-running virtual idol Hertz (荷兹) from nearly a decade earlier.

Marketing and Livestream Commerce: Baidu's Huiboxing (慧播星) platform anchors much of the digital-human livestreaming market, offering one-click cloning that reproduces a presenter's voice, appearance, and studio set from a short video, supporting round-the-clock automated selling, and appearing as the production tool behind a large volume of short news videos. Hebei Dingkang Grain and Oil (鼎康粮油) runs AI digital human anchors on its JD self-operated livestream around the clock under a "one product, one broadcast" e-commerce program in Handan. Kaitui Technology (开推科技) provides a full-chain AI short-video service spanning talking-head digital human clips, product videos, and short-drama creation, with the option of independent enterprise deployment. Tiandi Online (天地在线) is positioned as an AI digital human and marketing application leader whose digital human and virtual digital content services remain at an early development stage, while Monster Intelligence (怪兽智能) differentiates a "GEO optimization" offering that combines a knowledge base, vertical models, content agents, an AI digital human, and sentiment monitoring.

Enterprise and Government Services: Operational digital humans are being embedded into logistics, civic, and financial workflows. Wintime (维天运通) reported that its AI digital human "Road Bro" (路小哥) processed 58,304 online workflows while cutting paper use, and Neusoft (东软) built the AI digital human "Changbao Kangkang" (常宝康康) into the "My Changzhou" portal as part of a first regional "one person, one file, one code" service. In Guangzhou, the "Guangxinyu" prepaid-card platform introduced a digital human smart counter integrated with anti-money-laundering and cross-border payment functions. Silk Road Vision (丝路视觉) is advancing a digital twin and digital human platform powered by its self-developed Tia engine (提亚引擎) in Henan, while Wuhan's Housing and Urban Renewal Bureau, with Changjiang Net, opened a public competition to design an official "Wuhan property digital human" image conveying reliable grassroots governance. Public-facing deployments extended to diplomacy, with Lao President Thongloun interacting in Chinese with a digital human during a visit to Alibaba (阿里巴巴) in Hangzhou.

Media and Broadcasting: Shandong Radio and Television (山东广播电视台) built an AIGC platform that provides digital human broadcasting alongside AI topic selection, smart editing, media-asset restoration, and multimodal generation, presented by its editor-in-chief as a way to activate regional Qilu culture for production across the broadcaster.

Education: Schools and universities are integrating digital humans into instruction and creative training. Fuzhou University of Business (福州工商学院) partnered with iFlytek (科大讯飞) to establish an AI industry college where students experienced iFlytek virtual humans, and Huairou District Experimental Primary School in Beijing used a dialogue digital human as a teaching assistant in art class. Ma'anshan hosted an "AIGC Digital Human Li Bai Application Contest" built around a digital human of the poet Li Bai (李白), and the VR College of Jiangxi University of Finance and Economics (江西财经大学) wove AI digital humans and VR narration into "red drama" coursework in Nanchang. Leyun Technology (乐运科技) markets digital human teaching assistants and multi-scenario digital humans for university MOOCs, and China Unicom (中国联通) ran digital human interaction stations within its Unicom Wo Music AI showroom under a Guangdong "i-Companion" youth program.

Accessibility: A national standard for sign-language digital humans has taken effect, supporting deployments across smart-city apps that span real-time sign-language news broadcasting, government-hall service guidance, and museum navigation. Changguang Qianbo Technology (长广千博科技), a second-tier state enterprise controlled by Changsha Radio and Television (长沙市广播电视台), has specialized in AI sign-language broadcasting, digital humans, and intelligent translation since 2023 and helped author the standard.

Technology, Platforms, and Standards: SenseTime (商汤) led drafting of China's first national digital human standard, the General Technical Requirements for Customer-Service Virtual Digital Humans (GB/T 46483-2025), working with more than thirty industry, academic, and research units under the guidance of the China Electronics Standardization Institute, and its SenseAvatar platform (如影) underpins earlier showcases including the first large-model-driven Laozi (老子) and Qian Xuesen (钱学森) digital humans. iFlytek's AI virtual human interaction platform separately passed national-standard certification across its full feature set. FaceUnity (相芯科技), incubated from Zhejiang University in Hangzhou and now partnered with the Gongshu district, builds digital humans through its photo-to-avatar (P2A) technology and AvatarX platform across five categories ranging from cartoon to hyper-realistic "full-real" figures. Silicon Intelligence (硅基智能) of Nanjing, attempting a second Hong Kong listing, is described as China's largest digital human agent provider with a 32.2 percent share by 2024 revenue and second place globally, marketing its outputs as a "silicon-based labor force" spanning video generation, livestreaming, and multimodal interaction. Chingmu Vision (青瞳视觉) of Shanghai set a publicly verifiable record for the largest real-time multi-person motion capture using infrared optical systems applied to animation, film, games, virtual humans, and robot training, and Xiaoduo Intelligent Technology (小哆智能科技) of Beijing filed a patent for streaming text-to-digital-human real-time conversion.

Memorialization: The Hong Kong Generative AI Research and Development Center released its HKGAI V3 model with the explicit ambition of becoming a "Digital Hong Kong Person," and its full-scenario digital memory service Niannian (念念) offers three core capabilities centered on biography creation, life micro-films, and interactive digital humans intended to form a personal memory model.

Ethical and Regulatory Contexts: The Shenzhen Consumer Council issued a warning on AI virtual companion apps, citing revealingly dressed virtual personas and conversations laden with vulgar suggestion and extreme "violence" or "emotional fighting" scenarios that threaten the wellbeing of minors. Enforcement actions targeted misuse of synthetic likenesses, including an administrative penalty against the unauthorized use of Kuomintang chairwoman Cheng Li-wen's (郑丽文) image as an AI digital human for livestream selling, alongside a set of AI rumor cases publicized by Shanxi cyber authorities. Regulatory tightening around micro-drama now brings digital human anchors under AIGC labeling requirements, and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has signaled a broad consensus on disciplining digital human development.

03 June News

Industry Leadership and Commercialization: The clearest commercialization signal comes from Silicon Intelligence (硅基智能), the Nanjing-based provider that has become the reference point for the digital-human sector in China. Founded in 2017 by Sima Huapeng, the company ranked first among Chinese digital-human intelligent-agent providers in 2024 with about 32.2 percent market share, and had cumulatively supplied more than 80,000 "silicon-based workers" to the telecommunications, finance, and government sectors. Its technology centers on the self-developed model that was upgraded into the multimodal system DUIX ONE, simulating appearance, voice, and expression, and its digital humans are applied across AI telephone voice service, AI clone video generation, AI livestreaming, and AI intelligent interaction. On 31 October 2025 it filed for a Hong Kong main-board listing, positioning itself as a prospective "first digital-human stock," with Tencent holding roughly 16.59 percent as the largest external investor and Sequoia among other backers. The company has also moved into international expansion, partnering with municipal science-and-technology bodies in Yuxi, Yunnan, to push digital humans toward South and Southeast Asian markets and beyond.

Media and Broadcasting: Provincial and municipal media organizations are embedding synthetic presenters into newsroom workflows. Guangxi Daily Media Group (广西日报传媒集团) launched a digital-human anchor named Xiyun and linked it across city- and county-level convergence-media centers for regional content distribution. Shandong Radio and Television (山东广播电视台) built an AIGC platform whose functions include AI topic selection, intelligent editing, media-asset restoration, digital-human broadcasting, and multimodal generation. Zhengzhou Youth Daily (郑州少年报) introduced an AI digital human called Zheng Xiaozheng at its launch ceremony as an interactive newsroom presence aimed at younger readers. Oriental Pearl (东方明珠) consolidated its activity around a proprietary digital-human platform supporting virtual livestreaming and cultural-tourism augmented-reality guided tours, alongside set-top-box AIGC agents and related services.

Commerce, Retail, and Livestreaming: Digital humans are being deployed extensively across e-commerce and on-site retail. Douyin (抖音) launched a "City Treasures" initiative under its "national heavy equipment" series, first landing in Zhejiang, using digital-human livestreaming to inject activity into traditional markets. Leqi Group (乐其集团) described providing dozens of brands with a "real-person broadcast by day, digital-human broadcast by night" livestreaming service during the 618 shopping period in Hangzhou. JD.com (京东) was cited offering free digital-human livestreaming with what was described as hundreds of digital-human "CEO" presenters appearing in its livestream rooms. PetroChina (中国石油) piloted a Hongmeng-based smart refueling machine carrying a digital-human intelligent-guidance function at a Shenyang station in its Liaoning sales operation. Jushanghui (巨商汇) filed a patent for a guided-shopping interaction method using a digital human running on a locally deployed open-source large model and a brand-specific knowledge base, while Tianyu Digital (天娱数科) framed its transition around AI marketing and virtual humans. The same period saw AI virtual fashion models gaining traction, with algorithm-generated lifelike figures used by brands and platforms to compress garment-display production cycles and costs.

Public Services and Accessibility: Government and public-interest bodies are adopting named digital humans for outreach and inclusion. In Wuhan, an anti-illegal-finance AI digital human named Xiaowu delivered safety reminders at a 2026 municipal prevention fair. At Shenyang Railway Station, a sign-language digital-human system named Silvia was launched to translate text and speech into standard sign language and broadcast travel notices for hearing-impaired passengers. In Nanning, Guangxi, an AI digital human named Xiaoguang was released as the public face of a disabled-employment promotion campaign. China Unicom (中国联通) hosted children at its Wo Music AI hall during a Guangdong "i-Companion" care program, where participants engaged in digital-human interaction, AI music creation, and volunteer-themed virtual reality. In Longgang, a digital human named Xiao Yucong featured in an AI short film linking anti-corruption cultural sites, and a Tibet legal-popularization short-video campaign encouraged unified virtual images carrying Tibetan cultural features.

Cultural Heritage, Education, and Training: Digital humans are being used both as cultural artifacts and as taught skills. Nanning Vocational and Technical University (南宁职业技术大学) worked with Zhuang-brocade intangible-heritage masters to create an AI heritage digital human, using high-definition imaging to preserve the weaving and patterning process and to build a dedicated "Zhuang brocade digital gene library." A Liaoning education program applied digital-human technology to stage time-and-space dialogues with historical heroes and to offer full-scene virtual tours of red-culture venues. In Shaanxi, a national science-and-technology week featured digital-human interaction and dexterous-hand demonstrations opened to the public, and vocational training in digital-human production appeared in curricula at institutions including a Shandong city-service college and a Jilin youth film-and-television innovation center covering scripting, intelligent editing, digital-human modeling, and cloud rendering. A digital educator rendering of Tao Xingzhi appeared in Hechuan, Chongqing, as a teaching-oriented application, and AI-generated short dramas and animation introduced a "digital-intelligent worker" rendering of Lei Feng to retell stories of ordinary labor.

Entertainment and Micro-Drama: The micro-drama and interactive-content field is rapidly incorporating synthetic performers. Bingo Group (比高集团), associated with Stephen Chow, took a stake in Interactive Star (互动之星), which focuses on AI animated drama, AI realistic-human drama, interactive film-and-games, and live-action mid-length short dramas. The broader AI short-drama segment expanded sharply, with reporting that more than 2,100 AI short-drama-related companies had registered in China in 2026, and that AI-generated content such as digital-human anchors was being drawn into supervision.

Enterprise Clones and Professional Applications: A distinct strand of activity centers on professional "digital clones" and platform certification. China International Capital Corporation (中金公司) launched digital clones of six analysts as callable agents on its research platform, allowing users to converse directly with an analyst's digital twin to obtain services. Digiwin (鼎捷数智), through executive Yip Tzu-chen, argued that a person's future AI clone could execute work on their behalf, progressing from assistant to decision-support "second brain" to authorized autonomous execution, while RongCloud (融云) presented an AI-clone product among award-cited offerings. iFlytek (科大讯飞) was reported to have passed national-standard certification for the full functionality of its AI virtual-human interaction platform. Sinodata (中科金财) developed a digital-human content-production engine and metaverse scene-development tools delivered through AIGC, and Xinchen Technology (新晨科技) outlined plans to build cooperation around metaverse digital humans, VR and AR wearables, and cloud rendering. On a Jiangsu expressway-paving project, a "three-person collaboration" model paired remote human operation with digital-human real-time analysis and precise robotic execution.

Regulatory and Ethical Contexts: Governance of virtual beings advanced significantly during this period. On 3 April 2026 the Cyberspace Administration of China issued the draft Measures for the Administration of Digital Virtual Human Information Services for public comment, defining digital virtual humans as non-physical figures that use graphics, digital image processing, or artificial intelligence and are driven by a real person or by computation to simulate human appearance with voice, behavior, interaction, or personality. The draft requires that a prominent "digital human" label be displayed continuously throughout the service, and it prohibits offering minors virtual relatives, virtual companions, or other virtual intimate relationships that induce overconsumption, religious inducement, or content harmful to minors' physical and mental health. The public-comment window ran to 6 May 2026. Industry reporting tied these requirements to falling digital-human technology costs and a shift toward scaled application, noting the draft's stipulation that modeling authorized on a natural person's sensitive information requires separate single consent and that providers establish safety-risk monitoring, while the parallel expansion of AI short dramas brought obligations to label AI-generated human imagery.

02 June News

Entertainment: Several China-based productions are moving virtual performers into mainstream film and short-form drama. The costume-fantasy series Shenxian Rou (《神仙肉》), since retitled Nian Xiangsi (《念相思》) and produced by Jinhe Film and Television (金禾影视), is reported to retain only its four core human leads while casting AI digital humans in all remaining supporting, background, and functional roles, an approach framed as a cost-reduction pilot associated with iQIYI (爱奇艺) and seen as a test case for whether AI extras will spread into long-form drama. In Shanghai, the Songjiang culture-tourism and film sector is integrating AI interactive short dramas and immersive theatre, with digital humans introduced into scenic areas to revive intellectual property and support VR immersive experiences. Migu (咪咕) is advancing AI-generated micro-dramas as a model for Chinese audiovisual content aimed at overseas distribution, while a separate Shanghai initiative, the Bund Creation Festival, highlighted creators using digital humans to build English-language video accounts that gained large followings within months. In the northeast, the Changchun International Film Capital in Jilin is building an AI-plus-film lightweight production track in which digital humans feature in low-cost, intelligent content creation.

Marketing: Digital-human livestreaming and AI video generation now anchor much of China's e-commerce and content marketing. Baidu (百度) operates Huiboxing (慧播星), a full-stack AI digital-human livestreaming solution with one-click real-person cloning that lets merchants generate lifelike presenter avatars from a short video, and the same technology has been adopted by news publishers to produce short news clips on subjects ranging from a food-safety case in Hubei to an employer distributing cash bonuses in Henan, with a widely noted instance being a Baidu-powered digital human of entrepreneur Luo Yonghao whose broadcast reportedly surpassed his in-person sales figures in a fraction of the time, alongside a Baidu AI Cloud digital-economy base in Yuncheng where digital humans greet visitors and support MCN operations. JD.com (京东) fielded its digital human JoyStreamer during the 618 shopping period, with the system used by merchants to open automated broadcasts. Bola Smart Computing (博拉智算科技有限公司) in Chongqing combines top-tier Kuaishou and Douyin local-services credentials with AI intelligent video generation and digital humans to serve catering, tourism, and lifestyle-consumption businesses. All in AI (酱油文化), a Zhejiang content team of roughly 1,200 staff, uses AIGC pipelines in which digital-human models lock onto facial features and cloud computing renders finished clips, with its output increasingly aimed at overseas audiences.

Technology: A cluster of Chinese developers released or certified core virtual-human technologies. Soul App, through its Soul AI Lab and the Soul Zhang Lu team, open-sourced a family of real-time digital-human generation models, including the 14-billion-parameter SoulX-FlashTalk, which reaches sub-second startup latency of 0.87 seconds at 32 frames per second with stable long-video output, the lightweight 1.3-billion-parameter SoulX-FlashHead for consumer GPUs, and the streaming-focused SoulX-LiveAct. Meituan (美团), via its LongCat team, open-sourced LongCat-Video-Avatar and its 1.5 revision, an audio-driven avatar framework that generates lip-synced talking videos from a single portrait and audio, with upgraded encoding for smoother lip dynamics, multi-character interaction, and stable long-form identity consistency. iFlytek (科大讯飞) became the first vendor whose AI virtual-human interaction platform passed full-functionality certification against the national standard GB/T 46483-2025 for customer-service virtual digital humans, evaluated by the China Electronics Standardization Institute. CHINGMU Vision (青瞳视觉) staged a hundred-performer real-time motion-capture digital-action showcase in Shanghai as part of the 2026 Shanghai Information Consumption Festival, with AMD as senior computing partner and participation from Unitree Robotics (宇树科技) in an embodied-intelligence segment in which one performer teleoperated several humanoid units, demonstrating large-space optical capture driving live digital avatars. FaceUnity (相芯科技) in Hangzhou contributed photo-to-avatar technology that builds a fully dynamic three-dimensional virtual figure from a single phone photo, together with face-tracking and virtual-employee solutions, and featured among the technology firms anchoring a joint-laboratory launch in the city's Gongshu district.

Healthcare: In Guangdong, JD Health (京东健康) joined with the First Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University (广州医科大学附属第一医院) to release a respiratory-medicine artificial-intelligence dataset, within which a digital human performs the consultation step of a standardized patient pathway that runs from registration and reach-out through digital-human triage, health-history confirmation, report upload and analysis, and synchronization with medical records. The deployment positions the virtual being as a front-line intake and questioning interface rather than a back-office tool.

Tourism: Cultural and travel institutions are embedding digital humans into visitor services and exhibitions. In Beijing, the Summer Palace launched AI-plus-digital-human smart customer service and a portable AI tour-guide function under the municipal three-year action plan for artificial intelligence in culture and tourism covering 2026 to 2028. In Yunnan, the tenth China–South Asia Expo in Kunming featured digital humans alongside multilingual real-time translation and a cross-border computing-power corridor as showcased frontier technologies. In Heilongjiang, the Wanjuan Pavilion Ancient Books Digital Exhibition Hall in Qiqihar, described as the province's first hall of its kind, uses three-screen linkage, AR modeling, and a digital human across themed sections devoted to regional and frontier cultural history.

Cultural: Digital humans are being built as cultural intellectual property and public-messaging vehicles. In Anhui, the AIGC Digital Human Li Bai application competition concluded in Ma'anshan on 29 May 2026 with a results showcase, and the city announced plans to develop Li Bai and further digital cultural IP around the classical poet. In Shenzhen, the eighth clean-governance micro-film and short-video contest in Longgang featured the digital human Xiao Yucong in the AI short film Congxing Sihai (《琮行四海》), which linked anti-corruption cultural sites across multiple locations. In Guangxi, a disability-employment promotion effort launched an AI digital-human image named Xiaoguang as the public face of its outreach.

Education: Schools and community programs are introducing digital humans into instruction. In Hunan, the Changsha No. 2 Experimental Primary School integrated an AI digital human and smart-rhythm tools into a patriotic music lesson. In Inner Mongolia, students at a primary school in Horqin Right Middle Banner used Beijing-supplied AI courses to create their own digital humans in the computer classroom, an example of efforts to narrow the urban-rural digital divide.

Enterprise: Industrial bases and conferences are organizing around the digital-human sector. In Beijing, the municipal Digital Human Base operates an innovation community for one-person companies at Zhongguancun, offering ten-minute registration and a virtual-real fusion sports platform combining space computing, mixed reality, and motion capture for resident entrepreneurs. In Hubei, the province's first AI Yuanshengli Ecological Innovation Conference in Wuhan featured Modal Leap (模态跃迁), whose founder hosted a roundtable, and presented an AI digital-human persona named Transcender on stage with multiple guests. In Guangzhou, authorities began a nationally early standardized pilot for intelligent public legal services that embeds AI large models, digital humans, and intelligent algorithms into smart legal consultation, automatic legal-document generation, and case-handling assistance.

Ethical Contexts: Regulatory and labor questions are advancing alongside deployment. The Cyberspace Administration of China issued draft Measures for the Administration of Digital Virtual Human Information Services in April 2026, which the law firm JunHe (君合) characterizes as the country's first regulation dedicated specifically to digital virtual human information services, consolidating requirements that had previously been scattered across rules on AI-generated content management, algorithmic recommendation, and personal-information protection. In parallel, the prospect of AI digital humans replacing supporting actors and extras in long-form drama has prompted public debate over displacement of working performers, the ownership and consent basis for the faces used to train such avatars, and the risk of uncanny, stiff performances when synthetic characters move beyond minor background roles.

01 June News

Entertainment and Music: The "Youth Xiangtan · Bubugao Night" concert, produced by Hunan Satellite TV (湖南卫视) and simulcast on Mango TV (芒果TV) at the Xiangtan Sports Center on 30 May 2026, was built around an AI-technology stage and a "Xiangtan-limited AI avatar" (AI分身) concept. Singer Bibi Zhou (周笔畅) performed "Use All of Me to Run Toward You" together with her own AI avatar, which ran out onto the stage to interact with her across space. In a companion AI roaming drama titled "Thousands of Mountains and Rivers" (万水千山), an AI avatar of singer Hailai Amu (海来阿木) traveled through time across five Xiangtan landmarks—Zhaoshan, the Xiangjiang "Smile Curve" bend, a Qi Baishi ink painting, the 1,700-year-old Yaowan district, and Wanlou tower—to gather the city's treasures and awaken his musical energy before his live set. Separately, Yuehua Entertainment (乐华娱乐) sustained its long-running virtual-being strategy: founder and CEO Du Hua, who has shown consistent interest in virtual humans, launched her own virtual image "Huahuazi" (华华子) and, at a 29 January "Entrepreneurs' Night," positioned 2026 as the company's transformation year toward becoming a "robot + AI + designer-toy" technology-entertainment company. The Huahuazi avatar was cloned by the Beijing firm Fengping Intelligence (风平智能), and the label previously ran the motion-capture virtual idol group A-SOUL. In March 2026 Yuehua debuted HeyDream, billed as Asia's first "AI-driven real-person girl group," using a real-person-face plus full-process AI production technique, a move treated as a milestone for domestic AI idols.

Marketing and Content Creation: Baidu (百度) operates Huiboxing (慧播星), presented as the industry's first full-stack AI digital-human livestreaming solution, which lowers the barrier to live commerce by letting merchants complete a digital-human livestream in as few as three steps. Built on the Ernie large model, its one-click cloning feature reproduces a person's voice, image, and livestream-room decoration from a roughly three-minute video, with lip-sync technology supporting wide side-turns and handheld product demonstrations. The same digital-human capability was credited in promotional video work tied to the drama "The Little Alley Family 2" (小巷人家2). ByteDance (字节跳动) offers a competing tool through its Ocean Engine "Jichuang" (即创) AIGC platform; its digital-human finished-video capability lets businesses generate realistic presenters, with users producing more than 400,000 AIGC assets daily and advanced merchants commissioning private bespoke digital humans. At the municipal level, Shanghai's newly launched "Bund Creation Festival" (外滩创作节) spotlighted ordinary creators using digital humans to build English-language accounts that gained tens of thousands of followers within three months, and in Guiyang the cross-border e-commerce firm Guizhou Lingquan Cross-border Supply Chain Management (贵州领圈跨境供应链管理服务有限公司) reported developing "smart mixed-cut" and "digital-human cloning" features for solo overseas sellers.

Enterprise, Customer Service, and Technical Standards: iFlytek (科大讯飞) announced that its AI Virtual Human Interaction Platform was the first in China to pass full-function conformance testing for the national standard GB/T 46483-2025 on customer-service virtual digital humans. The evaluation by the China Electronics Standardization Institute covered 2D and 3D image generation and driving, visual and voice capture and wake-up, speech recognition, semantic understanding, speech synthesis, knowledge management, and emotion capture, recognition, decision-making and expression. Built on the company's Spark large model, the platform spans products including mobile digital humans, smart interaction machines, the iFlytek Smart Production tool, and a PC-side virtual-human assistant, and serves clients such as the Open University of China (国家开放大学), China Southern Power Grid (南方电网), Ping An (中国平安), Xinhua News Agency (新华社), and CCTV.com (央视网). Its digital human "Xiaofei" can listen and see, retain conversational history, distinguish whether it is being addressed in a multi-party setting, converse in foreign languages, and assume personas such as the literary figure Lin Daiyu; the company also led two ITU-T digital-human international standards. Alibaba Cloud (阿里云) filed a patent for a digital-human control method (publication number CN122120528A, filed November 2024) intended to make digital-human state transitions more natural and fluid, complementing its existing virtual digital-human open platform offered as a PaaS and SaaS solution for retail, government, finance, telecom, and media scenarios. Tianditech (天地在线) clarified, following abnormal stock movement, that its digital-human, digital-content, and VR large-space virtual content services remain at an early development stage with minimal revenue, while internet advertising placement and agency operations made up 90.5% of its 2025 main-business revenue. In the southwest, Chongqing Huijingxuan Network Technology (重庆汇景宣网络科技有限公司) markets AI digital-human narration within a "digital content plus smart hardware" model that also spans VR panoramic shooting and drone aerial photography in the smart-robot rental market.

Cultural Heritage and Tourism: A "Digital Human Li Bai" (数字人李白) created with AIGC technology was formally unveiled in Ma'anshan, Anhui, on 29 May 2026 at the results showcase of the "AIGC Digital Human Li Bai Application Competition," themed "AI Imagining Poetic Ma'anshan." The national youth competition is hosted by the Huashan District People's Government of Ma'anshan (马鞍山市花山区人民政府), organized by CTV Media (中视传媒), and supported by the national research society for computer-based education in higher institutions, focusing on digital-human technology, AIGC content generation, intelligent interaction, and digital storytelling to fuse AI with traditional culture for cultural communication, the digital-content industry, and cultural-tourism commercialization. Its five tracks cover contemporary Li Bai character design, an original animated story pairing a young Li Bai with a panda, AI cultural-tourism scene applications, AIGC cultural-creative product design and marketing, and public co-created short videos, supported by a district incubation fund to commercialize the resulting cultural IP. In Heilongjiang, the Wanjuan Pavilion ancient-books digital exhibition hall in Qiqihar opened to the public using three-screen linkage, AR modeling, and digital humans to present its collections.

Public Sector and Civic Services: Several provincial initiatives placed digital humans in civic-facing roles. The 2026 Shaanxi Citizen Science Quality Competition (陕西省公民科学素质大赛), launched in Xi'an, deployed a digital human alongside intelligent science-popularization analysis and a virtual-image creative dress-up feature to engage target groups including youth, farmers, industrial workers, the elderly, and civil servants. In Nanjing, a digital human named "Caibao" (财宝) provided on-site interaction as the Nanjing Finance Vocational College (南京财经高职校) presented at a regional science-and-innovation exhibition, while Jiangsu's highway sector demonstrated a "three-person collaboration" unmanned-construction model that pairs remote human operators with a digital human. In Shenyang, the city's 19th Xiyuan Queqiao matchmaking event introduced an AI matchmaker (AI红娘) jointly developed by Liaoning Beidou Cloud Digital Technology (辽宁北斗云数字科技有限公司) and Shenyang Medical College (沈阳医学院), described as an assistant-type digital human providing cloud-based services with a gentle and professional manner.

Industry Developments and Ethical Debates: At the opening of the "2026 National AI Agent Innovation and Development Competition" and Hubei's first AI ecosystem innovation conference in Wuhan on 28 May 2026, an AI digital human called "the Leaper" (跃迁者) joined five human guests on a roundtable hosted by Wuhan Modal Leap Technology (武汉模态跃迁科技有限公司) co-founder and COO Chang Yuanhe, discussing technology iteration, industry penetration, and computing-power supply around open-source large models. Industry measurement continued through the China Digital Human Influence Index Report compiled by the Communication University of China (中国传媒大学); the report ranks the sector across three core categories—virtual idols known for IP operation, virtual anchors transforming under policy norms, and industry-empowering digital employees—drawing on multi-platform data collection, expert scoring, and user voting, with charted virtual idols including Luo Tianyi (洛天依), Liu Yexi (柳夜熙), and Xingtong (星瞳). On the cautionary side, Shen Honggang, an official of the screenwriting committee under the China Television Drama Production Industry Association (中国电视剧制作产业协会), argued that although AI has penetrated film and television from scriptwriting, storyboarding, and intelligent editing through to digital humans, with short-form drama emerging as a new frontier, it cannot replace core human creativity. Cost was cited as a continuing constraint in the same period, with hyper-realistic virtual-human rendering estimated at roughly 8,000 to 15,000 yuan per second and a fifteen-second clip reaching production costs in the millions of yuan.