March 2026 News

March 31 News

March 30 News

Standards and Policy: In January 2026, China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) and seven other government departments jointly issued implementation guidelines for a dedicated action plan to advance digital human development across sectors. At the Metaverse Innovation and Development Forum held within the 2026 Zhongguancun Forum Annual Conference in Beijing on March 27, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology released the first batch of ten draft industry standards for public comment, covering digital humans, industrial metaverse applications, virtual exhibition halls, and computing power platforms, while simultaneously issuing three group standards addressing metaverse service operations and large-space capability grading; seventeen organizations were designated as inaugural verification units for these standards. A national standard for virtual digital humans had been separately published in December 2025, and Zhejiang Province issued its own AI standardization construction guidelines in which digital humans were identified as a priority domain for standards development alongside intelligent robots and smart connected vehicles.

On March 25, 2026, at the Metaverse Innovation and Development Forum held as a parallel event to the Zhongguancun Forum Annual Conference, MIIT and CESI (China Electronics Standardization Institute) designated seventeen inaugural verification units for China's large-space (LBE) and digital human metaverse standards, alongside releasing four industry reports, ten draft standards open for public comment, and two new group standards. The complete list of the seventeen organizations has not yet surfaced on publicly indexed web sources because the names appear only in ceremony photographs embedded in news articles and were most likely published through the CESI Metaverse WeChat account (赛西元宇宙), which is not searchable by conventional means. High-probability candidates drawn from CESA (cesa.cn) and MIIT working group membership and standards-drafting participation include SenseTime, Baidu, Tencent, and NetEase, among others, with the full list expected to propagate to indexed sources within the coming weeks or available immediately through direct CESI contact. 

Livestreaming and Media Production: Reporting from March 2026 documents the deployment of AI digital humans across full-spectrum livestreaming workflows in China, with accounts describing systems that replicate a host's appearance, voice, tone, and behavioral patterns with sufficient fidelity to handle real-time audience queries and unanticipated situations during live sessions, requiring the human operator only to configure the session parameters in advance. Huibo Star (慧播星), a digital human video production platform, was used to generate broadcast news content, including a video report on Guangzhou train delays caused by severe weather. Zhejiang Yiwu's talent development initiative incorporated AI digital human livestreaming as a dedicated training module, customized to the practical requirements of local market operators and merchants. Medium-term industry projections circulating in March 2026 describe a 2027–2028 phase in which AI digital humans will integrate with large AI models and metaverse environments to support virtual-space interaction between digital human personas and other users.

E-commerce and Marketing: Tmall (天猫) and its affiliated Taobao (淘宝) ecosystem deployed an "AI Virtual Consumer" system that synthesizes platform transaction data and social media behavioral data to simulate thousands of virtual human personas with distinct consumer preferences, enabling brands to collect simulated try-on and trial-use feedback from these synthetic consumers before committing to a new product launch. Wuliangye (五粮液), the Sichuan-based baijiu producer, incorporated digital humans into the online marketing strategy for its "Yijian Qingxin 29-degree" product line introduced in August 2025, targeting younger demographics through digital channels. Guangbai Shares (广百股份), the Guangdong retail conglomerate, introduced an AI digital virtual human customer service agent as the core component of its new smart customer service platform, operating under the "Consumption Without Worry" service brand, with the company reporting measurable improvements in both response speed and service quality following the deployment.

Tourism and Cultural Heritage: The Guizhou cultural-tourism digital human "Huang Xiaoxi" (黄小西), originally launched in virtual form at the previous year's Guizhou Tourism Development Conference, was upgraded and presented live on stage at the 20th Guizhou Tourism Industry Development Conference held in Guiyang in late March 2026; an expanded application, the "Huang Xiaoxi Hotel Agent" (黄小西酒店智能体), also debuted at the same event, designed to streamline visitor experiences across Guizhou's tourism offerings. At the 7th Xinjiang Spring Tourism Expo held on March 28 in Turpan, exhibitors demonstrated a digital human conversational interface through which visitors could practice English oral skills in real-time dialogue sessions. In Gansu, a practitioner of a 600-year-old intangible cultural heritage rap art form collaborated with local colleges to develop a digital human explanation system incorporating contemporary musical arrangements to make the tradition accessible to younger audiences, with the project showcased at the provincial "Huangyanpei Cup" vocational education competition. In Jinan, an installation called "AI Time Mirror" (AI时光镜) allows users to discover which historical celebrity from the Qi-Lu Historical Celebrities collection in the Shandong Cultural Database most closely resembles them, presenting a digitally mediated engagement with regional cultural heritage.

Healthcare and Public Services: The Nanjing municipal medical insurance bureau constructed an AI service matrix for its approximately 8.96 million insured residents built around two complementary virtual interfaces: an offline robot named "Xiaoai" (小爱) and an online digital human named "Xiaojinling" (小金灵), both grounded in the bureau's integrated data platform. iFlytek (科大讯飞), headquartered in Hefei, Anhui, deployed a digital human capable of comprehending spoken language and interpreting facial expressions in applied service contexts, demonstrating multimodal interaction capabilities that extend beyond standard voice-response systems.

Memorial and Commemorative Applications: At the "Life · Dawn" commemorative ceremony held at the Jinan Body Donation Memorial Plaza in Shandong Province, AI digital human technology was used to deliver self-narration letters attributed to organ donors, with formal digital memorial rites conducted for eight individual donors as part of the national organ and body donation remembrance event. In Hong Kong, Now News broadcast a segment examining the practice of constructing AI virtual humans modeled on deceased individuals, describing a process that draws on photographs, voice recordings, personal history, and characteristic speech patterns to produce a virtual persona capable of communication and interaction, and raising substantive questions about the psychological comfort and ethical risks such applications pose for bereaved families.

Enterprise and Finance: Zhongyuan Bank (中原银行), operating across Henan Province, used an XR virtual studio environment paired with a digital human anchor as the presentational format for the formal launch of its mobile banking 7.0 version, positioning the virtual anchor format as an innovative channel for reaching retail banking customers with a comprehensive suite of digital financial services. Guangzhou Honghai Cloud Computing (广州红海云计算股份有限公司) obtained a patent for an interview guidance interface in which users interact directly with an AI digital human to conduct simulated job interviews, with the system generating structured assessment reports based on the interaction data.

Intellectual Property: iFlytek received patent authorization for an invention titled "Audio-Video Generation Method for Virtual Avatars and Related Devices and Electronic Equipment," with the granted method specifically designed to improve data quality, temporal coordination, and consistency between audio and visual outputs in virtual avatar content generation. Hangzhou Yuanmei Technology (杭州元媒科技有限公司) received authorization from the State Intellectual Property Office for a patent titled "Big-Data AI-Based Digital Anchor Virtual Image Generation Method and System," granted under authorization announcement number CN120070688B, covering a system for generating virtual anchor personas using large-scale data and artificial intelligence.

Technology and Robotics: Tongyanyuan (通研院), a research institution focused on general-purpose robotics, has developed a virtual digital human named "Tongtong" (通通) that operates within simulated environments and applies built-in physical common sense, causal reasoning, and continuous learning mechanisms to interpret and generalize data collected from real-world robots, producing transferable training sequences intended to support the transition from specialized task robots to broadly capable general-purpose robotic systems.

March 29 News

Entertainment: The use of AI-generated digital human actors in Chinese short drama (短剧) productions has become a visible and commercially consequential trend, generating both business interest and widespread professional anxiety among practitioners. The emergence of "Hua Jun" (华君) as a leading AI actor figure has prompted public debate about whether audiences will accept AI-generated performances in place of human talent, with Beijing People's Art Theatre director Feng Yuanzheng among those who have publicly weighed in, asserting that AI actors raise questions extending across both short and long-form drama formats. Industry commentary has identified a distinction between virtual idols — whose appearance and voice are entirely team-crafted — and AI actors whose performances are derived from or modeled on real human performers. One model under discussion involves real actors licensing high-fidelity AI doubles, with the actor performing motion and facial capture in a rehearsal setting while AI tools seamlessly insert their likeness into production environments such as historical period settings. Separately, AI short dramas are being developed for international distribution, with photorealistic synthetic characters becoming the mainstream format for content produced under IAA (in-app advertising) monetization structures in overseas markets.

Cultural Heritage and Tourism: Datang Everbright City (大唐不夜城) in Xi'an, Shaanxi, has deployed holographic projection, AI interaction, and digital human technology together to construct an immersive Tang Dynasty cultural experience in which digital humans provide personalized and intelligent visitor services, serving as a showcase model for smart cultural tourism development. In Guizhou, the tourism digital human "黄小西" (Huang Xiaoxi), originally released at the previous year's Guizhou Tourism Development Conference, returned at the 20th conference to appear live on stage and introduce new sibling character figures in an expanded Huang Xiaoxi family of virtual ambassadors. A separately named Guizhou digital human, "小天" (Xiaotian), produces news and promotional reports on Guizhou from an AI perspective, functioning as a digital correspondent for provincial storytelling. At the Yinchuan Hedong Airport Terminal T3 in Ningxia, an immersive VR experience zone branded as "Yuanyou Ningxia: VR Tour of the Frontier Scenery" (元游宁夏·VR漫游塞上景) incorporates digital human guides as part of the provincial smart tourism platform "Smart Travel Ningxia" (智游宁夏). At a spring technology exposition in Xinjiang's Akesu, exhibitors demonstrated digital human conversational interaction through MR headsets as a tourism and language-practice application alongside other smart technology showcases. Former ByteDance executive Zhang Guihua (张桂华) has since 2024 been building a digital human live-streaming matrix of more than 300 units in Guangxi to promote e-commerce and drive digitized activation of intangible cultural heritage and cultural tourism content.

Guangxi Gongyingzhenxuan Digital Technology Co., Ltd. (广西共赢甄选数字科技有限公司) is a Guangxi-based AI digital intelligence services company founded in early 2024 by Zhang Guihua (张桂华), former early-team member of ByteDance, who serves as its sole shareholder and chairman with registered capital of 2 million yuan. The company functions as a large-scale operator and integrator of AI digital human live-streaming infrastructure rather than a technology developer, deploying third-party digital human systems within a proprietary operational model built on Douyin's e-commerce platform. Its flagship installation is a 3,000 square meter live-streaming base in Nanning housing 20 dedicated AI digital human broadcast studios, from which it has expanded to incubate over 300 digital human live-streaming units across Guangxi by March 2026. These digital humans operate as 24-hour virtual hosts across multiple commercial verticals including packaged food e-commerce, cultural tourism, intangible cultural heritage products, and county-level agricultural goods, with notable deployments including a 50-unit digital human matrix for the Liuzhou luosifen industry cluster, a 120-unit province-wide cultural tourism and heritage matrix, and a bilingual digital human matrix in Chongzuo serving both domestic tourism and cross-border ASEAN commerce. The company's operational methodology combines AI digital human live-streaming with human streamer co-broadcasting, Douyin group-buying integration, and full-service merchant management, positioning digital humans not as standalone content tools but as the foundational infrastructure of a managed e-commerce and cultural digitization service delivered at provincial scale. 

Education: In Nanchang's Honggutan District, teacher Luo Lutong deployed the Changyán Smart Classroom (畅言智慧课堂) platform in an English-language lesson structured around a five-stage learning flow, incorporating AI virtual human interactive scenarios as a contextual environment to guide students through a communicative project focused on creating an English campus promotional brochure. At Guangzhou Xiehe School (广州协和学校), an AI digital human named "小和" (Xiaohe) served as the on-stage host for the school's "Six Harmonies" curriculum outcomes showcase, presented by the school as a demonstration of artificial intelligence integrated into educational practice. In Xinjiang, the spring technology exposition also featured digital human dialogue interaction as a language learning tool used in conjunction with MR glasses, extending the educational application of virtual characters beyond dedicated school settings into public exhibition contexts.

Healthcare and Mental Health: Xiaozhi Lingxin AI Space Station (小智聆心AI空间站) deploys a virtual human in school environments for student psychological support and is explicitly positioned as distinct from a simple chatbot: it uses affective computing technology to recognize students' tone of voice, facial expressions, and micro-expressions, and when a student expresses vague distress it pursues follow-up questions to identify whether the source is academic, interpersonal, or otherwise. In Jiangsu, Zhuodun (江苏卓顿) has adopted a digital human format for its psychological consulting and intervention services, enabling round-the-clock uninterrupted operation while significantly reducing service costs; the company's founder and deputy general manager has stated that the consultation intervention effectiveness rate has exceeded 80%, placing it among the leading figures in the sector. A Nantong Chongchuan delegation presenting AI scenario opportunity packages in Hangzhou identified "AI + doctor digital human" as one of its active development directions, signaling continued interest in clinical and advisory applications across the Jiangsu region. In Fujian, the Fujian Provincial Preventive Medicine Association conducted a 2026 vaccination health communication training program in Fuzhou in which AI digital humans were incorporated into capacity-building sessions for primary care physicians. Shandong Digital Human Technology (山东数字人科技股份有限公司) co-built the newly opened Human Body Science Museum at Shandong University with the university's School of Basic Medicine, and the company's Chongqing regional director participated in a separate academic exchange on integrated nursing professional education held at Chongqing Institute of Technology Vocational College, indicating cross-provincial deployment of the company's digital human platforms in medical education contexts. Separately, commentary around doctor AI avatars (医生AI分身) has been published in major financial media, with one expert, Mao Hongjing, advocating that users trust and actively engage with these systems to allow them to reach alignment through self-learning.

Journalism and Media: The robot journalist "江小云" (Jiang Xiaoyun), produced through an AI system, participated in news coverage of the Hubei Two Sessions, representing an active deployment of digital human journalists in provincial political reporting. In Guizhou, the digital human "Xiao Tian" (小天) produces regular AI-perspective coverage of provincial stories, functioning as a named digital correspondent within the regional media ecosystem. Guangxi Cloud (广西云), the smart media platform of Guangxi Daily, launched a co-construction plan with 12 partner organizations — including the Nanning Municipal Cyberspace Affairs Office (南宁市委网信办), Nanning Municipal Convergent Media Center (南宁市融媒体中心), and Guangxi Hechuang Cultural Development Co., Ltd. (广西和创文化发展有限公司) — under which it provides partner access to digital human production capabilities alongside its proprietary Guangxi Smart Media large model for AI writing, translation, and video generation. In Sichuan's Yibin, a 2026 online rumor-debunking salon opened with a narrative segment featuring the digital human AI virtual artist "Una Yiyi" (Una伊一), who was depicted arriving from a starfield to frame a thematic discussion on network information diversity, ecological governance, and the challenges of disinformation in complex media environments; Cover Media (封面传媒) chairman participated in the event as a speaker.

Guangxi Cloud (广西云) is the smart media platform of Guangxi Daily (广西日报), operated by Guangxi Digital Cloud Media Group — formed by merging Guangxi News Network, the original Guangxi Daily new media department, and the Guangxi Daily network technology center — with a "device-web-micro-video-print-screen" multi-channel transmission ecosystem covering all 14 prefecture-level cities and 111 counties across the autonomous region. In the digital human space, Guangxi Cloud has been one of the most active provincial media actors in China: at the opening of the 20th National Congress of the CPC, Guangxi Daily–Guangxi Cloud debuted two digital anchors, Cong Cong (聪聪) and Kang Kang (康康), modeled on actual reporters, delivering uninterrupted 24-hour AI broadcasting with enhanced facial expressions, body movement, and professional broadcast capability. The platform has since developed its own proprietary Guangxi Smart Media Large Model (广西智媒大模型), which it now opens to partner organizations under the Guangxi Daily Smart Media Co-building Plan (广西日报智媒体共建计划), launched in March 2026 with twelve founding partners, offering full-pipeline AI tools including intelligent writing, AI translation, and digital human broadcasting (数字人播报) for channel construction and digital content operations. Guangxi Cloud's digital humans have appeared in high-profile contexts including a dedicated virtual presenter at the 22nd China–ASEAN Expo to provide intelligent matchmaking services for Chinese and foreign merchants, group performances by Guangxi digital human anchors for cultural events such as "夜广西," and an interactive virtual Liu Sanjie (刘三姐) experience cited in the Guangxi government's AI scenario challenge programme. Its AI digital human interactive terminal was also listed in Guangxi's 2025 second batch of "AI+Manufacturing" certified products, cementing Guangxi Cloud's position as the primary institutional vehicle through which the Guangxi Daily media group deploys digital human technology across journalism, governance, culture, and trade. 

Enterprise and Industrial Operations: Shenyang Yayi Network Technology (沈阳雅译网络技术有限公司) has developed a large-model intelligent translation screen that integrates speech transcription, machine translation, large-model Q&A, and digital human interaction functionality in a single device designed for foreign-facing service windows including airports, hotels, and border entry-exit points; units have been deployed both within Shenyang-facing installations and at the China Small Commodities City in Yiwu, extending the product's reach to one of China's most internationally active wholesale markets. Jiangsu Zhongtian Technology (江苏中天科技股份有限公司), operating along the Yellow Sea coast in Rudong, has digital humans on 24-hour equipment operations monitoring duty within its manufacturing environment, integrated alongside AI visual defect detection systems and AGV logistics vehicles as part of its AI-driven intelligent manufacturing transformation. China Telecom's Xinjiang subsidiary has established an AI digital human e-commerce live-streaming training base in Kashgar to develop local enterprise capacity for digital commerce. Jiuyuan Yinhai (久远银海) deployed a digital human community integrated information platform that has established a new benchmark for province-wide unified government service delivery, with the company reporting significant growth in its smart city business revenues.

Commerce and Marketing: Baidu Intelligent Cloud (百度智能云) presented its digital human ViviDora as an invited guest speaker at the 2026 Boao Asia Forum; ViviDora was built by the Baidu Intelligent Cloud Keyue (客悦) platform using the Huibaixing (慧播星) digital human system, marking a prominent public appearance by a brand-aligned virtual being at a major international economic forum. At the inaugural CMG Live E-commerce Gala, Huibaixing digital human live-streaming and Nanjing Silicon Intelligence Technology Group (南京硅基智能科技集团) digital human live-streaming both received the annual technology innovation award, placing them among the recognized leaders in AI-driven e-commerce broadcast production. Meitu's (美图) productivity tool kaipai.com (开拍) has structured an agent-based AI operational team, AI photography team, and AI editing team, with the AI photography team responsible for AI digital human material production and content strategy for short-form video and e-commerce broadcast scenarios. In Shanghai, 34 "AI + advertising" projects received dedicated government support in 2025, with virtual digital human applications among the covered categories, as the city's advertising industry revenue surpassed 400 billion yuan to rank first nationally. In Ningxia's Yinchuan, Kunzhiyi AI (鲲之益AI) promotes digital human marketing services as part of a broader agricultural, cultural, and tourism OPC industry initiative, having engaged multiple municipal government departments in strategic consultation.

Public Services: Yangzhou city's online smart tourism platform "下扬州" (Xia Yangzhou) deploys an AI digital human with bidirectional voice-to-text conversion functionality specifically configured as an accessibility service for elderly users with hearing impairments, providing navigation guidance and map services in a format accessible to this population. In Hebei's Jize County (河北鸡泽), a digital human has been placed on active duty providing zero-distance public services to local residents at a government service window. China Mobile's Shanghai subsidiary used digital human rendering technology at the 2026 Suhe Half Marathon to produce personalized digital scorecards for the event's 7,000 participants, combining digitally rendered imagery of each runner with a replicated race course environment and real-time competition data. In Zhengzhou, Henan, a public ecological burial activity incorporated digital human technology to create a memorial digital presence for an ecological burial pioneer, described as a "new life" representation for the deceased, indicating an emerging application of digital human characters in commemorative and memorial civic contexts.

The technical company responsible for the AI digital human "新生" (Xinsheng / "New Life") displayed at the 2025 Zhengzhou Qingming ecological burial ceremony was Fu Shou Yuan International Group (福寿园国际集团, HK: 01448), China's dominant listed funeral services conglomerate, operating through its Henan Fushou Garden venue which co-organised the event. Fu Shou Yuan developed and operates its own in-house AI digital human platform — built since 2022 under a four-pillar digital life services framework — capable of generating a lifelike digital human figure from a single photograph and one minute of voice recording using large AI models, with TTS and NLP for personalised speech synthesis. No independent third-party AI technology vendor is publicly credited for this specific deployment, though Beijing Tiaoyue Intelligence (北京跳悦智能) is on record as a collaborator on an earlier 2024 Fu Shou Yuan digital human project. The Zhengzhou "新生" appearance therefore represents Fu Shou Yuan's own proprietary capability applied to a civic government-sponsored ecological burial event, marking the first use of an AI digital human in that commemorative context in Henan Province. 

Policy, Governance, and Standards: China's Ministry of Culture and Tourism (文化和旅游部) issued a notice calling on provincial-level cultural and tourism bureaus to apply for participation in "AI + Culture and Tourism" pilot programs, explicitly listing digital humans among deployable technologies alongside drones and robots, with pilot service categories including intelligent guided explanation, automatic translation, smart customer service, and accessible visitor services. A national standard is under development to establish a unified digital human identity marking system and corresponding management requirements, intended to resolve the problem of image theft and unauthorized likeness appropriation that has been a recurring source of dispute within the digital human industry. A published commentary in Sina Finance raised the issue of citizens' biometric information being used without consent in the training of large models that generate digital humans, arguing that such data should be protected from model training pipelines, and drew a distinction between high-resolution digital human "artist" figures and lower-fidelity utility-grade digital human "workers" in terms of the commercial and ethical stakes involved.

Events and Exhibitions: At the 2026 Boao Asia Forum, Beijing's Economic-Technological Development Area (北京经济技术开发区, Yizhuang) presented a digital "resident" named Yuri (数字居民Yuri) alongside humanoid robots, staging a demonstration of digital-physical convergence as part of Beijing's broader invitation to global innovation cooperation. On March 25, 2026, the Zhongguancun Forum Annual Conference Metaverse Innovation Development Forum convened at the Zhongguancun International Innovation Center in Beijing under the theme "Metaverse Initiates the Future," with digital humans and virtual exhibition halls as focal topics alongside core technology standards, ecosystem collaboration, and international exchange. At the launch ceremony of the "Beijing Style" (北京范儿) short video competition's technology and innovation unit, the AI singer Youli (尤栗) — described as China's first digital new citizen — performed on stage alongside large-model demonstrations and AI agent showcases, with the event framed as a convergence of traditional Beijing cultural identity and frontier AI technology.

March 28 News

Government Services: In Ankang, Shaanxi, 70 grassroots employment service stations were each equipped with self-service kiosk terminals embedded with digital human systems, enabling human-like interactive experiences through AI technology for job seekers accessing public employment services. In Jiuquan, Gansu, the municipal government services platform deployed the digital human "玉小助" to handle high-frequency administrative procedures with intelligent pre-review functions, compressing the policy application cycle for small and medium enterprises from 21 days to a substantially shorter period. Fujian separately saw the launch of "Rong Xiaoan" (榕小安), described as the province's first police 3D digital human, introduced to provide public security information services to residents online.

Healthcare: Doctor AI digital doubles emerged as a distinct application category across multiple Chinese health technology contexts. At Xi'an Jiaotong University Second Affiliated Hospital (西安交通大学第二附属医院), pediatric deputy chief physician Liu Haiyan began recommending AI digital doubles to patients' families following consultations, enabling remote and on-demand interaction that replicates the physician's individual diagnostic logic and communication style. CCTV and CNR reported more broadly that health AI platforms are now deploying named-doctor intelligent agent doubles capable of professional dialogue that mirrors the specific doctor's clinical reasoning and tone. Linxi Biology (灵析生物) has developed a more integrated approach, combining a wearable continuous blood pressure monitoring device, a doctor AI digital double, and a large-scale AI model into a unified chronic disease management platform, with academician Zhang Yuanting serving as chief scientist. A Nanjing company, Nanjing Miaoxing Tianxia Media Technology Co., Ltd. (南京苗行天下传媒科技有限公司), established a new subsidiary, Huaying Chuanyue (华影川越), in the Chongchuan Star-Moon Smart Innovation Park in Nantong, Jiangsu, with an explicit strategic focus on the "AI plus doctor" digital human direction, involving AI model training and single-session data capture for continuous content output. Shandong Mobile (山东移动) also identified digital humans as a frontier application within its broader healthcare AI infrastructure, describing them as a future-facing service layer beyond emergency response and clinical assistance systems already in operation.

Cultural Tourism: The twentieth Guizhou Tourism Industry Development Conference, scheduled to open on March 30 at the Drum Tower Square of Duocai Guizhou City in Guiyang, confirmed that the cultural tourism digital human "Huang Xiaoxi" (黄小西) — introduced at the preceding year's conference — would move from cloud to stage for a live appearance at the opening ceremony. In Wuhan, Hubei, digital humans "Jingjing" (荆荆) and "Neat" (楚楚) were programmed to deliver promotional introductions during the city's cherry blossom season international events, working alongside AR glasses and robotic co-presenters to create a multilingual, technology-forward reception experience. Shanxi's cultural tourism authorities have been deploying digital humans in short-video formats, using them to lead viewers through local streets and to perform traditional music and opera sequences on interactive display screens at venues. Guangxi's integrated platform "Yi Jian You Guangxi" (一键游广西), designated a key smart tourism project under the autonomous region's 14th Five-Year Plan, incorporates digital human terminals to enhance visitor interaction at tourism sites. Huiboxing (慧播星) digital human technology was separately used in video content produced for a Guizhou village, illustrating a grassroots-level deployment of virtual presenter technology for local cultural storytelling.

Yi Jian You Guangxi (一键游广西, "One-Click Tour Guangxi") is a government-backed smart tourism platform developed and operated by Guangxi Tourism Development Group (广西旅游发展集团有限公司) under the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region's Culture and Tourism Bureau, built on a "one cloud, one pool, three platforms" architecture and distributed as a WeChat mini-program alongside partnerships with major OTAs including Ctrip and Tencent. Its most significant digital human application is the Liu Sanjie (刘三姐) digital human, named after the legendary Zhuang folk singer and officially designated as Guangxi's cultural tourism digital promotional ambassador; constructed using AI-driven voice synthesis, facial modeling, and image processing, the character serves within the platform as a virtual tour guide, intelligent customer service agent, and conversational travel planner. By April 2023 the Liu Sanjie digital human had been deployed in out-of-home advertising at Guangzhou Tower as part of a regional tourism promotion, and by September 2024 the platform had iterated to incorporate what it described as Guangxi's first vertical large language model for the cultural tourism industry, enabling personalized AI trip customization, real-time navigation, and smart companionship experiences at scale. A derivative application, Sanjie Zhu You (三姐助游), took third prize in the 2024 Guangxi division of the national "Data Elements ×" competition. As of October 2025, Guangxi Tourism Development Group's own recruitment materials described the Liu Sanjie AI digital human initiative as nationally leading within the industry, with the platform having surpassed 12 million registered users and 20,000 onboarded merchants. 

Commerce and Live Streaming: JD.com (京东) disclosed that its digital human JoyStreamer had reached 70,000 merchants for live e-commerce broadcasting, supported by three core audio-visual synchronization technologies developed in-house; the company simultaneously announced the first open-source release of large model JoyAI-LLM Flash, described as closely integrated with its commerce AI ecosystem. Anhui Zhongheixin (安徽中合信) positioned itself as a provider in the digital human live-streaming sector, claiming leading capabilities in 5G-plus-AI technology integration and offering a device-support-plus-shared-revenue model to commercial partners. In Guangxi Nanning, a dedicated digital human live-streaming base has been operating year-round to facilitate agricultural product sales, with cumulative procurement and sales facilitated through digital human broadcasts surpassing 800 million yuan. In Hainan's Lingshui Haigui Town (陵水海归小镇), an international content e-commerce base combined foreign-language human hosts with AI digital humans, with overseas broadcasters pitching products in their native languages while digital human applications provided supplementary interactive capability.

Media, Broadcasting, and Public Events: The New Chongqing Client (新重庆客户端), a young provincial mainstream media platform, launched the digital human IP "Koiwa" (小岩) alongside a new large model rollout as part of a broader strategic restructuring into five functional super-ports. Guangxi Cloud (广西云) and the Guangxi Daily launched a smart media co-construction initiative that extends digital human production capabilities to 12 founding partner organizations, including the Nanning Municipal Cyberspace Affairs Office and Guangxi Hechuang Cultural Development Co., Ltd. (广西和创文化发展有限公司), alongside AI translation, intelligent writing, and video generation services. China Telecom Shandong (中国电信山东) deployed a self-developed digital human to host its company-wide technology festival and to anchor the formal unveiling ceremony of a joint research institution established with Shandong University. In Sichuan, the 2026 internet anti-rumor salon event opened with AI virtual artist "Una Iichi" (Una伊一) delivering a narrated introduction from a cosmic setting, framing the discussion of online information governance challenges for a live and broadcast audience. Baidu Intelligent Cloud's (百度智能云) digital human ViviDora appeared at the Boao Asia Forum as a named digital guest on a panel focused on humanoid robot development, and stated in remarks that the future will be defined by a coexistence of humans, robots, and digital humans, with robots suited to high-repetition and high-risk tasks while creativity, empathy, and ethical reasoning remain with humans. ViviDora also participated in the Beijing Showcase Moment event held at Boao on March 25 by the Global Digital Economy City Alliance (全球数字经济城市联盟), where digital humans and robots performed together on stage as part of Beijing's Yizhuang innovation district presentation to an international audience. A commentary published by the Xinhua Press Group (新华报业) identified digital human management and virtual artist cultivation as emerging professional roles for the next generation of Chinese broadcast and media practitioners.

The Global Digital Economy Cities Alliance (全球数字经济城市联盟) is a multilateral initiative launched in Beijing in July 2025 at the Global Digital Economy Conference, bringing together over 40 partner cities across Europe, North America, Asia-Pacific, the Middle East, and Latin America under the theme "Building Digital-Friendly Cities." The alliance has since expanded its institutional reach, co-hosting high-level sessions with UN agencies including UNIDO, UNCTAD, UNITAR, and the ITU, and launching international digital talent training programs. Digital humans have been a consistent presence across the alliance's events: the 2025 conference featured interactive digital human installations, a historical figure digital human named "Zhu Xi," and a digital human avatar of Beijing's Municipal Economic and Information Bureau director; the most recent activity, a Beijing showcase held in Boao on March 25, 2026, featured digital humans and humanoid robots performing together at the Beijing Economic and Technological Development Zone. Member companies include iSoftStone International, whose virtual digital human platform "i Sisi" debuted at a related corporate event in 2022. 

Technology Development and Standards: The Metaverse Innovation Development Forum, hosted by China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (工业和信息化部) on March 25 as a parallel session of the 2026 Zhongguancun Forum Annual Conference at the Zhongguancun International Innovation Center in Beijing, was explicitly organized around digital humans and virtual exhibition halls. The forum released four industry reports covering spatial intelligence, the industrial metaverse, LBE large-space experiences, and metaverse application practices, and publicly solicited feedback on the first-draft batch of metaverse industry standards, including dedicated digital human standards. A first cohort of verification units for both large-space and digital human standards was formally announced, marking a transition into a standardization-led phase for the sector. Soul App's (Soul) Zhang Lu team released SoulX-FlashHead, an open-source real-time digital human generation model designed to address the industry's persistent tradeoff between high visual quality and low computational cost, building on the team's prior open-source digital human contributions. Huarui Cloud Space (华锐云空间) described a proprietary Digital Human Factory (数字人工厂) platform as the production foundation for its omni-scenario AI intelligent agent offering, deployed across education, industrial, healthcare, cultural tourism, and government applications within a broader metaverse architecture. Digital Human Technology Co., Ltd. (数字人科技股份有限公司) participated in the 2026 annual joint conference of the National Digital Services Export Base Industry Alliance convened in Jinan, Shandong.

Beijing Huarui Shidian (北京华锐视点), a national high-tech enterprise founded in 2008 with nineteen years in the VR/AR/AI space, offers an AI intelligent assistant platform built on its proprietary "Digital Human Factory" and Huarui Cloud Space, positioning the product as an always-on "digital employee" for businesses across e-commerce, education, healthcare, industrial, and government sectors. Its flagship digital human "Huaxiaomei" features touch-free voice activation, proactive customer engagement via AI NPC tracking, and seamless cross-platform deployment across PC, mobile, and VR. The company claims measurable results including a 47% share of overnight transactions for a cosmetics brand, 150,000 RMB in monthly labor cost savings, a 58% improvement in course conversion rates for an exam-prep institution, and a tenfold increase in service response speed, with the platform currently serving over 600 major enterprises and institutions including State Grid and Tsinghua University. 

Education: The Kujian Bang (课件帮) AI lesson-preparation platform, during its national campus tour that opened in Jiangxi Nanchang and continued to Guangxi Nanning on March 26, demonstrated digital human teacher functionality as one of four AI-assisted modules, with participating teachers completing recorded micro-course videos on the same day as the campus presentation. At Tongji University (同济大学), career guidance instructor Fang Yajing developed a digital double as an innovative student-facing tool within a four-course career education curriculum. At a spring recruitment fair hosted by Jianghan University (江汉大学) in Wuhan, self-service kiosks equipped with digital human one-on-one mock interview functionality allowed students to rehearse interview interactions with a virtual interlocutor before engaging with employers on-site.

Entertainment and Ethical Contexts: A widely circulated analysis published across Chinese platforms including 36kr and streaming industry outlet Liu Meiti Wang (流媒体网) identified a first wave of industry pushback against AI virtual actors in China's entertainment sector. In Hengdian, performers have been approached with offers of a few hundred yuan — sometimes as low as 500 yuan — to license their digital likenesses; some actors have publicly refused, arguing that AI virtual humans can be replicated indefinitely and exist permanently, effectively converting a one-time payment into a permanent encumbrance on their professional prospects. The legal framework governing licensed digital doubles of real performers remains incomplete under existing Chinese law: multi-angle character design images qualify as visual art works, while dynamic videos featuring virtual humans qualify as audiovisual works, but no dedicated regulation yet addresses the digital doubles of real individuals, leaving portrait rights and production company copyright in unresolved tension. Separately, a coffee shop owner in China deployed a virtual stand-up comedian avatar to deliver stage material that the creator had been unable to perform for six years, with the account accumulating 170,000 followers within one month of launching in early 2026 and receiving over a hundred private messages daily, illustrating the growing use of fully synthetic virtual personas as vehicles for individual creative expression.

Liu Meiti Wang (流媒体网), operating at lmtw.com, is China's oldest and most authoritative trade publication covering IPTV, OTT, and streaming media, founded around 2000 and incorporated in 2005 as Beijing Chuangshilu Information Technology Co., Ltd. (北京创世路信息技术有限公司), and has established itself as a consistent editorial voice on digital human and AIGC developments within the audio-visual sector. Its digital human coverage spans practical production guidance — including character consistency in AI short dramas, digital human modeling, speech recognition, and natural language understanding — as well as industry analysis on AIGC's capacity to displace content creators and the regulatory implications of new AIGC rules for the audio-visual sector; the platform covered the 2024 China Digital Human Conference in Beijing, reported on BRTV's digital human sessions including Beijing Television's AI production platform, and tracked corporate developments such as the Jiecheng Huashi and Huawei Cloud partnership on video large models. The platform is led by its pseudonymous CEO 灯少, almost certainly Zhang Yanxiang (张彦翔) by legal name, who has built it into the sector's premier analytical outlet through two decades of writing on telecom operator strategy, provincial subscriber data, and OTT regulation; co-founder Li Shibin (李世斌) departed early, leaving 灯少 as the singular driving force. The editorial operation runs on a small staff including responsible editor Ling Mei (凌美) and reporter Liu Meng (刘蒙), while the business side is handled by Zhang Jingjing (张晶晶), Fan Weiwei (范玮玮), Song Yuanyuan (宋媛媛), Ma Yinan (马轶男), Song Jia (宋佳), and Zhu Jieyu (朱洁宇). 

March 27 News

Entertainment: China's short-drama industry has seen rapid integration of digital human actors, fundamentally altering production economics and labor conditions. Digital human performers require no compensation, no rest periods, and produce no scheduling conflicts, enabling productions to run continuous generation cycles suited to the high-volume, low-budget requirements of short-form content. The shift has introduced new specialist roles including prompt engineers, AI directors, digital human trainers, and frame selection specialists responsible for curating usable AI-generated takes. Chongqing Yuxiao Media (重庆聿瀟传媒) has formalized this model by signing six AI actors, among them influencers with audiences in the tens of millions, under a framework in which real performers license their likenesses for AI-rendered performance output. The practice of acquiring actor portraits for digital role creation has generated industry controversy, with working actors objecting to notices offering as little as 500 yuan for a performer's likeness on the grounds that AI virtual humans capable of infinite replication make such a transaction equivalent to a permanent, irrevocable sale of one's digital identity rights. In Xi'an, Shaanxi Province, the Lintong district is developing the Lintong AI Short Drama Workshop (临潼AI短剧工场), a production infrastructure project integrating AI-generated content technology including digital human generation into scripted short-drama production from the scripting stage onward.

Tourism: Digital human figures are being deployed as interactive presenters and guides across multiple Chinese tourism and cultural promotion contexts. The Yuan You Ningxia (元游宁夏) platform delivers personalized travel companion services through three distinct digital human formats — AI tour guides for digitally reconstructed scenic areas, AI explainers for cloud exhibition halls, and AI sommeliers for digital wineries — drawing on the platform's core resource of Ningxia's twenty-one scenic landmarks rendered through real-scale 3D modeling, VR/AR, and AI. The Guizhou Province tourism digital human "Huang Xiaoxi" (黄小西), introduced at a previous edition of the Guizhou Tourism Development Conference, is scheduled to appear live on stage at the opening ceremony of the 20th Guizhou Tourism Development Conference on March 30 in Guiyang. In Wuhan, Hubei Province, the "Spring Cherry Blossom Appreciation" trade consultation event is set to feature digital human presenters named "Jingjing" (荆荆) and "Chuchi" (楚楚) in a live stage introduction of Hubei investment opportunities. In Sichuan Province, Meishan city is developing a Su Dongpo culture AI digital human as part of a broader initiative to establish a global research hub for Su scholarship, with the figure intended for use in international academic and cultural exchange programming.

Yuan You Ningxia (元游宁夏) is a cultural tourism metaverse platform developed by the Ningxia Tourism Information Center under the direction of the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region's culture and tourism authority. The platform recreates all twenty-one of Ningxia's designated scenic landmarks at 1:1 scale using VR, AR, naked-eye 3D, holographic projection, and digital human technology. By the end of 2024, fifteen digital scenic areas had been brought online, along with four cloud exhibition halls built as metaverse spaces. Digital humans on the platform serve three functions: AI tour guides within digitally reconstructed scenic areas, AI explainers in cloud exhibition halls, and AI sommeliers in a digital winery environment, all delivering real-time personalized interaction with visitors. The platform also hosted digital human concerts as a promotional format and conducted more than thirty combined online and offline marketing campaigns, reaching close to one million visitors in person. Additional planned features include a metaverse "Six Special Farms" module offering simulated virtual farming and livestock experiences. The project was recognized by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism as one of the top ten digital innovation demonstration cases for 2024. A creative design competition titled "Yuan You Ningxia — Imagining the Future" was also launched, including a dedicated track for digital human character design based on the twenty-one scenic landmarks. 

Government Services: Virtual digital humans are operating as service interfaces in government halls and administrative platforms across several provinces. In Jize County (鸡泽县), Hebei Province, a virtual digital human with an interactive smart screen interface has been installed in the county government affairs service center, where it greets and guides residents through service inquiries. In Jiuquan city, Gansu Province, the digital human "Yu Xiaozhu" (玉小助) performs intelligent pre-review of high-frequency government service applications and has compressed small-enterprise policy application processing cycles from 21 days. In Chongqing, labor services coordination infrastructure includes a platform node designated as the Xipen Port City digital human (西彭港城数字人), operating as part of a multi-agency workers' services alliance covering the Xipen area.

Media and Broadcasting: Digital human anchors are in active deployment across news and media organizations in multiple Chinese cities. Diandian News (点新闻) in Hong Kong presents a daily news program segment hosted by its digital human anchor "Xiao Luo" (小洛). Huiboxing (慧播星) digital humans have been used to present news video reports in Chongqing broadcast media. In Hunan Province, the Changsha Evening News (长沙晚报) has integrated virtual human video delivery into its regular theory commentary section, pairing print content with AI-generated video presentation as a reader engagement extension format. The Linyi Rong Media Center (临沂市融媒体中心) in Shandong Province has conducted specialist training for production staff on AI anchor digital human systems as part of a broader AI broadcasting infrastructure rollout. Jilin Northeast Asia Publishing Media Group (吉林东北亚出版传媒集团) is operating a digital human cloud exhibition hall and has advanced a second-phase upgrade of its associated digital learning center.

Healthcare: Lingxi Biology (灵析生物) has launched a chronic disease management platform that is being integrated with the hypertension management product "Wenyan Intelligent Doctor Dr. PAI" (文元智能医生Dr. PAI), described as the first platform globally to combine wearable continuous blood pressure monitoring hardware with a doctor AI avatar and a large language model in a unified system. The integration establishes a direct link between medical-grade hardware and an embodied AI physician presence for continuous patient management outside clinical settings.

Finance: Xinzhou Animation (新轴动画), a Chengdu-based company, has developed branded virtual digital humans for financial sector clients, including "Xiao Cai Niang" (小财娘) for Ping An Bank (平安银行) — a digital IP that launched in January 2023 to drive engagement with young customer segments — and "Nuo Yan" (诺颜) for Sintai Life Insurance (信泰人寿), a virtual figure designed to carry traditional Chinese cultural themes. Fengyu Zhu (风语筑) has established digital human development and digital IP operations as active business lines following its strategic investment into a Hunan state-owned enterprise. Dayang Group (大洋集团, listed as 1991.HK on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange) has announced a rights issue targeting net proceeds of approximately 274.5 million to 299 million Hong Kong dollars, with AI digital human development designated as one of the primary capital deployment areas.

Dayang Group Holdings Limited (大洋集团控股有限公司), listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange as 01991 with roughly three decades of industrial manufacturing history, began investing in AI digital human technology following its 2023 acquisition of Beijing Jusheng Technology (北京巨省科技有限公司), which expanded its digital marketing capabilities and laid the technical groundwork for its subsequent strategic pivot. In August 2025 the company released a formal AI transformation blueprint centred on AI digital humans, real-world asset (RWA) tokenisation, and a global traffic marketing infrastructure, targeting the education, gaming, and health sectors under what it terms a Web 4.0 framework. That same month it co-established an AI digital human plus RWA joint laboratory with the RWA Research Institute, and by September 2025 was considering a rights issue to fund further AI digital human development and the acquisition of strategic digital assets. In October 2025 DigiFT announced plans to tokenise the company's shares, representing the first such exercise by a Hong Kong-listed company under Singapore regulatory oversight. By February 2026 the group had extended its AI ambitions from virtual digital humans into physical intelligent hardware, framing the move as a key breakthrough within its Web 4.0 strategy and launching what it described as an AI-plus-hardware dual-wheel growth phase, supported by a strategic cooperation agreement with Heyan International (鹤延国际) for cultural IP overseas distribution using AI technology. 

Technology: JD.com (京东) has introduced a digital human system incorporating three technical innovations — dual-teacher DMD post-training, dynamic CFG modulation strategy, and a historical-frame plus pseudo-last-frame architecture — that collectively address persistent industry problems of audio-video desynchronization, multimodal control inconsistency, and character identity instability in extended video output. The system has been adapted for more than twenty deployment scenarios encompassing e-commerce live streaming and cultural tourism explanation, and introduces a "free-state digital human" (自由态数字人) variant capable of natural walking movement and camera-following behavior. At the Boao Asia Forum 2026 annual conference in Hainan on March 25, Baidu Intelligent Cloud (百度智能云) digital human ViviDora (薇薇·朵拉) participated as a digital guest in a sub-forum session on humanoid robots, responding to questions about the future relationship between humans, digital humans, and robots. iFlytek (科大讯飞) operates a multimodal hyper-realistic digital human installation at its exhibition hall in Hefei's iFlytek Town, where the figure delivers interactive greetings to visiting guests. Beijing's Chaoyang district Zhongguancun Internet 3.0 Industrial Park, hosting more than 1,400 Internet 3.0 sector enterprises, operates high-standard motion capture infrastructure and digital human studios as central production facilities within the park.

Free-State Digital Human (自由态数字人) is a digital human product developed by JD.com's (京东) digital human team and released under the product name JoyStreamer in March 2026. Built on JD.com's proprietary JoyAI large model, it is positioned as the first digital human in the industry to achieve unconstrained physical movement, supporting natural walking, dynamic posing, and other anthropomorphic behaviors during live deployment. Three core technological breakthroughs underpin the product, including a dual-teacher DMD post-training method that addresses a recognized limitation of conventional digital humans — the inability to accurately interpret complex instructions. This approach employs two dedicated teacher models, one for audio and one for text, enabling precise responses to complex motion commands and camera interaction directives while substantially improving text-driven controllability. JoyStreamer is designed for deployment across more than twenty industry scenarios, with targeted adaptations for five principal verticals including home appliances, home furnishings, and fashion apparel, with additional coverage extending to cultural tourism narration and e-commerce live commerce broadcasting. 

Standardization and Policy: The Zhongguancun Forum (中关村论坛) 2026 annual conference hosted a dedicated metaverse industry summit at which multiple standardization outputs were released simultaneously, including a metaverse industry development report, the first batch of ten metaverse industry standards open for public comment spanning domains including digital humans, virtual exhibition halls, industrial metaverse, and computing platforms, and the designation of seventeen organizations as first-batch verification units for metaverse standards. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, jointly with seven other government departments, issued an action implementation opinion in January 2026 to advance the development of digital humans and the broader metaverse industry as part of a coordinated industrial policy initiative. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has separately published a call for public comment on a mandatory national standard titled "Metaverse Classification and Identification: Digital Human Identity Marking Requirements." Guangdong Province's 2026 mass skills and cultural events program includes a province-wide AI creation competition open to all educational and professional backgrounds, with digital human production designated as one of five official competitive tracks.

March 26 News

Government Services: Hong Kong Customs launched an AI service ambassador named Xiao Hui (小慧) on March 25, combining generative AI and large language model technology in a digital human form to provide around-the-clock responses to customs inquiries from residents and travelers. In Gansu Province, the Yumen City Civic Center service hall has deployed an AI digital human named Yu Xiao Zhu (玉小助) to guide citizens through administrative procedures directly at service counters. Hebei Province's Jize County has placed digital humans in public-facing service positions with the stated aim of delivering zero-distance government services to residents. The Fujian Women's Federation operates an AI digital human known as Min Jiejie (闽姐姐), while Yunnan Province's Kunming Information Port (昆明信息港) has showcased a digital human named Xiao Ming (小明) as one of its frontier technology deployments.

Cultural Heritage and Tourism: The Meishan Sansu Temple Museum in Sichuan Province has announced plans to develop an AI digital human on the theme of Su Dongpo culture, drawing on a large cultural database dedicated to the Su literary tradition. In Dezhou, Shandong Province, elementary school students visiting a heritage site along the Grand Canal are guided by virtual digital humans while wearing VR headsets, providing an immersive approach to non-material cultural heritage education. Bota (波塔) has deployed its mobile AI digital human Xiao You (小优) in the Tibet Film Cultural Corridor in Lhasa, where the character tours the corridor and delivers narrated explanations using a custom knowledge base covering 75 years of Tibetan cinema history; Bota's digital human systems have also been installed in the exhibition hall of Jiaotou Group (交投集团). Huarui Shidian (华锐视点) offers AI digital humans specifically positioned for smart tourism scenarios, emphasizing hyper-realistic physical appearance, natural body movement, and emotional interaction as the distinguishing capabilities of its product. The digital human He You You (鹤游游), representing the city of Yancheng, appeared at the launch event for the 2026 Yancheng Cultural Tourism Season held in Yantai, Shandong, where it released a spring-themed educational travel itinerary. At Yinchuan Hedong Airport's T3 terminal in Ningxia, visitors can access the Yuanyou Ningxia VR Roaming installation, which places users in the role of a virtual winemaker and enables immersive exploration of sites including the Xi Xia Mausoleum.

Live Commerce: In Lishui, Guangdong Province, digital humans are being deployed in agricultural e-commerce livestream rooms to conduct product sales as part of an initiative to modernize local farming industries. In Hebei Province, a village official has established a sole-proprietorship company specifically to use an AI digital human for livestreaming and selling Morchella mushrooms. A student team from Xijing College (西京学院) in Shaanxi Province is developing digital human systems for cross-border e-commerce livestreaming, with current technical focus on enhancing emotional perception capabilities in live interactive sessions and resolving high-concurrency performance challenges. Influencer Han Anran (韩安冉) has authorized the creation of a digital twin derived from her likeness, voice, and motion data, making it available to appear in short-video dramas with a revenue-sharing arrangement on resulting copyright income; Han Anran has publicly noted that her digital counterpart may prove more capable as a performer than she is.

Entertainment and Short Drama: The short drama Yi Ren Zhi Xia (《异人之下》) has cast an AI digital human as a participant in its production, marking one of the more prominent cases of a synthetic character appearing alongside live performers in mainstream Chinese drama. The AI short drama Fengshui Tianshi (《风水天师》) attracted industry commentary following its success, with analysis noting that after an initial phase of competition based on computational resources, production teams are now competing on creative and human-labor inputs. The historical adventure drama Shenhua (《神话》), directed by Stanley Tong (唐季礼), also explored the use of AI digital human technology in its production process. More broadly, AIGC-enabled short drama production allows digital humans and real performers to share the screen simultaneously, and industry reports describe this as lowering the entry barrier for content creators across experience levels. Actors in the short drama sector are experiencing direct displacement by virtual humans, with individual performers, including Zhao Jia (赵佳), specifically identified as having lost roles to synthetic character replacements. Zhejiang Satellite TV's 2026 Yue Opera Spring Festival Gala featured a performance segment titled Ma Dao Fu Lai (《马到福来》) in which an AI digital human performed on stage alongside a real horse, blending traditional opera with synthetic performance. Huiboxing (慧播星) provides digital human technology that has been adopted by news video producers, with multiple video news reports from Yunnan Province credited as using Huiboxing digital humans in their production.

Education: Schools in Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, have deployed AI digital humans in the role of specialist PE coaches, with the technology positioned to provide professional-grade sports instruction within classroom settings and described as part of a broader wave of intelligent transformation in the city's educational system. At the 2026 Shaanxi Provincial College Graduates Comprehensive Job Fair held at Northwest University, an AI digital human interview terminal running the Zhimianxing (智面星) system was deployed to simulate interview conditions across a range of professional categories. Perfect World Education (完美世界教育) operates training programs in Shaanxi Province that include AI digital human creation among the competencies taught to students entering the animation, gaming, and film industries, with industry employers attending recruitment events at program completion.

Zhimianxing (智面星) is a Chinese AI-powered interview assistance tool that generates real-time answer prompts during online job interviews, producing resume-tailored responses within one second. Its connection to the digital human sector is primarily contextual: it is deployed in recruitment environments that incorporate AI digital human interviewers, and at a Chongqing Normal University job fair in March 2025 it was formally presented under the category of AI digital human interviewer products alongside other AI employment services. It is a product within the portfolio of Zhongjiao Holdings (中教控股, HK: 00839), where it sits alongside the resume generation tool Shenbi Jianli as part of an integrated AI employment solution marketed to universities. While Zhimianxing is not itself a digital human platform, it occupies the candidate-facing layer of recruitment workflows that increasingly feature AI digital human interviewers on the employer side, positioning it as a complementary tool within that broader ecosystem. 

Healthcare: Aier Eye Hospital (爱尔眼科) has implemented a digital human platform covering the complete patient journey, deploying the technology across pre-surgical patient education, intraoperative doctor-patient communication, and post-operative rehabilitation guidance, creating an intelligent service layer across multiple clinical interaction points.

The digital human platform at Aier Eye Hospital (爱尔眼科) is a primarily internally developed system centered on the Eyecho (爱科) digital human, built under the leadership of Aier's own Digital Ophthalmology Research Institute in deep collaboration with the Institute of Computing Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (中国科学院计算技术研究所), which co-established the research institute and contributed core AI and computing expertise. The development was led by the Aier Digital Ophthalmology Research Institute and the Group's Education and Technology Management Centre, with over 100 clinical experts from Liaoning Aier, Shenzhen Aier, and Changsha Aier contributing to knowledge base construction, alongside the Group's Information Centre and Health Education Centre. The platform draws on AIGC and neural rendering for high-realism digital human synthesis, retrieval-augmented generation to power the proprietary ophthalmology-domain large language model AierGPT, a self-attention network architecture for real-time personalized voice synthesis, and motion generation guided by large-scale natural human movement sequences. Three deployment variants were released: a pre-surgical interactive patient education digital human, a virtual bilingual digital human for hospital lobbies and brand presentation, and a mobile-deployed post-operative companion digital human supporting video, voice, and text multimodal interaction. Following its initial release, Eyecho was upgraded to incorporate the DeepSeek R1 reasoning model, enhancing its logical reasoning and complex-question-handling capabilities across pre-visit, in-hospital, and post-visit clinical service scenarios. 

Technology and Platform Development: JD.com (京东) has announced a significant upgrade to JoyStreamer, its proprietary digital human system, citing three core technical advances: a dual-teacher DMD post-training approach that enables complex instruction following and complex action execution without requiring additional training data; a dynamic CFG modulation strategy; and a dedicated model architecture incorporating historical and pseudo-frame inputs. The company describes JoyStreamer as the industry's first free-state digital human and reports that its performance now surpasses international state-of-the-art benchmarks. JD.com has also open-sourced the JoyAvatar digital human video generation framework and, as part of the same disclosure package, released the JoyAI-LLM Flash general-purpose foundation model. The company is additionally testing a digital twin construction service for financial advisory staff as part of its investment advisor product line, in which business personnel's professional expertise is encoded into a reusable digital replica. iFlytek (科大讯飞), operating at iFlytek Town in Hefei, Anhui Province, has developed multimodal hyper-realistic digital humans capable of precisely recognizing speech and reading facial expressions in real time to support immersive interactive experiences. Baidu Intelligent Cloud (百度智能云) debuted its digital human ViviDora at the 2026 Boao Asia Forum in Hainan Province, with ViviDora taking part in the forum session on humanoid robot advancement as the first digital human to appear in a formal guest capacity in the forum's history. Bota's product line spans large-screen holographic cabin installations through to compact mobile all-in-one digital human units, with deployments documented across cultural institutions and corporate exhibition contexts.

Ethical and Regulatory Contexts: Reports document a pattern of film and media companies extracting celebrity facial data without authorization to train generative models and produce virtual character images, with commentary characterizing this practice as portrait rights infringement and warning that its proliferation would cause serious damage to performing artists' livelihoods. Two named virtual humans have been cited as specific examples: the male virtual human Qin Lingyue (秦凌岳) bears a close physical resemblance to actor Zhai Zilu (翟子路), while the female virtual human Lin Xiyan (林汐颜) combines facial characteristics drawn from multiple actresses including Zhao Jinmai (赵今麦) and Xing Fei (邢菲). CCTV has reported on these cases, and prominent figures including Huo Qigang (霍启刚) have publicly raised the issue. In a separate strand, AI-generated virtual characters adopting the persona of domineering male leads have been used to target middle-aged and elderly women through emotionally manipulative video content, with regulatory commentary noting that using fabricated virtual identities to induce emotional attachment and extract money satisfies the legal elements of fraud. The revenue-sharing arrangement through which influencer Han Anran has licensed her likeness for a commercial digital twin in short drama production has simultaneously drawn attention to the unresolved question of artistic attribution and award eligibility in performer-authorized AI replication.

Social and Emotional Contexts: A 2024 survey by the Fudan Development Institute and associated institutions, published in the China Youth Netizen Social Mentality Survey Report, found that 13.5 percent of Chinese youth share personal concerns with AI virtual beings, a figure that has been cited as a concrete indicator of AI's growing role in the emotional lives of young people in China. Within the short drama industry, the displacement of human performers by virtual humans is being experienced as a material career disruption, with reports describing actors being removed from production groups as synthetic characters assume their roles.

March 25 News

Marketing: 钛动科技 (Taidon Technology) has positioned AI-generated digital humans as its primary strategy for helping Chinese beauty brands enter the US market, with its digital human content designed specifically to bridge cultural and linguistic barriers in overseas advertising material. In Kunming, Yunnan, 慧多派营销策划（云南）(Huidu Marketing Planning Yunnan) offers local businesses a 24-hour AI digital human livestreaming service in which a customized digital human avatar operates as a continuous live commerce host without requiring a human anchor, with a documented case involving a local restaurant deploying the service to address declining foot traffic. In Beijing's digital economy demonstration zone, 华浩AI (Huahao AI) launched its AI digital marketing intelligent agent platform, which integrates digital human application, multi-platform content distribution, and intelligent livestreaming as six core functional components spanning the full chain from content creation to execution. In the textile manufacturing hub of Shishi in Fujian, local enterprises have adopted digital human livestreaming technology as part of a systematic service framework aimed at helping domestic brands establish presence in international markets.

Cultural Tourism: The Guizhou cultural tourism virtual character "黄小西" (Huang Xiaxi), originally launched at the 2025 Guizhou Tourism Industry Development Conference, is scheduled to appear live at the 20th Guizhou Tourism Industry Development Conference in Guiyang in late March 2026, where it will demonstrate smart tourism and AI technology experiences for attending guests and deliver an announcement tied to the event programme. In Dezhou, Shandong, primary school students at a heritage site along the Grand Canal are equipped with VR headsets and guided through the experience by virtual digital human characters, embedding synthetic guides directly into cultural education at a historical landmark. At a Beijing exhibition centred on the Sanshanyuwuyuan imperial garden heritage cluster in the city's northwest, a digital human holographic booth navigates the exhibit space and provides visitors with detailed on-site introductions to whichever scenic location they select. Wuhan's municipal "AI+" action plan explicitly names digital humans alongside intelligent terminals and smart platforms as technologies to be widely deployed across tourist attractions, commercial blocks, venues, and shopping complexes as part of the city's integrated smart tourism development agenda.

Media and Entertainment: Shanghai-based 耀客传媒 (Yaokelive Media) formally announced the signing of its first batch of AI digital artists on March 18, 2026, introducing two virtual characters named "Qin Lingyue" (秦凌岳) and "Lin Xiyan" (林汐颜), each with independent social media accounts, representing an early step by a mainstream production company in treating synthetic digital humans as contracted entertainment talent. 欢瑞世纪 (Huanrui Century) has incorporated the Glowave X platform developed by 三生清影 (Sansheng Qingying) into its content production workflow, with digital human performance integrated alongside animation and other AI-generated formats to support the company's push toward intelligent and efficient film and television output. 华数传媒 (Huashu Media) launched the digital human "艾珈" (Aijia) as a voice intelligent agent embedded within its integrated television, broadband, 5G, and smart home product system. 中南出版传媒集团 (Zhongnan Publishing Media Group) applies text-to-image, image-to-video, and text-to-video generation technologies to produce digital human video content as part of its AIGC-driven publishing output. At a nationally covered anniversary event for the New Chongqing Client platform, news media delegates from Zhejiang, Fujian, and Liaoning press groups used digital human representations to deliver video messages, illustrating routine adoption of virtual presenters within China's state-affiliated media sector. 慧播星 (Huiboxing) deployed its digital human to narrate a widely circulated news report covering a family reunion in Jiangxi and Guangdong, demonstrating the use of digital human presenters in mainstream news video production. The Yue Opera Spring Gala, staged to mark the 120th anniversary of the art form, incorporated AI virtual hosts as part of a deliberate effort to explore cross-genre and cross-technology integration while preserving the performance's core aesthetic identity. In the AI short drama sector, industry analysis identifies digital humans as a foundational component of automated end-to-end drama production alongside large language models and multimodal video synthesis, with 新天策 (Xintianze) advancing high-precision digital human characters for AI realistic-person short drama content targeting international markets.

Huanrui Century (欢瑞世纪), listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange under the ticker 000892, is a publicly traded Chinese entertainment group whose core business spans television drama production and distribution, artist management, and related cultural media activities. The company entered the digital human space partly in response to the rising costs and management difficulties associated with traditional celebrity talent, and has pursued digital human development across entertainment and marketing applications. Its most prominent early project in this area was a September 2023 collaboration with N World (N世界) to produce conversational AI digital human characters based on roles from the historical drama series Lotus Tower (《莲花楼》), described at the time as the first deployment of interactive digital human characters in the marketing campaign for a Chinese drama series. In March 2026, the company announced a strategic partnership with Sansheng Qingying (三生清影), integrating the latter's self-developed GlowaveX platform with Huanrui Century's IP assets and distribution experience to co-produce AI animated drama, AI live-action short drama, and AI digital human performance content, with the stated aim of driving intelligent and more efficient production workflows. On Chinese financial data platforms, Huanrui Century is tagged under the virtual digital human, AIGC, short drama and gaming, and cultural media concept sectors, reflecting market positioning that treats its digital human activities as a meaningful component of its broader growth narrative. 

Sansheng Qingying (三生清影), formally registered as Chongqing Sansheng Qingying Technology Co., Ltd. (重庆三生清影科技有限公司), is a Chongqing-based AI technology company operating at the intersection of digital content creation and live commerce. The company runs a live streaming platform under the Glowave brand, accessible at glowave.studio, where it hosts named on-screen performers and publishes editorial content covering topics such as AI integration in livestreaming production chains, supply chain and fulfillment in live commerce, and the convergence of short video and live streaming ecosystems. The company's proprietary technology platform is called GlowaveX, which it characterises as a self-developed AI content production system. In March 2026, Sansheng Qingying entered a strategic partnership with Huanrui Century (欢瑞世纪), under which GlowaveX's AI capabilities are combined with Huanrui Century's IP library and distribution infrastructure to co-produce AI animated drama, AI live-action short drama, and AI digital human performance content, with the stated goal of driving more intelligent and efficient film and television production workflows. The digital human performance strand of this collaboration, described in Chinese-language sources as AI数字人演绎, positions Sansheng Qingying as a technology provider for digitally performed character content within entertainment IP contexts. The company's broader profile suggests a focus on AI-powered live streaming and content generation for e-commerce and entertainment applications, with digital human performance serving as one component of its GlowaveX platform's output capabilities. Its public web presence and the nature of the Huanrui Century deal indicate a company oriented toward applied commercial content rather than foundational research, operating at a scale that is relatively small compared to established digital human vendors but positioned to supply AI production technology to larger entertainment industry partners. 

Shanghai Xintianze Digital Technology Co., Ltd. (上海新天策数字科技有限公司), operating at newticee.com, is a small Shanghai-based content production company whose stated business spans film, television, music, and animation production and distribution, game art, and digital content production. Its corporate mission centres on integrating innovative technology with creative content to contribute to China's online audio-visual industry. The company does not appear in digital human industry reporting, vendor assessments, or partnership announcements, and no named digital human products, AIGC tools, or virtual human initiatives are documented in publicly available sources. Its relevance to the digital human sector is peripheral at best, grounded in its digital content production activities rather than any dedicated virtual human capability, and it is more accurately characterised as a small creative technology studio operating at the margins of the broader Chinese AI content industry. 

Financial Services: 湖南银行 (Hunan Bank) has issued a tender for a digital human system construction project, indicating active institutional procurement of interactive digital human infrastructure for customer-facing banking applications. At a financial literacy event held in Guangdong during the March 15 consumer rights period, 平安融易 (Ping An Rongyi) deployed an ultra-realistic digital human Q&A station within an immersive education booth, pairing the synthetic character with AI face-swap anti-fraud demonstrations to allow members of the public to engage with both financial guidance content and awareness of deepfake risks in a single interactive setting.

Education: In Fuzhou's Gulou District, a four-school collaborative activity involving Lin Zexu Primary School, Hubin Primary School, Xifeng Primary School, and Daming Primary School integrated AI digital humans alongside intelligent agents into a culture curriculum themed around Fuzhou's historical and patriotic heritage, with the digital characters functioning as instructional presences within lessons on Lin Zexu and Fuzhou identity. At Lanzhou No. 8 Middle School in Gansu, an AI digital human serves as a virtual guide in classroom settings, introducing students to subject content as part of Lanzhou's municipal programme to apply artificial intelligence to quality education delivery. In Hohhot, Inner Mongolia, digital human tools were deployed at a spring graduate employment fair to enable job-seekers to conduct simulated interviews and explore employer profiles in a self-directed, immersive format.

Enterprise: 科大讯飞 (iFlytek) presented a mobile digital human at the China Development Forum 2026 annual meeting, with its AI virtual human interaction platform and core product 讯飞智作 (iFlySparK Creation) presented as the infrastructure layer for mobile, interactive, and human-like AI interface experiences across sectors. 京东 (JD.com) has developed JoyStreamer, a digital human system incorporating dual-teacher DMD post-training technology, dynamic CFG modulation, and historical frame processing to produce a high-performance AI livestreaming presenter capable of sustained, realistic on-screen delivery. 风语筑 (FengYuZhu) lists digital human development and digital IP operations among its active business lines, having established a strategic partnership with Anhui Broadcasting and Television. 中科设计 (Zhongke Design) has received national software copyright registration for its intelligent digital human system, formalising the proprietary status of its synthetic character technology in the architectural and design services sector.

Ethical Contexts: A Chinese court ruling has confirmed that using face-swapping technology to overlay a performer's likeness onto another individual in short drama productions constitutes infringement, establishing a concrete legal boundary around synthetic identity deployment in commercial video content. In a related development, a media company's decision to sign AI digital artists whose synthesised appearances blend facial features drawn from multiple known celebrities attracted both public attention and legal concern, with analysis indicating that reduced immediate recognisability does not insulate such characters from likeness appropriation claims. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (工业和信息化部) has announced plans to formulate standards specifically governing digital human identity identification, signalling a regulatory move toward establishing technical and legal frameworks that define, authenticate, and distinguish virtual human identities within China's digital economy.

March 24 News

Government and Public Services: A volunteer digital human (志愿数字人) made its debut across multiple Chinese cities as a community governance tool designed to provide services spanning all age groups, framed in reporting as a solution to last-mile public administration delivery at the neighborhood level. In Xuzhou's Quanshan district, a digital human installed on a smart display in the district government service hall accurately responds to more than 1,200 policy and administrative queries from citizens. At an economic development conference for Wenquan Town in Beijing's Haidian district, a virtual digital human named Xiaoquan (小泉) co-hosted the opening segment alongside a physical robot. China Financial Media (中国金融传媒) expanded its digital human applications on the "Financial+" consumer rights protection network platform, an initiative recognized as an innovative media technology application case by industry authorities. Wuhan city government's "AI+" action plan, issued on March 23, explicitly calls for the wide-scale deployment of digital humans at tourist sites, commercial streets, venues, and shopping complexes as part of an integrated framework combining AI, VR/AR, and digital twin technologies.

Cultural Heritage and Tourism: Chengdu's Wuhou Shrine Museum (成都武侯祠博物馆), in collaboration with a technology partner, developed Xiao Zhuge (小诸葛), a digital human guide described as a successful conversion case within the museum's broader digital scene application program. In Fujian province, a digital human was deployed at a cultural creativity event in the Wuyi region to render the classical texts of Neo-Confucian scholar Zhuxi (朱子) perceptible and engaging for contemporary young audiences. Shandong's Qingyun county developed an AI digital human NPC that guides visitors through an immersive experiential journey within its digital science and technology venue, contributing to the county's smart cultural tourism development. Hebei University of Science and Technology Film School (河北科大影视学院) assembled a cross-disciplinary team using motion capture and voice synthesis technology to produce virtual character representations for cultural heritage content, including a VR-based restoration of the Qingming Shanghe Tu (清明上河图) and depictions of wartime production scenes in the Taihang mountain region. iFlytek (科大讯飞), identified among leading smart cultural tourism solution providers, has deployed a digital human guide at the Palace Museum (故宫) supporting multilingual interaction with AR scene overlay, with a further lightweight deployment enabling rural tourism services in Zhejiang's Anji county. China's 2026 Culture and Tourism Standard Project Guide (2026年文化和旅游标准立项指南) formally designates AI and cultural tourism integration as a standardization priority area, with proposed provisions for cultural adaptability assessment of digital human appearances in heritage and tourism contexts.

The《2026年文化和旅游标准立项指南》designates "AI + Culture and Tourism" as a priority standardization area, with digital human services explicitly identified as a key application requiring regulatory attention. Zhang Yichun (张宜春), director of the digital arts department at the China Arts and Technology Research Institute (中国艺术科技研究所), called for several specific standards to be developed around digital humans: cultural adaptability standards governing digital human appearance and presentation, defined boundaries for emotional interaction between digital humans and users, mandatory labeling requirements so audiences can identify when they are interacting with a digital human, and a framework for confirming ownership and assigning legal responsibility to digital human creators for the content their virtual figures generate. 

Healthcare: Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region (广西壮族自治区) has built what is described as the world's first AI interactive medical specialist digital human with support for ASEAN multilingual communication, designed to overcome language barriers for cross-border patients from Southeast Asian countries and to deliver efficient and accurate diagnostic consultation services within a regional medical cooperation framework.

Commerce and Live Streaming: At trade exhibition venues in Guangdong province, an automated system identifies an overseas visitor's nationality and spoken language and, within 0.5 seconds, generates a digital human on a nearby screen dressed in attire matching the visitor's own clothing and communicating in their language, enabling real-time cross-cultural business engagement at export-oriented commercial events. (The project is publicly referred to as the Jiuniuyimao industrial AI platform, in Chinese 九牛一毛产业AI平台, and it appears to be technically associated with Shenzhen Jiuniuyimao Intelligent IoT Technology Co., Ltd. (深圳市九牛一毛智能物联科技有限公司), with EVOC High-Tech Holding Group (研祥高科技控股集团) as the main corporate backer.) Shanxi Qiuyue Overseas E-commerce (山西秋月出海跨境电商有限公司) uses digital human live streaming to connect Shanxi-manufactured products with international buyers. In Handan, Hebei province, 1,838 industrial products have been brought onto global online sales platforms through digital human live streaming and virtual intelligent customer service technologies as part of a regional drive to accelerate e-commerce adoption. A student team in Xi'an has been developing digital humans with emotional perception capabilities for cross-border live streaming applications, currently focused on resolving high-concurrency processing challenges that arise during live interactive broadcast sessions. The 2026 Spring Consumer Festival in Xi'an's Yanhe district incorporated digital human interactive mini-games as part of its public-facing consumer engagement program, deployed alongside smart device experience zones.

Shenzhen Jiuniuyimao Intelligent IoT Technology Co., Ltd. (深圳市九牛一毛智能物联科技有限公司) is a Shenzhen-based intelligent IoT company whose primary digital human application is an industrial AI platform of the same name, developed for deployment in trade and exhibition contexts. The platform, which was approaching launch in Guangdong as of March 2026, uses digital humans outfitted in trade-appropriate attire and capable of conducting multilingual, barrier-free dialogue with prospective customers, with the stated objective of significantly improving order-taking efficiency at trade expos and fairs. At a Guangdong Federation of Industry and Commerce conference that month, federation chairman Chen Zhilie cited the platform as an example of AI solving industrial "data entry point" challenges, noting that it would support over 200 common industrial protocols and approximately 48 million AI node connections, while providing a full-chain service scope encompassing real-time data collection, data analysis and modeling, equipment AI management, and application development. The company's positioning places it at the intersection of IoT infrastructure and embodied AI, with digital humans serving as the conversational front end of a broader industrial intelligence stack rather than as standalone virtual personas. 

Media and Broadcasting: iFlytek's mobile digital human was displayed at the China Development Forum 2026 annual conference in Beijing on March 22 and 23, where CCTV's News Center and iFlytek jointly operated an AI interactive interview zone with the mobile digital human as its central exhibit. The Hangzhou meteorological science popularization program "West Lake Sunny and Rainy Season Gathering" (西湖晴雨荟) used AIGC technology to produce customized digital human versions of real-life weather presenters, converting visual representations of the 24 solar terms and their associated natural indicators into Eastern aesthetic content. Shanghai Zhiling Xinjing Technology (上海智灵新境科技有限公司) has produced digital humans based on actor Gong Jun (龚俊) and historical figure Song Qingling (宋庆龄), as well as a cultural expo metaverse environment, with the company's creative director serving as a trainer at Xiaoxiang Morning Post Media Group (潇湘晨报融媒体集团)'s AI tools training program. Guangxi Nanning Xiaoye Culture Media (广西南宁晓叶文化传媒有限公司) completed nine micro-drama co-productions in 2026 and operates a 25-meter-by-7-meter AI virtual production screen described as the first and currently largest of its kind in Guangxi, used for advertising, film production, and digital human content creation. Huiboxing (慧播星) digital humans were used in the production of a news video report covering a major incident in Guizhou province.

Education: Wuhan's Jiangan district launched what is described as the city's first primary school enrollment consultation digital human, named Xiao'an Teacher (小岸老师), available around the clock to respond to parents' enrollment-related inquiries. Xi'an Ouya University (西安欧亚学院) students participated in the commercial production pipeline for "Yuan Qi Chen Tang" (缘起陈塘), an S-class animation project by Randian Century (燃点世纪), performing AIGC digital human lip-sync work as part of a school-enterprise collaboration that directly integrates live commercial production requirements into the academic curriculum. A Zibo city employment fair incorporated an AI digital human in its digital employment zone to provide policy guidance, vocational assessment, and mock interview services to job seekers alongside VR-based immersive enterprise experience tools.

Randian Shiji (燃点世纪) is a cultural media company focused on AIGC digital human creation and commercial applications, with core business activities spanning AIGC short drama production, digital human training, and platform operations. The company has produced AIGC comic dramas including Yuan Qi Chen Tang and Ni Ding Deng Tian, and has applied AIGC techniques to advertising production in sectors such as cosmetics and automotive. In its productions, digital humans are deployed primarily for lip-sync matching within AI-driven animation pipelines. Randian Shiji also maintains an industry-education collaboration model, partnering with Xi'an Eurasia University to run training camps in AIGC drama production workflows; a cohort of over a hundred participants completed such a program in September 2025, with students subsequently integrated into the real commercial pipeline of Yuan Qi Chen Tang as contributing creators. The company is active on Douyin and hosts closed-door sessions sharing its proprietary AIGC project workflows and team coordination methods. 

Technology and Infrastructure: Soul, the Chinese social platform, publicly released multiple open-source models under its SoulX initiative, including SoulX-FlashHead and SoulX-FlashTalk for real-time digital human generation, SoulX-Singer for singing voice synthesis, and a podcast voice synthesis model, positioning the company as a contributor to the technical infrastructure layer for interactive digital human systems. Silicon Intelligence (南京硅基智能科技集团股份有限公司), headquartered in Nanjing, holds a 32.2% market share in China's digital human AI agent industry, presenting its product range as digital human representations of professionals including lawyers, anchors, and medical practitioners deployed on vertical display screens. Zero Gram Cloud (零克云) and AIGCLINK jointly announced a collaboration with Beijing's municipal Digital Human Base to establish an OPC (One Person Company) innovation community, offering end-to-end support from technical development and product validation through to industrial incubation for individual-operator ventures in the digital human sector. iFlytek's robot brain platform, developed in partnership with Suyi Integration (苏移集成), integrates virtual digital human capabilities alongside physical robot modules on the Chaonao 2030 technical base, with components for AI capability clusters, multimodal interaction, and intelligent motion. Changan Automobile (长安汽车) was granted an invention patent for a virtual character image configuration method and associated apparatus for vehicle terminal systems, specifically addressing the challenge of achieving convincing virtual character rendering within in-vehicle display environments. ModelScope (魔搭社区) reported that its open-source model repository grew from 70,000 to 170,000 models over nine months, with digital human models among the new additions alongside contributions from DeepSeek, Zhipu AI (智谱), MiniMax (MiniMax), and other developers. The AIE2026 Shanghai International Artificial Intelligence Exhibition (2026上海国际人工智能展览会) features digital humans as a dedicated product category alongside holographic displays, immersive digital cinema systems, and multi-media interactive experiences.

Regulatory and Ethical Contexts: China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (工业和信息化部) issued a public consultation notice on March 23 for a draft standard titled "Metaverse Classification and Digital Human Identity Identifiers," proposing a one-person-one-code system designed to assign a unique identity code to each digital human operating within metaverse environments. A commercially active model has emerged in China's short-drama industry whereby social media influencers authorize production companies to use their facial likeness, voice recordings, and biometric data to generate a digital avatar that can appear in filmed content without the influencer's physical presence on set, with earnings shared between the creator and the production entity; influencer Han Anran (韩安冉), whose AI avatar is labeled as representing a follower base of over ten million, constitutes a documented example of this arrangement. Legal commentary in Chinese media addressed the portrait rights implications of virtual characters designed to resemble specific real individuals, noting that even a non-human digital figure can constitute an infringement when it bears a sufficiently high and stable resemblance to an identifiable person. Guangdong reporting highlighted the use of AI digital humans in consumer fraud schemes targeting elderly audiences, with analysis noting that mandatory "AI generated" labeling on such videos has not proved effective in preventing exploitation of older consumers.

March 23 News

Government and Community Services: Pukou District in Nanjing, Jiangsu, deployed an AI digital human social worker to serve residents remotely, focusing on high-frequency queries including applications for elderly welfare benefits, minimum subsistence allowances, and disability subsidies. In Chongqing, a volunteer digital human made its first public appearance as part of an all-age community service initiative designed to extend the reach of grassroots governance to residents not easily served through conventional channels. The Wuhua District government in Kunming, Yunnan, incorporated an AI digital human into a youth talent policy promotion event to present the district's measures for attracting and supporting young professionals. The 2026 university graduate job fair in Hohhot, Inner Mongolia, co-organized by the Inner Mongolia Human Resources and Social Security Department and the Hohhot municipal government, set up an AI experience zone that integrated VR equipment, AI career assessment tools, AI interview booths, and AI digital human interactions to assist graduating students with employment preparation.

Entertainment and Short Drama: Yaoke Media (耀客传媒) officially announced two AI digital artists, Qin Lingyu and Lin Xiyan, and released the trailer for the AI short drama Qinling Bronze Mystery, in which both synthetic performers take featured roles, following a nationally trending topic debating the suitability of AI actors for secondary and lower-billed parts in Chinese productions. Influencer Han Anran entered a commercial licensing agreement with Yuxiao Media (聿潇传媒), formally authorizing the company to create and operate a digital avatar modeled on her facial features, physical characteristics, and voice, an arrangement that legal commentators described as an exercise of the commercial property component of personality rights. Shangrao Media Group (上饶传媒集团) produced the AI short drama Searching for Xin Qiji using a fully integrated AI pipeline covering video generation, voice synthesis, and visual effects, with the resulting digital character renderings accumulating over 300,000 views across online platforms. Students and faculty at Xi'an Eurasia University (西安欧亚学院) were embedded in the commercial production pipeline of Yandian Century (燃点世纪), completing AIGC digital human lip-synchronization work for the company's S-level short drama project Yuan Qi Chen Tang, with the institution framing the collaboration as a model of industry-integrated education. The platform Honguo Short Drama (红果短剧) was cited in industry commentary examining how production companies will allocate resources between human-cast and AI-cast short drama projects as synthetic performer use expands.

Yandian Century (燃点世纪) is a Chinese AIGC content production company whose work in the digital human space centers on animated short drama production, with AIGC digital human model creation and lip-synchronization as its primary technical competencies. The company operates established production pipelines for AI-generated animated drama content and has achieved commercial scale, with its output distributed across major Chinese streaming platforms. Its most documented project is Yuan Qi Chen Tang (《缘起陈塘》), an S-level AI animated drama production in which digital human character work formed a core production element; the officially registered production of the associated title Yuan Qi Chen Tang: Qing Cheng (《缘起陈塘之倾城》) premiered on Tencent Video in February 2026, with the filing credited to Xingheyingchuang (Tianjin) Technology Co., Ltd. (星河影创（天津）科技有限公司), indicating that Yandian Century functioned as a technical contractor within the broader production pipeline rather than as the primary rights holder. The company has also pursued industry-education integration, hosting an event of over one hundred participants in September 2025 and subsequently embedding students from Xi'an Eurasia University (西安欧亚学院) directly into its commercial production pipeline to perform AIGC digital human lip-synchronization work. Yandian Century additionally conducts closed-door sessions sharing its proprietary AIGC workflows and team coordination methods with industry practitioners. 

Live Commerce: Tianmu Zhibo (天牧智播) positioned AI digital humans as the defining force in live-streaming commerce, characterizing the current moment as one in which virtually any product category can be hosted by a synthetic broadcaster. Taobao Live (淘宝直播) developed a digital human interactive large language model aimed at reducing the perceived artificiality of AI-hosted live commerce sessions by training on real human automatic speech recognition data to produce more naturalistic speech output. Jiangsu Zhihui Baoye Technology (江苏智慧保业科技有限公司) announced plans to build an AI application, training, and practice center in the Sutong Industrial Park in Nantong, Jiangsu, with the operation of a digital human live-streaming base as one of its core functional components. Consumer protection authorities in Shenyang, Liaoning, issued public warnings identifying AI digital human-hosted broadcasts as a growing fraud vector, citing scripted live-stream formats, fabricated expert personas, and deceptively deployed synthetic hosts as specific risks to consumers.

Tourism: The travel services platform MaiPu (麦扑) deployed AI digital humans to deliver personalized tourism information to users proactively, framing the model as a transition from user-initiated information search to system-initiated information delivery. Shiyou Technology (世优科技) demonstrated digital human hosting at the Third Hunan Tourism Development Conference, using motion capture technology to enable a synthetic presenter to participate in live event segments, an integration that attracted wide attention and helped the conference gain significant online visibility.

MaiPu Cultural Creativity (杭州麦扑文化创意有限公司), commonly referred to as MaiPu Wenlu or MaiPu Tourism, is a Hangzhou-based smart tourism solutions provider with fifteen years of operation and over 8,000 scenic area, city, and cultural tourism clients nationwide. The company originated in hand-drawn map design and has since expanded into a full digital tourism service offering. Its AI digital human deployments form a core part of this offering, with applications including 24-hour AI digital human tour guides providing scenic commentary, question answering, and interactive navigation; location-based automatic commentary triggered as visitors move through a venue; AI digital human customer service integrated into lightweight mini-programs; and digital human interfaces embedded in smart community and exhibition environments. A documented deployment in Zhejiang's Qingtian allows visitors to summon an AI digital human guide by scanning a QR code. The company also built a smart mini-program for Huzhou Giraffe Manor incorporating AI digital human, AR navigation, and AR image recognition functions. MaiPu's stated strategic framework centers on three core technologies it labels "3A": AI digital humans, AR interaction, and AIoT smart management. The company has been recognized as a national high-tech enterprise and appeared in multiple 2026 smart tourism vendor rankings. Its founder Ouyang Jinwei was referenced in connection with a private board visit to AI voice company Yizhi Intelligence. 

Education: Northwestern Polytechnical University built a digital intelligence teaching system as part of its flagship general aviation engineering practicum course, enabling students to converse with a digital human to retrieve course information and deepen their subject knowledge at any time. At the Jingchu Science Lecture in Ezhou, Hubei, a humanoid intelligent robot and a digital human were jointly deployed as co-hosts, demonstrating the simultaneous use of physical and virtual synthetic agents in a public science outreach context. Perfect World Education (完美世界教育) reported that its AI digital human production curriculum attracts direct recruitment from animation, gaming, and film companies nationwide, with trained students typically receiving employment offers after approximately one month of study.

Industry and Market: ThunderSoft (中科创达) held a 32.2% market share in China's digital human agent industry, a figure cited during the annual conference of ModelScope (魔搭), the country's most influential AI open-source community, which held its annual event in Nanjing, Jiangsu. Shandong Digital Human Technology Co., Ltd. (山东数字人科技股份有限公司), listed on the exchange under securities code 920670, disclosed its 2025 annual report showing revenue of approximately 99.65 million yuan, representing year-on-year growth exceeding 50% and a return to profitability after prior losses.

Technology: Changan Auto (长安汽车) was granted an invention patent for a method of configuring a virtual image for an in-vehicle voice assistant, in which the system extracts and processes voice characteristics to generate a three-dimensional avatar configuration file that the patent described as producing a vivid, expressive, and spatially convincing visual representation. OPPO (欧珀) announced that its agentic memory and retrieval-augmented generation system for smartphone AI agents is expected to evolve within the year toward the creation of personal digital avatars capable of learning and replicating user behavior patterns to provide personalized decision support and anticipatory services.

Regulatory and Ethical Contexts: National People's Congress representative Zhong Zheng of Midea Group (美的集团) proposed that dedicated regulatory provisions be established for AI digital human live-streaming, including a mandatory registration and filing system for synthetic identities used in commercial broadcasts. Legal analysis of the techniques underlying AI actor production identified the composite blending of multiple performers' facial features and the direct replacement of live actors' faces as practices that raise substantive intellectual property infringement questions under Chinese law. Han Anran's licensing arrangement with Yuxiao Media generated sustained public and legal debate over the scope and limits of personality rights when facial likeness, voice, and physical characteristics are contractually transferred for the creation and ongoing commercial operation of a synthetic persona. Commentary also addressed the broader phenomenon of AI-generated digital characters in short drama whose visual identities are assembled from the features of real individuals without authorization, a practice described as producing legally unresolved synthetic presences in the content ecosystem.

Cultural: Artist Hou Jiaqi presented the work Fold Back 0.01 at the Art Central fair in Hong Kong, in which a digital avatar was used to explore themes of emotional existence, intimacy, and the tensions between contemporary social life and virtual identity, with the project curated by Rong Yingyi and framed as a contribution to emerging Asian voices in digital art.

Healthcare: Academician Zhang Xuejia delivered a lecture titled From Intelligent Sensing to Brain+ Brain Network Systems: Digital Humans Reconstructing the Human Future at a Greater Bay Area health forum co-organized by Hong Kong and Zhuhai institutions, addressing the role of digital human frameworks in the development of intelligent biomedical sensing and human-computer integration systems.

March 22 News

Live Commerce: Tianmu Zhibo (天牧智播) characterized the current state of China's live-streaming e-commerce sector as an era in which AI digital humans have made it viable for virtually any product category to be presented by a non-human host, describing the moment as one of broad-based deployment rather than selective experimentation. During JD.com's New Year Festival, digital human-hosted broadcast rooms operated within the platform's live commerce infrastructure, demonstrating the technology's capacity to sustain commercial programming at scale.

Tianmu Zhibo (天牧智播) is a Chinese AI digital human live-streaming platform specializing in e-commerce broadcast automation, operating primarily through Douyin and associated with the account 天牧智播（程川). The company deploys AI digital humans as automated hosts for live-streaming commerce, replacing or supplementing human presenters across product categories under the promotional positioning that virtually any product can be broadcast by a digital human host. Its proprietary Tianmu Zhibo engine is optimized for live-stream stability, and the platform supports multiple delivery formats including pure digital human streams, blended real-environment streams, AI short-video clip promotion, and matrix-style multi-channel operations. Operations follow a centralized "central kitchen" model in which digital human production and technical support are handled internally, removing the need for partner businesses to maintain dedicated technical teams. The platform offers entry-level pricing reported at 300 yuan per month and maintains templated script libraries and product knowledge bases to standardize deployment across clients. Beyond commercial operations, Tianmu Zhibo has partnered with universities to establish AI digital human e-commerce industry-education integration training bases combining commercial live-streaming, student training, business incubation, and social skills development within a single operational structure. 

Entertainment and Media: Yaoke Media (耀客传媒) signed two AI digital artists, Qin Lingyue and Lin Xiyan, cast them as the leads in the fantasy mystery drama Qinling Bronze Strange Chronicles, and established dedicated social media accounts to sustain continuous public personas for both virtual performers. On March 20, 2026, Yuxiao Media (聿潇传媒) announced that internet personality Han Anning had been formally signed as an AI virtual actress, representing one of the first talent-agency-style signings of a hybrid AI performer to be publicly announced in that reporting cycle. At the 30th Hong Kong International Film and Television Market in March 2026, Shanghai's delegation presented virtual production, AI-generated content, and digital human technology application cases, integrating the sector into China's international content export and co-production ecosystem. In Fujian, Haixi Media (海西传媒) disclosed at the 2026 Minshang Annual Ceremony in Fuzhou that it is developing digital human actors and intelligent interactive projects as primary instruments for activating cultural IP value through technological means.

Education: A university engaged in national "Putonghua" (Standard Mandarin) promotion work developed a digital human named Qianxiaoyi to animate red cultural resources, deploying it as part of outreach programs serving rural communities including those in Guizhou. In Wuhan, the Jiang'an District education authority launched a digital human named Xiao'an Teacher, identified as the city's first digital human dedicated to primary school enrollment consultation, configured to respond to parents' inquiries around the clock. A cross-institutional political education class jointly organized by Huazhong Normal University and Wuhan University of Science and Technology incorporated digital human technology to deliver an immersive civics lesson simultaneously to partner schools in Hefei, Chongqing, and Xi'ning.

Healthcare: Authorities in Guangxi developed what was reported as the world's first AI interactive medical specialty digital human with support for the full range of ASEAN multilingual interaction, placed within a broader regional initiative to establish a medical imaging hub oriented toward Southeast Asia and structured around a planned standardized database of 30 million medical imaging cases. In the pharmaceutical marketing sector, Yicai (医彩) deployed an AI doctor digital avatar product enabling pharmaceutical sales representatives to conduct simulated clinical visit training, with the system providing real-time feedback and intelligent performance scoring across scenarios including needs identification, benefit presentation, objection handling, and academic follow-up.

Yicai (医彩) is a Chinese pharmaceutical digital technology company focused on AI-driven marketing solutions for pharmaceutical enterprises and medical institutions, operating primarily through a WeChat-based presence under the account ID yicaibang. In the digital human space, the company deploys AIGC-powered virtual digital human technology for academic promotion, medical knowledge dissemination, and product marketing, enabling drug companies to present clinical and product information through animated virtual presenters rather than static content. A documented deployment involved a collaboration with Kangenbei (康恩贝), a major Zhejiang-based pharmaceutical group, in which Yicai's digital human technology was applied to academic promotion of specific pharmaceutical products. The company also integrates its digital human video output into a broader commercial model combining private-domain patient management and online pharmacy channels, framing the technology as a new "doctor–pharmacy–patient" marketing chain. Additional application areas include enterprise knowledge base Q&A, academic conferences, and product launches. Yicai has been recognized as a Zhejiang Business Artificial Intelligence Innovation and Development Research Base and has appeared at industry events including the MDT 2026 Medical and Health Digital Technology Conference, positioning itself as a specialist at the intersection of pharmaceutical marketing digitalization and virtual human content delivery. 

Government Services: The opening ceremony of the 2026 Wenquan Town Economic and Social High-Quality Development Conference in Beijing's Haidian District was conducted jointly by a virtual digital human named Xiaoquan and a physical robot, framing the town's technology-focused development agenda through a combined human-robot presentational format. In Xinjiang, a delegation from Karamay City Convergence Media Center (新疆克拉玛依市融媒体中心) visiting the Yanfu Dazhong Newspaper Group (盐阜大众报报业集团) in Jiangsu engaged in real-time interactive dialogue with the outlet's digital human host named Dazhou, using the exchange to explore media convergence strategies relevant to Karamay's own institutional development.

Journalism and Broadcasting: Huiboxing (慧播星) digital humans appeared as AI-generated on-screen presenters across multiple regional news video productions during the reporting period, with confirmed appearances in coverage of events in Henan, Shaanxi, and Hong Kong, demonstrating routine deployment of virtual presenter technology in daily broadcast journalism. At the Shandong Telecom (山东电信) 2026 Technology Festival held in Jinan on March 19 and 20, a digital human developed in-house by Shandong Telecom served as the event host, marking a public corporate deployment of proprietary digital human technology in a large-scale institutional setting.

Technology and Infrastructure: iFlytek (讯飞科技) promoted its AI digital human avatar creation tool, which draws on voice recognition, semantic understanding, and the Xinghuo large language model to enable users to produce a virtual digital representation at approximately one-tenth of live-actor production cost. Soul released SoulX-LiveAct, a model addressing core challenges in real-time digital human rendering including long-duration stability and reduction of computational load, complementing a broader portfolio of open-sourced models covering multiple dimensions of real-time interactive multimodal technology. In Beijing's Haidian District, entrepreneur Lu Xuanjun founded Beijing Maosheng Intelligence (北京卯昇智能) and developed a sovereign digital avatar system drawing on ten years of UI/UX design experience, operating from within the OPC startup community. Shiyou Technology, the company behind the Bota AI digital human agent, disclosed a digital human factory platform model and cited participation in more than 30 national-level projects including the Hangzhou Asian Games and the CCTV Spring Festival Gala, spanning both 3D and 2D digital human application domains. In Nantong, Jiangsu Zhihuibao Technology (江苏智慧保业科技有限公司) commenced construction of an AI application empowerment center in the Susitong Industrial Park (苏锡通园区), incorporating a digital human live-streaming base as one of its core operational components. An industrial park in Inner Mongolia designated AI digital human production alongside film rendering as anchor business lines, leveraging the region's green electricity and computing resources to position itself within the AI content production sector.

Cultural and Tourism: The Xi'an Chang'an Twelve Hours themed block, designated among China's first national pilot projects for smart tourism immersive experience spaces, introduced holographic digital humans functioning as smart staff within the venue and established a technology partnership with Huawei (华为) to layer intelligent service capabilities onto the visitor experience. In Guangdong, an academic field station in Jiaoling County staged a demonstration in which a digital human metaverse dialogue scenario was presented alongside robotic demonstrations to illustrate to visiting researchers how the technology can be applied in rural scientific and cultural education contexts.

Legal and Ethical Contexts: The Beijing Internet Court established in a ruling that AI-generated virtual digital human images possessing sufficient originality are entitled to independent copyright protection, providing a new legal basis for rights-holders operating in the digital human sector. Multiple infringement cases emerged from short drama productions employing AI face-swapping technology to generate characters closely resembling real celebrities: one adjudicated case involved a production company that created and distributed a 44-episode, 90-minute drama using AI-generated character likenesses, with the court finding this constituted infringement. A further dispute surrounded the AI digital artists Qin Lingyue and Lin Xiyan of Yaoke Media, whose appearances were publicly accused of resembling multiple real celebrities; Wang Qi, associate professor at Beihang University's School of Law, articulated the applicable legal standard as turning on whether a digital human's image enables the public to stably identify a specific real person, regardless of creative intent. A separate incident involved the likeness of actress Yang Zi being rendered through AI face-swap technology in a commercially distributed short drama, with legal commentary warning of both civil damages liability and potential criminal exposure. Chinese actor Zeng Shunxi publicly discussed performer anxiety around AI, noting that AI-generated virtual humans carry no negative public record, conform to algorithmically optimized appearance standards, and can operate without interruption, raising concerns about the reinforcement of standardized beauty norms in the Chinese entertainment industry. Within the broader short drama market, AI-simulated human productions emerged as a significant growth segment, with guaranteed minimum payments for a single production reportedly reaching 3.6 million yuan.

Finance and Industry: Shandong Digital Human Technology (山东数字人科技股份有限公司), listed on the Beijing Stock Exchange under securities code 920670 and founded in April 2002, disclosed in its 2025 annual report revenue of 99.65 million yuan representing year-on-year growth of 50.22%, alongside net profit attributable to shareholders of 8.18 million yuan, reversing a prior-year loss at a growth rate of 296.77%. The company operates in digital medicine software with a focus on human body visualization technology, positioning it as one of the few publicly listed Chinese entities with the term "digital human" in its corporate name whose core activities relate specifically to medical data and anatomical visualization rather than entertainment or commercial avatar applications.

March 21 News

Entertainment: Yaoke Media (耀客传媒) officially announced the deployment of AI actors for drama production, with coverage indicating that roles below second lead would be filled by AI-generated characters rather than human performers. Reports noted that these AI-generated figures exhibited apparent face-merging with real human actors, generating immediate public controversy. In the broader context of Chinese entertainment, earlier signed virtual digital humans—including Xiaoyang, the virtual character affiliated with Hunan Satellite TV (湖南卫视), Lili, developed by Youku (优酷), and the virtual band projects associated with Lehua Entertainment (乐华娱乐)—are now described in industry commentary as products of the earlier metaverse era, with the current phase characterized by generative AI character integration directly into commercial production workflows. The AI animated comics format has emerged as a growing production track in China, with virtual characters and adapted web fiction deployed instead of real-person AI short drama formats to reduce exposure to portrait rights and copyright disputes; DataEye-ADX (dataeye.com) industry data indicated expansion in the format as of January 2026. Students from Xi'an Eurasia University, partnered with Ranran Century (燃点世纪) on the S-level animation project Yuanqi Chentang, are executing AIGC digital human lip-sync work within a real commercial production pipeline as part of a school–industry integration initiative. Huiboxing (慧播星) digital humans have been used to produce news video content, including an item covering a Shanghai Metro incident during the morning rush hour. The Shanghai Broadcasting and Television Bureau (上海市广播电视局) presented digital human technology application cases alongside virtual production and AI-generated content examples at the 30th Hong Kong International Film and Television Expo, offering these as evidence of Shanghai's industrial leadership in film and television technology. A creative video series titled Guobao AI Le, produced by Beiguo Net (北国网), introduced a dedicated AI digital double for its reporter, designed as a synthetic persona capable of navigating historical time periods for cultural relic exploration.

DataEye (数字眼科技) is a Shenzhen-based mobile marketing intelligence and advertising technology company whose core product, DataEye-ADX, functions as an advertising creative analytics platform tracking ad creatives, placements, and performance data across China's major mobile traffic channels. While the ADX platform itself is primarily an ad-intelligence tool serving game publishers and brand advertisers, DataEye maintains a research division — DataEye Research Institute (DataEye研究院) — that has become a notable data source for the Chinese digital human industry. The institute publishes regular quantitative reports tracking digital human deployment across short drama (短剧), live commerce, and AI-generated content sectors, including metrics on AI-avatar-driven content volumes, platform-level play counts, and the penetration of virtual presenters in AI-animated drama production. Its data is widely cited in Chinese trade and financial media when reporting on the growth of digital human applications in video content, making DataEye Research Institute a de facto industry monitor for the intersection of digital humans and short-form entertainment, even though digital human development is not a product or service the company itself offers. 

The Shanghai Broadcasting and Television Bureau (上海市广播电视局) is a municipal regulatory and promotional authority overseeing broadcasting, television, and online audiovisual content in Shanghai. In the context of digital humans, the bureau has emerged as an active institutional driver of the technology's integration into Shanghai's media production ecosystem. It has co-organized industry events with the Shanghai Internet Audiovisual Industry Association, including forums and conference sessions dedicated to advancing AI-driven production techniques such as digital human performance, intelligent script generation, and full-pipeline automated content creation. In March 2026 it participated in the 2026 Micro-Drama Technology Industry Promotion Conference, where companies including MiniMax presented applications of digital human technology in short-form drama production and distribution. The bureau also contributed to Shanghai's representation at the 30th Hong Kong International Film and Television Market, where digital human technology application cases were exhibited as evidence of the city's leading position in film and television industrialization. Through inspection, policy coordination, and co-hosted industry matchmaking activities, the bureau functions as a key government interface between Shanghai's regulatory framework and the companies developing and deploying digital human systems in broadcasting and audiovisual content. 

MiniMax (稀宇科技) is a Shanghai-based AI foundation model company founded by Yan Junjie, positioning itself among China's leading independent large model developers alongside Zhipu AI and others. In the context of digital humans, MiniMax operates primarily as an upstream infrastructure provider rather than a dedicated digital human vendor, supplying the multimodal model capabilities — spanning text, voice synthesis, and video generation — that underpin a range of digital human applications developed by downstream partners and integrators. Its Hailuo AI (hailuoai.video) video generation platform is directly relevant to synthetic character and digital human video production, enabling the creation of interactive video layers from single images, including digital human-style output for text-based AI applications. The company's AI social application Xinye (星野), xingyeai.com, deploys AI agents in interactive character formats, placing it adjacent to the AI companion and virtual being space. On the business side, MiniMax embedded voice capabilities early into audiobook platforms and AI toy products, and the company's prospectus materials filed in December 2025 in advance of a prospective IPO confirmed its B2B positioning across voice, music, and content generation verticals. While MiniMax is not primarily identified as a digital human company, its foundational model stack — particularly in expressive voice, video synthesis, and agent character systems — makes it a significant enabling layer within China's broader digital human ecosystem. 

Cultural Heritage and Tourism: The 2026 edition of "My Shaoshan Journey" (我的韶山行), Hunan Province's province-wide red education program for primary and secondary school students launched in April 2023, has been upgraded to incorporate digital human guides that enhance the military education park visit experience. Maipu Culture and Tourism (麦扑文旅) offers AI digital human tour guides available around the clock to provide scenic area explanations, visitor question-answering, and immersive interactive conversation, with AR overlays simultaneously enabling historical scene reconstruction through mobile screens. SeeYou Technology (世优科技) created a three-dimensional virtual cultural ambassador named Qingniao (青鸟) to serve as a promotional envoy for Shanxi tourism, giving the destination a visually dynamic synthetic character identity; SeeYou Technology also deployed Bota (波塔), botax.com, digital humans at Nanning Wuxu International Airport in Guangxi as intelligent navigation guides handling flight queries, route directions, and airport service questions in real time, and in the energy showroom of ENN Group (新奥集团) as an interactive information interface for exhibition visitors. A presentation at Shenzhen Foreign Language School in Guangdong featured a digital human rendering of the late scientist Qian Xuesen, using the synthetic character to engage secondary school students in an aerospace science lecture bridging historical and contemporary perspectives. The Chang'an Twelve Hours (长安十二时辰) themed commercial street in Xi'an deployed digital humans in the role of intelligent staff, integrating the Tang Dynasty cultural setting of the attraction with interactive AI-driven service functionality through a partnership with Huawei (华为). Derong County (得荣县) in Sichuan incorporated a digital human premiere into its 2026 spring festival program. An AI-driven tourism destination service algorithm that received China's first national filing for its specific focus on scenic area applications underpins a suite of integrated services including digital human tour guides, AI public service systems, and AI navigation robots.

Education: Wuhan launched its first primary school enrollment consultation digital human, named Xiao'an Teacher (小岸老师) and operated by Jiangan District, available around the clock to respond to parent inquiries about school entry procedures. A Yangtze River Economic Belt cross-school ideological and political education lesson held in Wuhan, involving students across primary, secondary, and university levels, incorporated virtual digital human elements into the primary school segment, including a performance by students from Huta Primary School in Xining, Qinghai. Shandong Tourism Vocational College (山东旅游职业学院) has embedded digital human applications as one of eight functional areas within an AI-enabled education platform integrated into its tourism management curriculum, spanning teaching, management, and service delivery. A digital intelligence college construction meeting at Beijing Institute of Graphic Communication (北京印刷学院) featured a live demonstration by Professor Liu Feng of the complete digital human production workflow, together with multiple deployment scenario cases.

Government and Employment Services: Wuhua District in Kunming, Yunnan Province, deployed an AI digital human to deliver policy interpretation at a youth innovation and entrepreneurship resource event, and has separately adopted digital human policy explanation within its employment service infrastructure to shift delivery from in-person visits to instant digital access. Linyi in Shandong Province established what is described as the province's first AI digital human live-streaming employment promotion model, setting up AI-driven smart broadcast stations for real-time job-posting outreach. A women's university graduate recruitment fair in Fujian Province used digital human live streaming to broadcast more than two hundred available positions to prospective applicants.

Financial Services: CITIC Trust (中信信托) began introducing real-person replica digital humans from 2024 onward as a channel for making complex trust service content more accessible to clients, deploying synthetic versions of professional staff to explain product features and service processes. Chongqing's financial sector published a list of 145 benchmark AI innovation cases identifying digital human marketing as a distinct innovation category alongside AI risk management, intelligent customer service, and anti-fraud tools; Ant Consumer Finance (蚂蚁消金) is among the institutions with listed AI applications in this framework. In Yunnan Province, financial institutions deployed the Yunnan Financial Consumer Protection Digital Human (云南金融消保数字人) during the March 15th Financial Consumer Rights Day campaign to conduct risk warning broadcasts through digital channels.

Marketing and Live Commerce: Nanjing issued a policy encouraging the construction of a digital human IP matrix with Nanjing characteristics and promoting AI algorithm integration across apparel, consumer electronics, and related e-commerce verticals. Shanghai's advertising industry reported revenues exceeding 400 billion yuan in 2025, with virtual digital human applications identified among the frontier sectors receiving dedicated funding; thirty-four AI-plus-advertising projects received specialist support that year, and the city introduced a financing instrument called Shuguang Loan (数广贷) to ease capital access for more than five hundred digital advertising enterprises. BlueFocus (蓝色光标) surpassed 100 million yuan in virtual human GMV within its overseas marketing operations, running on a technology licensing and performance-sharing commercial model. Mengxiang Technology (梦饷科技) showcased AI digital human functionality at its 2026 traffic and growth conference held in Shanghai in March, demonstrating one-click wardrobe change, scene switching, and interactive digital human deployment for e-commerce operators. In Guangdong, a naked-eye 3D promotional video featuring a digital human IP astronaut character was produced for the Beijing Road 8K Spring commercial district. Shanxi's Yuncheng cross-border e-commerce industrial park, with over 35 million yuan invested in its facilities, has established a digital human operations center as part of its five-center functional infrastructure.

Enterprise: IM Motors (智己汽车) announced on March 18 an AI super-agent system framed as an AI digital double driver, designed to function as an autonomous on-road operative rather than a screen-confined assistant, built on three integrated technical pillars intended to support safe and reliable real-world deployment. iFlytek (科大讯飞) partnered with Luzhou Laojiao (泸州老窖) on a cross-industry project developing an AI digital tasting master character, deploying a branded digital human to deliver interactive liquor appreciation experiences as a mechanism for brand experience renewal. A Xinhua News Agency profile reported that reproductive medicine specialist Liang Xiaoyan, with over forty years of clinical practice, has been given a dedicated AI digital double to extend her professional reach and service capacity.

Technology and R&D: Hangzhou Beiming Aurora Technology (杭州北冥极光科技有限公司) received patent authorization for an AI model-based digital human emotion processing method and system (authorization number CN120895060B), filed in 2025, covering dynamic expression of emotional states in digital human applications. KPCloud (开普云) operates metaverse business lines centered on generative machine learning capabilities including virtual digital human voice driving, automated text content generation, and text-to-image synthesis. Mingtu Technology (明途科技), identified as a key enterprise in Chengdu's digital cultural and creative sector, launched WorkClaw on March 20, a platform generating customized intelligent agent personas in approximately two minutes; Mingtu Technology also hosts the 1010 Digital Human Festival (1010数字人节), with the next grand final scheduled for October.

“1010 Digital Human Festival” is an annual event initiated by Chengdu Mentu Technology Co., Ltd. and typically held in Chengdu on October 10. It focuses on digital humans and artificial intelligence, serving as a platform for releasing new AI applications, building the digital human ecosystem, and connecting technology with industry use cases. The event’s stated purpose is to advance the evolution of digital humans and expand their application ecosystem. Key features mentioned in the search results include product and platform launches such as the WorkBrain digital human work-brain platform, innovation showcases such as AI identity cards and “human + digital human” collaboration scenarios, and the hosting of the Global AI Agent Innovation Challenge finals. The material also indicates that the first festival was launched in 2025, when WorkBrain V5.5 was released and a global ecosystem co-building plan was announced, and that the 2026 edition is planned for Chengdu on October 10 as the top-stage venue for the China finals of the Global AI Agent Innovation Challenge. 

Ethical and Regulatory Contexts: Yaoke Media's AI actor announcement generated significant legal and public debate in China, with a legal expert from the School of Law at Beihang University cited in Guangzhou Daily noting that when an AI-generated digital human face allows the general public to clearly identify a specific real individual, that image falls within the person's portrait rights protection regardless of its synthetic origin. Voice dubbing professionals issued collective public statements regarding unauthorized AI voice replication used in digital human productions, identifying a pattern of credential appropriation across synthetic character content creation. The Beijing Intellectual Property Court (北京知识产权法院) handled 1,679 copyright cases in 2025, with virtual digital humans listed among emerging typical case categories alongside short drama adaptations, film scripts, and architectural works. Pinduoduo's (拼多多) Duoduo Orchard (多多果园) feature drew public criticism for deploying AI-generated virtual companion characters whose appearances were reported to closely resemble celebrity public figures; commentary noted the feature appeared oriented toward middle-aged and elderly users, and the interface carries a disclaimer that AI-generated content does not guarantee accuracy. An industry-level consensus on the need to address disorder in the digital human sector has been reported, with China Telecom (中国电信) described as building security infrastructure to support the industry's compliant development. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (工业和信息化部) published a solicitation for opinions on a planned mandatory national standard for digital human identity identification requirements under the Metaverse Classification and Identification framework.

Beijing Intellectual Property Court (北京知识产权法院) is a specialized judicial body established in Beijing to handle intellectual property disputes, and it has become an increasingly significant forum for litigation touching on virtual human and digital human technologies as the sector has grown in China. The court handles copyright infringement cases involving virtual character images — including disputes over the ownership of digital human personas — and in 2025 accepted 1,679 copyright dispute cases and concluded 1,498, with its roster of typical cases that year encompassing virtual characters alongside short drama adaptations, film scripts, cloud storage services, architectural works, and classical text annotation. In the virtual human space specifically, the court adjudicated a dispute over the copyright ownership of virtual digital human characters in which a second-instance ruling issued on March 31, 2025 dismissed an appeal and upheld the original judgment in favor of the character rights holder. The court has also addressed foundational questions relevant to AI-generated digital human content, with its rulings on audiovisual works establishing that copyrightability requires the author's subjective selection and arrangement of creative elements — a standard that Chinese legal scholars have applied when analyzing whether metaverse virtual digital human-generated products qualify for copyright protection. Beyond character and content disputes, the court has ruled on technology-layer cases with direct relevance to the digital human industry, including a first-instance judgment finding that multiple software products of ByteDance subsidiaries had plagiarized code belonging to Meishe Technology (美摄科技), a company whose SDK is widely used in digital human and AI video production pipelines. 

Pinduoduo (拼多多) is a Chinese e-commerce platform founded in 2015 and operated by PDD Holdings, known for its group-buying model and heavily price-competitive merchandise targeting value-conscious consumers across China. In the context of digital humans, Pinduoduo occupies a secondary rather than pioneering position: while competing platforms such as Taobao and JD.com moved aggressively into digital human live commerce, Pinduoduo took a differentiated approach by concentrating live streaming efforts on large-item product categories rather than deploying digital human hosts as a primary commerce tool. The platform nonetheless opened API interfaces to third-party digital human live streaming systems, placing it among the group of eight major Chinese e-commerce platforms that enabled digital human anchor integration, and sellers operating on Pinduoduo have access to third-party digital human tools via workarounds such as OBS-based camera feed conversion. Pinduoduo's role in the digital human ecosystem is therefore predominantly that of a receiving platform accommodating third-party digital human deployments rather than an originator of proprietary digital human technology or branded virtual presenter programs. 

This is the signatory list of eight major Chinese e-commerce and livestreaming platforms that joined Beijing’s formal AI digital-human livestreaming governance initiative through the self-regulatory pledge 《促进AI技术规范应用承诺书》 (“Commitment on Promoting the Standardized Application of AI Technology”), signed and publicly reported on December 4, 2025.

1. JD: JD openly runs a mature digital-human commerce stack, with JD Cloud saying its digital humans are used by more than 20,000 brands for 24/7 livestream selling.

2. Meituan: Meituan exposes merchant livestream tooling that explicitly includes digital-human livestream evaluation, which shows platform-level support at the operations layer.

3. Pinduoduo: Pinduoduo appears usable for digital-human livestreaming mainly through third-party relay and interaction workflows into 多多直播, but a clearly public official digital-human program is not easy to document.

4. Vipshop: Vipshop maintains a formal livestream governance framework, but I do not see a clearly public dedicated digital-human anchor interface or named digital-human product.

5. Douyin: Douyin permits digital-human commerce under tighter rules, requiring labeling and accountability for AI-generated content while also prohibiting the sale of AI digital-human and unmanned-livestream services as products.

6. Kuaishou: Kuaishou allows digital-human livestream selling inside a platform-controlled rule set and explicitly binds merchants using affiliated virtual digital-human services to platform obligations.

7. Xiaohongshu: Xiaohongshu has formal livestream rules and a separate generative-AI service framework, but I do not see a clearly public dedicated digital-human anchor interface.

8. WeChat Channels: WeChat Channels is the restrictive case, because public reporting on the platform’s rules says digital-human and virtual-human livestreaming are treated as violations rather than supported commerce formats.

March 20 News

Government Services: Heilongjiang Unicom (黑龙江联通) developed a customized smart guidance AI digital human system for the Yichun city government, built on the DeepSeek large model and Unicom's Yuanjing (元景) large model, enabling residents to complete government procedures without repeated in-person visits. In a county-level government service hall in Zhejiang province, a digital human named Xiao Yu (小玉) handles over 2,000 public inquiries per day at an accuracy rate of 98.5%, substantially relieving front-line service pressure. The Hangzhou Consumer Protection Commission deployed an AI digital human named Hangxiao Xiao (杭小消), shifting consumer rights assistance from in-person queuing to on-demand online resolution. The Zhejiang Civil Defense Office developed a digital human-integrated civil defense management platform incorporating administrative functions such as civil defense vehicle space registration. In Wuhan's Jiang'an district, the city's first elementary school enrollment consultation digital human, Xiao An Teacher (小岸老师), went live to handle parent admissions inquiries around the clock, responding instantly to questions submitted through the interface. Guangxi Beibu Gulf Bank (广西北部湾银行) advanced multiple AI projects incorporating digital human capabilities during February 2026, with Guangxi Nanyi Intelligent Technology (广西南一智能科技) participating as a contractor in its AI advisory service initiative. Chongqing Bank (重庆银行) also ran a campus recruitment AI interview component that used a digital human to simulate realistic HR scenarios and generate candidate assessment reports at a spring graduate job fair.

Guangxi Nanyi Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd. is described as a company focused on AI digital humans and large-model applications, with a visible role in major 2025 regional events such as the China-ASEAN Expo, where it presented capabilities including multilingual real-time subtitles and digital human emcees. Its work appears to span conference and event support, cross-language communication, and AI-generated outputs such as meeting minutes and news drafts, while also placing the company within broader China-ASEAN artificial intelligence cooperation and public-service digital transformation. Guo Sha is identified as the company’s chief scientist and as an important figure in these efforts. The company is also described as a co-organizer of an “AI + Social Work” innovation competition, indicating activity not only in event technology but also in applying AI to social-service contexts. 

Cultural Heritage and Tourism: The Chang'an Twelve Hours (长安十二时辰) immersive heritage theme precinct in Xi'an reopened on March 18, 2026 following a 14-day closed renovation, integrating digital human performers alongside XR technology to deepen historical immersion within the Tang dynasty-themed environment. Also in Xi'an, the Shengshi Chang'an Civilizational Echo (盛世长安文明回响) lecture series, organized by the Xi'an Municipal Cultural Relics Bureau, deployed digital human avatars as historical narrators engaging in real-time dialogue with archaeology experts to present content on Western Zhou rites and music, combining educational and experiential formats. At the 25th Zhongyingjie (中英街) Warning Day commemoration on March 18, a digital human served as historical guide, conducting audiences through a century of the street's history to connect archival memory with contemporary civic awareness. A smart tourism AI system whose generative algorithm became the first of its kind for tourism destination services to receive national regulatory registration incorporates digital human tour guides as a core application, paired with AI public service systems and AI wayfinding robots to deliver fully intelligent, personalized visitor experiences.

Live Commerce: AI digital human live-streaming penetration across China's e-commerce sector has reached 30%, with single-session sales records surpassing 15 million yuan and technology search volumes growing 200% year-on-year, producing daily sales figures above one million yuan with increasing regularity. In Sichuan's Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture, a digital human live-streaming operation runs continuously, automatically switching between Yi and Mandarin Chinese to promote local specialty agricultural products to audiences across both language communities. In Jinan, a one-person technology company operated by entrepreneur Hu Yang provides AI content generation, digital human live-streaming deployment, and intelligent agent customization services, representing an emerging model in which individual operators build and commercialize digital human infrastructure independently.

The Liangshan operation is best understood as a Silicon Intelligence (硅基智能) deployment in which the company’s AI digital-human live-streaming system was used to industrialize county-level e-commerce for Zhaojue in Liangshan, rather than as a standalone local experiment: Silicon Intelligence had already established a “digital human global live-streaming base” in Fucheng District, Mianyang, in March 2022 to build out the technical, operational, and service chain for digital-human commerce, and later reporting tied that wider Sichuan infrastructure to Zhaojue’s agricultural sales model. By February 2024, People’s Daily was reporting that a Zhaojue operator, Wang Haifang, said the “digital host” had helped sell more than 5 million yuan of local specialties, with total sales exceeding 10 million yuan, and by August 2024 Silicon Intelligence founder Sima Huapeng was publicly citing Zhaojue as an example of the company’s AIGC live-streaming model improving local farm-product sales by roughly fourfold. Silicon Intelligence’s own May 2025 case write-up then explicitly described the Zhaojue practice as a 7×24 multi-platform digital-human livestream for products such as bitter buckwheat tea, saying sales doubled year on year and local annual sales exceeded 10 million yuan. 

Lingzhi Weijie Artificial Intelligence Technology Co., Ltd. (灵智未界人工智能科技有限公司) is a Jinan-based company publicly linked in March 2026 reporting to founder and CEO Hu Yang, and in the context of digital humans the most specific reported activity is digital human livestream deployment. A March 19 local report describes Hu Yang as operating a technology company whose main business is AI content generation, digital human livestream setup, and intelligent agent customization. A March 6 Jinan event report separately identifies Hu Yang as CEO of Lingzhi Weijie Artificial Intelligence Technology Co., Ltd. and shows the company participating in a public AI activity where he presented on AI tools and agent creation. A March 16 Jinan report also says the company entered the market through AI music and places it within Jinan’s OPC, or “one person company,” ecosystem. On the record now, the most accurate profile is that Lingzhi Weijie is an applied AI company whose documented digital-human business is building or deploying digital human livestreaming services. 

Entertainment and Media: The Chinese film and drama industry has moved toward replacing supporting and minor cast members with AI virtual characters, with streaming platforms signaling that roles below a certain billing tier may be produced entirely through AI, generating debate about the structural displacement of lower-billed human performers. Virtual character signings by established broadcasters and studios have prior precedent: Hunan Satellite Television (湖南卫视) signed the virtual being Xiaoyang (小漾), Youku (优酷) created the virtual character Lili (厘里), and Lehua Entertainment (乐华娱乐) launched virtual music groups during the earlier metaverse period. Students and faculty at Xi'an Ouya College produced AI manga short dramas that accumulated tens of millions of views, including the titles Ni Ding Deng Tian (逆鼎登天), Yuan Qi Chen Tang (缘起陈塘), and Chong Sheng Wudi NPC (重生无敌NPC), the last of which was released simultaneously on two streaming platforms, demonstrating a production-education integration model for AI-driven synthetic character drama. Guangxi Beitou (广西北投) operates a virtual production facility in Nanning featuring the largest AI virtual screen in Guangxi at 25 by 7 metres, which supports digital human incubation alongside film and advertising production.

Enterprise and Marketing: Banyan Technology (邦彦技术), a Shenzhen-based national high-tech enterprise and state-recognized specialized and innovative small giant company with over two decades in information and communications, has developed digital human systems oriented toward combining reasoning capacity with contextual social responsiveness. In Foshan, a traditional industrial firm deployed multilingual digital human assistants to support overseas sales operations, addressing language barriers and time-zone constraints without requiring human staff to remain continuously available. Guoxin Securities (国信证券) integrated digital human capabilities into its financial technology investment advisory platform as part of its Fourteenth Five-Year Plan technology program, using the technology to accelerate the production of advisor-facing content. Daoyoudao (道有道) published a patent for a digital human video generation method designed to produce more naturalistic and realistic digital human presentations, strengthening its position within the digital marketing technology sector. In Chengdu's high-tech zone, creative one-person companies producing digital human content have become a recognized category in startup evaluation events, operating across livestreaming, short drama, brand design, and gaming verticals.

Healthcare: China's traditional Chinese medicine sector has produced a series of medically oriented digital human systems at varying stages of development and deployment. These include a general-purpose digital TCM practitioner system (数字中医人), a specialized virtual digital human built around the Zhongjing prescription-syndrome (仲景方证虚拟数字人) clinical knowledge framework, and An Zhen'er (安诊儿), a digital health companion designed for patient-facing guidance and consultation. Together these systems form an emerging application cluster in which embodied digital human interfaces are used to deliver medical knowledge and advisory functions directly to patients and users.

Education: Shandong Tourism Vocational College (山东旅游职业学院) developed an internally built AI platform for tourism vocational education called Baize (白泽), which incorporates digital human applications as one of eight functional modules spanning teaching, administration, and student services. Shandong Lushang Technology Group (山东鲁商科技集团有限公司) filed a patent for a digital human lecture video generation method designed to produce more naturally structured presentation-style explanations synchronized with slideshow content, targeting the educational and training sectors.

Technology and Infrastructure: Soul App's internal research team, Soul AI Lab, released an open-source real-time digital human generation model called SoulX-LiveAct, using a technique called Neighbor Forcing — an autoregressive conditional propagation mechanism aligned across diffusion steps — to achieve robust, low-latency interactive digital human output on dual consumer GPUs at reduced cost. Silicon Intelligence (硅基智能) announced the open-source release of its AI digital human interaction platform, enabling users without dedicated technical teams to create and deploy digital humans on smartphones, tablets, and large-screen display devices using the platform's built-in toolset. Geely (吉利) filed a patent for an in-vehicle digital human interaction method aimed at improving the naturalness and quality of driver interaction with embedded digital human systems in connected vehicles. Hong Kong Cyberport (香港数码港) and the Beijing Digital Human Base, alongside the Zhongguancun Internet 3.0 Industrial Park, were identified as designated physical hub locations supporting AI application startups, with digital human development named as a target sector within the cross-boundary incubation network.

Hong Kong Cyberport (香港数码港), managed by Hong Kong Cyberport Management Company Limited and located on Hong Kong Island, functions as one of Hong Kong's principal technology incubation and industry development hubs, with a growing role in the digital human sector. Cyberport has incubated companies with a direct focus on digital human technology, including Shiyao Studio (十曜工房), which specializes in digital human research and development and has represented Cyberport at the China International Import Expo. Cyberport has also hosted digital human-related startups operating across enterprise AI services, including Asiabots Limited, which develops visually embodied AI service ambassadors deployed in sectors such as healthcare and customer service. On the partnership side, Cyberport has co-founded the Shanghai-Hong Kong AI Industry Acceleration Alliance alongside Shanghai Lingang Group and Biren Technology (壁仞科技), an initiative under which digital human technology has been featured as a key growth domain. In a government services context, Cyberport co-organized the "AI + Government Affairs" thematic technology forum series with the Digital Policy Office (數字政策辦公室), with digital human customer service forming a central subject of the inaugural forum held in August 2025. Cyberport has additionally appeared as a designated physical base alongside Beijing's digital human industry base and the Zhongguancun Internet 3.0 Industrial Park in discussions of cross-border AI industry infrastructure, and has hosted events at which companies presented digital human and AIGC applications, including multilingual lip-sync live-streaming technology and highly realistic business scenario simulation systems. 

SyZyGy (十曜工房) is a Hong Kong-based AI company incubated by Cyberport, founded by So Kwun Lam (蘇冠嵐), that specializes in digital human technology and AI-powered user experience solutions, combining digital human driving technology with multimodal large language models to deliver applications across various scenarios. The company integrates AI with artistic creation and architectural design, positioning itself at the intersection of art-tech and shared value. SyZyGy participated in the China International Import Expo (进博会) in consecutive years, using the second appearance to review its development in Shanghai and share how it is leveraging art-tech opportunities. In November 2024, at the event marking the formation of the Shanghai-Hong Kong AI Industry Acceleration Alliance by Cyberport, Shanghai Lingang Group, and Biren Technology (壁仞科技), SyZyGy conducted a dialogue on art and design with the design firm Gailan Group (蓋藍集團), facilitated through Lingang Group's connections. The company has publicly indicated that its near-term development focus is on deepening its software capabilities, with digital humans described as a core direction for its next stage of growth. 

The Hong Kong Digital Policy Office (數字政策辦公室), commonly referred to as the Digital Office, is a government body responsible for coordinating digital and technology policy across the Hong Kong public sector, and it has emerged as an active promoter of digital human deployment within government services. Its Smart Government Innovation Lab maintains a catalogued digital human customer service solution under solution number A-0073, reflecting the office's role in sourcing and certifying AI-driven technologies for public-sector adoption. In August 2025, the Digital Policy Office co-organized with Hong Kong Cyberport the first in a series of "AI + Government Affairs" technical forums, with the inaugural session themed around digital human customer service and AI-assisted meetings as drivers of public administration efficiency. A second forum in the series followed in November 2025, co-hosted with Cyberport, the Hong Kong Productivity Council, and the Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corporation. The office has also been associated with digital human applications in secondary education, including subsidised history learning assistant tools developed under its IT Innovation Lab initiative for schools. Taken together, the Digital Policy Office occupies the role of both institutional champion and procurement facilitator for digital human technology within Hong Kong's public sector, positioning the technology primarily around citizen-facing government services and AI-enabled administrative workflows. 

Ethical and Legal Contexts: AI-generated virtual personas styled as wealthy and emotionally attentive "domineering CEO" (霸总) characters have been deployed to exploit middle-aged and elderly women in China, with victims paying significant sums in response to manipulative AI face-swapped and voice-cloned video content designed to simulate romantic attention. The legal question of whether AI digital humans that combine the facial characteristics of multiple celebrities constitute portrait rights violations was addressed by lawyers at Hubei Chisheng Law Firm (湖北炽升律师事务所), who noted that where infringement is established, responsibility would fall on the producing company rather than on the individual user. A specific case involving the unauthorized use of actor Xiao Zhan's (肖战) facial data in AI short drama production was cited as a potential criminal liability scenario, with legal analysis suggesting exposure to penalties of up to ten years' imprisonment. The broader practice of generating AI virtual characters from unlicensed actor facial data has been characterized as constituting clear rights infringement across a substantial portion of current AI short drama production. China Telecom (中国电信) has publicly engaged with the question of digital human industry irregularities, positioning standardized development and platform-level security infrastructure as the appropriate framework for addressing ongoing misuse.

March 19 News

Financial Services: During the 2026 "3·15" financial consumer rights education campaign, multiple Chinese financial institutions deployed digital humans as public-facing communication tools. Ping An Life Insurance Shaanxi Branch (平安人寿陕西分公司) produced the "Digital Human Explains Consumer Protection" (数字人说消保) short video series, using AI to generate high-quality, shareable financial education content for consumers. In Yunnan, the provincial financial consumer protection campaign completed a technical upgrade of its AI digital human, incorporating local landmarks including Dianchi Lake and Green Lake into the character's presentations and deploying it along a City Walk route through Kunming's urban landmarks and historic districts. China Construction Bank Zhejiang Branch (建设银行浙江省分行) activated its virtual digital human IP "Longzhiwei" (龙知微) for the campaign, a character produced in collaboration between the bank's remote intelligent banking center in Nanning and the Wenzhou branch and backed by the enterprise knowledge management platform, functioning as a professional consumer rights advisor. Ping An P&C Insurance Heilongjiang Branch (平安产险黑龙江分公司) debuted an original consumer protection digital ambassador — its first application of digital human technology for outreach — deployed in animated video format to expose fraudulent practices including unqualified referral agents and concealed insurance risks. The National Financial Regulatory Administration Heilongjiang Bureau (国家金融监督管理总局黑龙江监管局) separately launched a "consumer protection digital human" (消保数字人) as part of a broader online education campaign also encompassing anti-fraud short dramas and original animation. The Hangzhou Consumer Protection Commission (杭州市消保委) introduced an AI digital human specifically designed to handle online consumer rights dispute resolution, addressing the complex and cross-regional nature of e-commerce complaints. Shanghai financial institutions have integrated digital human systems alongside RPA automation and AI intelligent agents as part of digitalized consumer protection and financial education programs.

Live Commerce and Marketing: The Nanjing municipal government issued policy measures to promote high-quality development of the live streaming e-commerce industry, including directives to innovate collaborative operation models pairing digital human live streams with human anchors and to build a Nanjing-character digital human IP matrix across product sectors from consumer electronics and apparel to geographic-indicator goods. Jiuyi Fang Technology (九易方科技), based in Changsha, provides unmanned live streaming solutions using customizable digital human avatars matched to specific business brand identities and configured to auto-respond to local audience queries; a Changsha hotel using the platform recorded a 35% increase in night-time bookings through digital human-driven unattended live streams. JD.com (京东) has deployed a digital human capable of recreating brand products at 1:1 fidelity for round-the-clock live commerce, demonstrated through a Samsonite integration enabling continuous product presentation and conversion without human hosts. MoltHuman (硅碳交易所), a Shanghai-based platform, operates an AI agent-driven digital human marketplace serving lifestyle branding and marketing deployment needs. Baidu Intelligent Cloud (百度智能云) launched the OpenClaw enterprise marketing digital employee solution, which includes a marketing video generation skill that automatically produces scripts, storyboards, and synthesized digital human presentation videos for enterprise clients. Tencent (腾讯) has built digital humans into its intelligent marketing technology stack, integrating them into systems covering creative production, ad placement, and product recommendation. Within Shanghai's advertising industry, which reached revenues exceeding 400 billion yuan in 2025, municipal authorities supported 34 AI-plus-advertising industry projects, with virtual digital human applications listed among the frontier domains receiving dedicated project funding. The Hebei Jishang New Media E-commerce Industrial Park Live Streaming Base (河北冀商新媒体电商产业园直播基地) in Shijiazhuang has established a dedicated metaverse digital human live streaming zone as one of several specialized broadcast areas within its facility, designed to support digital-human-led product promotion.

Cultural Heritage and Tourism: Shuming Technology (数命科技), a Wuhan-based company whose entire workforce is under 25 years of age, developed the cultural heritage digital human "Jing Xiaochu" (荆小楚) on a self-developed large language model capable of explaining more than 110,000 cultural artifacts and supporting 143 languages; the character has been deployed in more than 30 museums across China, and the company's revenues grew from 200,000 yuan in 2024 to 200 million yuan in 2025. Beyond museum deployments, Shuming Technology has also introduced an AI "fostering platform" concept under which enterprises register, configure, and deploy AI digital human agents as active operational participants, framing enterprise digital humans as entities capable of conducting recruitment, writing code, and managing institutional resources on behalf of the organizations that train them. Zhongchuan Cultural Tourism Beijing (中传文旅（北京）文化发展有限公司) developed the digital human "Huashiyuan" (华诗远), positioned as a representative deployment of virtual digital humans in the cultural tourism sector within the broader metaverse digital human landscape. In Shanxi, a virtual digital human modeled on Dongming Zen Master (东明禅师), the historical founder of the temple featured in the "Little West Heaven" (小西天) special exhibition of immovable cultural heritage, was created for interactive visitor engagement, with hand gestures triggering animated cloud effects within the simulated Buddhist realm environment. In Sichuan, the "Time-Space Travel Companion Digital Human" (时空伴游数字人) was jointly developed with the Chengdu Smart Computing Center (成都智算中心) and has been deployed at Hailuogou Glacier, Wuhou Shrine, and more than 20 other scenic areas and cultural institutions across the province. At an Apple-organized cultural event in Chengdu, an AI digital human was used to explain Sichuan intangible cultural heritage including Sichuan embroidery and face-changing arts, complemented by AR-based interactions through which visitors could explore virtual embroidery patterns.

The technical company publicly credited with that Little West Heaven digital experience was Guangzhou Frontop Digital Creative Technology Co., Ltd. (广州凡拓数字创意科技股份有限公司, branded as 凡拓数创 / Frontop). In a 21st Century Business Herald report, the company’s Digital Intelligence Culture division said that in the Shanxi Xiaoxitian immersive digitalization project its team handled the high-precision 3D scanning, 16K texture mapping, AI-based restoration, gesture-recognition interaction, and the MetaHuman-based hyper-realistic digital human recreation of Dongming Zen Master. A Xinhua report separately corroborated that Frontop used high-precision 3D scanning, AI restoration and color recovery, and gesture-based interactive technology to turn Xiaoxitian’s immovable suspended sculpture heritage into a digitally explorable exhibition experience. The exhibition notices and coverage I found describe the Dongming Zen Master interaction and hand-gesture effects, but the clearest public attribution of the technical implementation points to Frontop rather than to a different disclosed subcontractor. 

Government Services: Beijing's Fengtai District has integrated the overseas digital human "Feng Xiaozhi" (丰小智) into its overseas business service platform, which coordinates 36 professional service agencies providing 11 categories of online consultation covering legal, compliance, and intellectual property matters across 103 countries, with the digital human serving as the intelligent response interface aggregating cross-national information for outbound enterprises. The Beijing Digital Human Base (北京数字人基地) has been established as a demonstration center for AI and digital human technology applications in policy publicity, government services, and grassroots governance, and was formally visited by Chaoyang District management officials as a study site for digitally enabled community administration. China Mobile Jiangsu (中国移动江苏公司) incorporated digital humans into a volunteer enterprise service initiative, using them to conduct 124 online and offline policy interpretation sessions and industry forums for business clients. At a graduate recruitment fair held at Fujian Normal University, digital human live job-broadcasting terminals were deployed alongside AI intelligent matching systems, allowing employers to present vacancies through digital human hosts while automated terminals generated tailored candidate-to-job match reports for attending students.

Beijing Digital Human Base (北京数字人基地) is China's first dedicated digital human industry base, located within the Donghu Huanle Song commercial complex in the Chaoyang District of Beijing. Converted from an existing commercial mixed-use development, it opened in early 2024 with a Phase 1 planned area of 15,000 square meters. By November 2024, 49 companies had taken up residence, with the base serving more than 110 enterprises across its broader industry ecosystem. Four shared technical platforms built around digital human production and digital content creation had been placed into operation by that time, comprising a large-space multi-person XR technology testing center, a digital human motion capture and XR virtual shooting integrated application platform, a high-fidelity digital human acquisition platform, and a digital human trusted evidence storage platform built on Chang'an Chain (长安链) blockchain technology by the operator's subsidiary Beijing Shuzhi Yunke Information Technology Co., Ltd. (北京数智云科信息科技有限公司). All resident companies are able to access these platforms at preferential below-market rates, reducing innovation and research costs for smaller players in the Internet 3.0 ecosystem. In December 2025, the base held an application scenario accelerator event at which a dedicated application scenario alliance was launched and member companies were certified, with participants drawn from Zhongguan Village Chaoyang Park (中关村朝阳园), NetEase Cloud (网易云信), Meihua Investments (梅花创投), Botai Intelligent (博特智能), DeepScience (深元科技), and more than 30 other enterprise representatives. 

Meihua Investments (梅花创投) is a Chinese early-stage venture capital firm whose founder and managing partner, Wu Shichun (吴世春), has been a vocal advocate for digital humans as a long-term investment category. Wu has publicly argued that virtual digital human IPs carry structural advantages over human celebrities — the IP as a visual identity cannot itself make mistakes, only the people operating it can, which makes such assets more stable and sustainable for capital allocation. Consistent with that view, the firm participated in co-founding what was reported as China's first dedicated digital human AI fund, operated jointly with partners including Chuangye Heima (创业黑马) and Shuzhi Yunkui (数智云科) through an integrated model combining fund capital, industrial parks, and accelerator services. On the portfolio side, Meihua backed Shiyue Xingcheng (世悦星承), a Beijing-based metaverse virtual digital human developer that had by the time of investment assembled one of China's largest virtual IP matrices, with brand partnerships spanning Gucci, Max Mara, Air Jordan, and China Li-Ning, among others. The firm's engagement with the digital human sector reflects a broader conviction that AI-driven virtual identities represent a structurally distinct and scalable entertainment and commerce asset class within China's technology landscape. 

Botai Intelligent (博特智能) is a Beijing-based AI company that provides AI information processing technology and content security products and services, with a reported client base of over 3,000 government and enterprise organizations. In the digital human context, the company is a tenant at the Beijing Digital Human Industrial Base in the Chaoyang district, where it was among more than forty companies to sign early and co-locate at the facility alongside other digital human sector firms. Botai Intelligent is also known as a co-developer of Xinhua Miaopi (新华妙笔), an AI writing assistant produced in partnership with Xinhua News Agency's National Key Laboratory of Media Convergence Production Technology and Systems, which is associated with AIGC digital human applications in addition to its primary official document writing functions. The company's positioning within China's digital human ecosystem appears rooted primarily in its AIGC content technology capabilities and its institutional alignment with state media AI development initiatives rather than in dedicated digital human production. 

Entertainment: The Chinese short drama production sector has developed a systematic practice of licensing real actors' digital doubles for AI-driven performances, with talent agencies negotiating authorization agreements under which digitally cloned likenesses are used in productions; companies operating in this space have established multi-tier content review processes including initial technical approval and subsequent actor sign-off, with actors participating throughout the full production cycle despite reduced on-set time relative to conventional filming. NetDragon (网龙) has applied digital human technology to its Magic Domain (魔域) game franchise, using the approach to animate classic game characters as digital human performers and extend the IP's commercial reach through new entertainment formats. Hunan Television's 2022–2023 New Year Gala featured Yao Anna in a digital human virtual performance titled "ART," representing one of Chinese broadcast television's early integrations of a digital human character into a prime-time live gala production.

Healthcare: Wenyuan Intelligent Doctor 1.0 (文元智能医生1.0), released by Guangdong Medical (广东医) and led by PAI platform initiator Professor Zhang Yuanting, is described as the world's first system to integrate wearable continuous blood pressure monitoring, an AI doctor digital double (医生AI分身), and a large language model within a unified hypertension health management platform; developed over three years, it covers the full care cycle from monitoring and early warning through diagnosis, intervention, and outcome prediction, incorporating a structured knowledge base of 3,000 hypertension screening and treatment questions. In Guangzhou's biomedical source innovation sector, researchers are applying virtual digital human patient simulation to pharmaceutical development, using digital human models to simulate drug action processes as part of early-stage drug candidate evaluation.

Education: A large-to-secondary school articulation education forum held in Wuhan, organized by Beijing Institute of Technology (北京理工大学), incorporated digital human presenters as AI-enabled tools for delivering red cultural heritage content to secondary school students, with the technology deployed alongside discussions on AI-era educational reform and cross-stage collaborative instruction. Shandong Agricultural Engineering College (山东农业工程学院) has integrated digital human video resources alongside digital textbooks and interactive micro-courses into its accounting curriculum, using real agricultural enterprise case studies and digital human-delivered instruction to make professional content more accessible and engaging to students.

Energy: A growing number of digital human vendors are competing to supply AI digital human systems as smart presenters in electric power and energy company exhibition halls across China, with deployments combining natural language processing, emotion recognition, enterprise-specific knowledge bases, and large language models to produce characters with substantive domain knowledge. Shandong Guohui Group (山东国惠集团) is among the energy-sector enterprises that have implemented a digital human in their exhibition facility, using the technology to present corporate and operational information to visitors in an interactive format.

Technology: Unicom (Jiangxi) Industrial Internet (联通（江西）产业互联网有限公司), established in 2022 and headquartered in Nanchang, was granted a patent for a digital human intelligent interaction method, device, and apparatus, with authorization publication number CN121051217B and a filing date of November 2025. Shandong Lushang Technology Group (山东鲁商科技集团有限公司), headquartered in Jinan and established in 2002, has applied for a patent on a method for generating digital human PPT presentation videos designed to produce more natural and coherent scripted explanations from structured slide content. Ningxia Weitong Zhichuang (宁夏蔚东智创), serving small and medium enterprises in the Yinchuan area, offers digital human services built on a third-generation deep neural network rendering model that requires as little as 20 minutes of training data to generate a functional digital human character.

Ethical and Legal Contexts: AI-generated virtual human characters with near-zero production cost have been deployed in fraudulent schemes targeting middle-aged and elderly Chinese internet users, with AI-produced virtual "domineering CEO" (霸道总裁) personas engineered to cultivate emotional attachment and extract money from victims, while related AI applications have been implicated in the covert harvesting of personal data through deceptive interactions. The systematic use of AI-cloned actor digital doubles in short drama productions has exposed significant legal gaps in China, with Beijing Yongqin Law Firm (北京永勤律师事务所) lawyer Liu Jing identifying the protection of an actor's image rights as the primary unresolved legal issue in AI digital actor deployments and noting the absence of clear legal standards governing authorization agreements and remedies for unauthorized use of digitally replicated likenesses.

March 18 News

Healthcare: Guangdong Medical University (广东医科大学) led a three-year development effort resulting in the release of PAI (Personalized AI Doctor) 1.0, a hypertension management platform that integrates wearable continuous blood pressure monitoring, a large language model, and a physician AI avatar (医生AI分身) technology that embeds clinical expert diagnostic reasoning, risk identification principles, and standardized treatment pathways directly into the system so that AI responses during patient consultations approximate real physician clinical thinking. China's physician AI avatar programs for online consultation were reported to be approaching an estimated 100 million cumulative app interactions. In Shaanxi Province, China Telecom Shaanxi (中国电信陕西公司) partnered with Xianyang First People's Hospital (咸阳市第一人民医院) to deploy a 14B-parameter digital human at the hospital's front end, enabling patients to receive triage guidance on which department to consult for their symptoms. The Beijing-based listed company Digital Human (数字人, stock code 920670), which operates in the digital medicine field, reported 50% year-on-year revenue growth for 2025, a record operational net cash flow, and described AI as a new growth engine for the enterprise.

Education: In Jiangxi Province, Jian City's Siyuan Experimental School Wencheng Branch (思源实验学校文成分校) deployed a digital human character named "Red Army Old Squad Leader" (红军老班长) to facilitate national defense education for fifth-grade students, enabling what the school described as cross-temporal dialogue in a lesson centered on the literary text "The Golden Fish Hook." In Xinjiang, an AI digital human was used to deliver the founding declaration at the launch ceremony of the region's first AI+ data annotation industry-education integration community platform, a joint initiative of Xinjiang University (新疆大学), Changji Vocational and Technical College (昌吉职业技术学院), and Xinjiang Paige Big Data Industry Development Investment Co. (新疆派格大数据产业发展投资有限公司). Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts (天津美术学院) submitted a project titled "Brushwork Maps the Literary Pulse, Digital Intelligence Traces Chinese Heritage — Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts Assisting Xinjiang Cele County Digital Human Development" to a national selection, framing digital human production as a mechanism for intangible cultural heritage preservation and cross-regional transmission. At Hefei No. 1 High School (合肥一中), an AI digital human demonstration of gesture dance was featured as part of the school's inaugural mathematics month, illustrating digital human technology being integrated into educational display contexts.

Cultural & Tourism: A leading digital human manufacturer, unidentified by name in available reports but described as among the industry's front-rank providers, has deployed multiple named digital human characters across cultural and tourism venues in several provinces. In Tibet, a mobile AI digital human guide named "Xiao You" (小优) operates along a preset route through the Tibet Film Culture Corridor (西藏电影文化长廊), narrating the 75-year development history of Tibetan cinema while responding to visitor queries through a purpose-built knowledge base. Further deployments by operators in the same sector include the Shanxi tourism digital human "Qingniao" (青鸟), the Fujian "Zheng Chenggong" (郑成功) historical digital human, the Dali cultural character "Xiao Jinhua" (小金花), and a digital human installed at the Leshan Guo Moruo Former Residence (乐山郭沫若故居). In Xi'an, the "Flourishing Chang'an: Echoes of Civilization" (盛世长安文明回响) public lecture series, which opened its first session on March 18 at a Xi'an venue, incorporated digital human technology as part of a program designed to give audiences access to three thousand years of history through immersive digital means. At Beijing's Longfusi market, visitors could initiate virtual digital human interactive scenarios through NFC phone contact to experience a "Beijing Gift" cultural retail experience, representing a shift from static exhibition to interactive virtual engagement.

The company most likely being referred to is 世优科技 (Shiyou Technology), a Beijing-based digital human manufacturer founded in 2015 that specialises in full-stack virtual human technology across cultural tourism, government services, broadcast media, and other sectors. Three of the named characters in the passage — the Shanxi tourism ambassador "Qingniao" (青鸟), the Dali city digital human "Xiao Jinhua" (小金花), and the Fujian cultural IP Zheng Chenggong (郑成功) — are confirmed 世优科技 productions listed on the company's own official website and corroborated by third-party sources, making the identification effectively conclusive for those deployments. Direct documentary evidence linking 世优科技 to the Tibet "Xiao You" character, the Leshan Guo Moruo Former Residence, the Xi'an "Flourishing Chang'an" lecture series, and the Beijing Longfusi NFC installation was not recovered from indexed web sources, though the convergence of three confirmed character matches across three provinces leaves little doubt that the unidentified manufacturer in the original passage is 世优科技. 

Media & Broadcasting: Hunan Daily (湖南日报社) deployed an AIGC-generated digital human anchor, modeled on a real journalist's likeness, to report in real time on key agenda items and explain highlights of the 2026 National People's Congress and Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference sessions. The listed Chinese cloud communications company Erliusan (二六三) operates two virtual host digital human products — "Yun Xiaoduo" (云小朵) and "Chang Xiaoping" (昌小平) — for virtual hosting and 3D exhibition hall applications, and invested RMB 320 million to strengthen its Hong Kong subsidiary as part of an intelligent network infrastructure expansion. Xiaoxiang Morning News Media Group (潇湘晨报融媒体集团) signed a cooperation agreement with Shanghai Zhiling Xinjing Technology (上海智灵新境科技有限公司) for an AI comics and digital human content creation initiative linking production operations across Changsha, Wuhan, and Shanghai. At the 30th FILMART, Hong Kong International Film and Television Market (香港國際影視展), in March 2026, Ningbo media organizations presented interactive virtual digital humans alongside AIGC fusion media content as part of a national delegation showcasing media technology achievements. Digital Kingdom (数字王国), a Hong Kong-based company with roots in Hollywood virtual human production, has been expanding its virtual human applications into everyday Hong Kong commercial and cultural contexts, drawing on its combined competency in Western narrative technique and Asian cultural sensibility.

Finance & Consumer Protection: China Agricultural Bank (中国农业银行) digital human employee "Yi Ming" (一明) received recognition at the 2026 Gold Stone Awards for consumer protection innovation, having been deployed as a virtual front-line representative for financial consumer education campaigns, including actions targeting hearing-impaired communities in Hunan Province. Hangzhou Consumer Protection Commission (杭州市消保委) deployed an AI digital human named "Hangxiao" (杭小消) to shift consumer rights services from offline appointment queuing to 24-hour online accessibility. Wuxi market supervisory authorities launched "Xixiaobao AI Digital Human" (锡小保AI数字人) through the Wuxi Smart Market Supervision mini-program, providing 7×24 hour consumer protection services via intelligent interactive dialogue for Wuxi consumers. Yunnan Financial Regulatory Bureau (云南金融监管局) completed a full technical upgrade of its "Yunnan Financial Consumer Protection AI Digital Human" (云南金融消保AI数字人), integrating local cultural identifiers — including Yunnan tea, flowers, and coffee — into the digital human's presenting identity. Bank of Communications Sichuan Branch (交行四川省分行) conducted digital human anti-fraud live broadcasts achieving single-session viewership exceeding one million across the province. Taiping Life Insurance Qingdao Branch (太平人寿青岛分公司) produced a consumer protection video series featuring an animated virtual character named "Consumer Protection Dumpling" (消保团子), designed in a warm animated style to communicate financial fraud prevention and internet finance risk awareness to general audiences. Shenzhen China Life Insurance (深圳国寿) used digital human interactive game formats as part of immersive consumer education programming at a public event at Huanle Hai'an (欢乐海岸).

Recruitment & Employment: Qinghai Province's first AI digital human live-streaming job recruitment broadcast was launched in March 2025 through the Xining Recruitment Network (西宁招聘网) by the Chengzhong District Human Resources Bureau (城中区人社局), with the digital human host presenting job vacancies in real time in what the bureau has since developed into a sustained "AI Digital Human Live Job Posting" service model. In Yunnan Province, digital human job-posting (数字人带岗) was observed as a mainstream feature at employment events, deployed alongside AI interview booths and entrepreneurship advisor AI terminals as part of a new generation of AI-driven recruitment infrastructure for jobseekers. At Guangdong's 2026 spring job fair, digital human live job-posting systems were deployed in a dedicated AI cloud recruitment experience zone, supported by companion functions including AI mock interviews, resume diagnostic tools, and intelligent candidate-to-vacancy matching within an integrated mini-program environment.

Civic & Public Services: Fuzhou Public Security Bureau Gulou Branch (福州市公安局鼓楼分局) launched Fujian's first police 3D digital human on its WeChat official account, marking an application of virtual human technology to public security communications and citizen services. China Mobile Jiangsu Company (中国移动江苏公司) deployed digital human presenters across 124 online and offline policy interpretation sessions and industry salons as part of its "Digital Intelligence AI City" (数'志'AI城) volunteer enterprise service initiative targeting small and medium enterprises in Changzhou navigating digital transformation. In Hangzhou, a Song Dynasty-themed AI digital human named "Yang Wawa" (阳瓦瓦) appeared at a Shangcheng District "Learn from Lei Feng" civic service event, representing the integration of culturally stylized digital human characters into grassroots public outreach activities. The Qinghai Women's Federation (青海妇联) launched an AI digital human named "Qingqin Jie" (青亲姐) to deliver learning content and federation news through dedicated thematic channels, representing a provincial-level deployment of digital human technology for official public communication.

Enterprise & Commerce: Yuxi City People's Government (玉溪市人民政府) announced a strategic partnership with Silicon Intelligence (硅基智能), described as a leading enterprise in China's digital human agent sector, to establish an OPC digital human industry ecosystem in Yuxi, Yunnan Province, targeting coverage of Southwest China with a stated ambition to extend reach into Southeast Asian markets. At the Canton Fair (广交会), Guangdong exhibitors deployed real-time digital human translation systems capable of identifying an overseas client's country and language in 0.5 seconds and generating a matching digital human interpreter on screen, a solution highlighted by Guangdong Federation of Industry and Commerce (广东省工商联) chairman Chen Zhilie as a model for solving industrial-scene data entry and multilingual communication challenges. In Chengdu's high-tech zone, a rising "solo company" (一人公司) entrepreneurship ecosystem has emerged in the digital content creative sector, with digital human production cited as a core service category among projects presented at OPC incubation review sessions, and Chengdu Mingtujoke Technology (成都明途科技) among the companies expressing intent to integrate intelligent digital human capabilities into local computing power infrastructure. Yingmi Fund (盈米基金) launched a digital advisory application integrating OpenClaw with investment advisory services, while Zhongou Wealth (中欧财富) assembled a team focused on digital avatar (数字分身) deployment and workflow automation in financial advisory scenarios. The legal AI collaborative conference co-initiated by Yunjiazu Chengzeda (云家族成泽大) cited digital human technology as a foundational component of an emerging legal services ecosystem, framing it as a driver of transformation in how legal knowledge and advisory functions are delivered.

Technology & R&D: Soul (Soul App) publicly released two open-source real-time digital human generation models in early 2026: SoulX-FlashHead, capable of generating high-quality digital human output at 96 frames per second on a single consumer-grade NVIDIA 4090 GPU, and SoulX-FlashTalk, described as the industry's first model achieving sub-second dialogue latency of 0.87 seconds at 32 fps for streaming real-time digital human conversation. Both models were developed by Soul AI Lab under the leadership of Soul founder Zhang Lu (张璐), with the releases positioned as contributions to the open-source real-time digital human research community. Separately, researchers affiliated with the International Science and Innovation Center (国际科技创新中心) in Beijing developed a neural network for high-precision 3D facial keypoint detection that operates directly on raw 3D point cloud data, bypassing the texture mapping errors and performance constraints of standard 3D digital face model frameworks, and enabling what the team describes as a shift from homogenized to individualized facial representation for high-fidelity virtual human face animation and robotic facial expression systems. An AI digital human interaction system built on the Android RK3588 embedded computing platform was additionally presented as an architecture for enterprise-level intelligent service terminal deployment, with noted relevance to Shanghai-based commercial rollouts.

Regulation & Standards: The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (工业和信息化部) approved a batch of 151 communication industry standards in March 2026, including a digital human evaluation standard designed to cover the complete chain of foundational technology, development platforms, and application scenarios, with the explicit aim of guiding healthy and orderly industrial development across the digital human sector. The National Development and Reform Commission (国家发展改革委), together with multiple sectoral ministries, issued an implementation opinion on accelerating artificial intelligence application in bidding and procurement, which specifically includes the use of digital human-assisted defense presentations to support contracting authorities in conducting comparative analysis of shortlisted candidates. Regulators also confirmed, in coverage sourced from Fujian, that digital human hosts operating within live-streaming e-commerce environments will be formally incorporated into the scope of platform regulatory oversight, a measure signaling that virtual human broadcasters are now treated as distinct regulated entities in the commercial streaming ecosystem.

Entertainment: At the 2026 Television Drama Quality Awards red carpet on March 9, Chinese actor Bai Jingting (白敬亭) made a public appearance alongside his AI virtual avatar "Baiju" (白驹), presenting what event commentators described as a human-and-digital-being joint performance that became the most widely circulated moment of the evening and generated sustained online discussion about the convergence of celebrity identity and virtual representation. Silk Road Visual (丝路视觉) and its subsidiary Silk Road Shichuang (丝路视创) are engaged in virtual digital human content production and metaverse scene construction across entertainment and education sectors, with the company carrying concept classifications in virtual digital human, film and television media, and online education. Legal experts in China have noted that AI-generated virtual likenesses of real and identifiable individuals may constitute infringement of personality rights under existing legal frameworks, with this analysis emerging against a backdrop of rapidly proliferating AIGC virtual images in live streaming, personalized avatar generation, and entertainment production contexts.

March 17 News

Government and Public Services: iFlytek's (科大讯飞) content creation subsidiary "iFlytek Smart Creation" (讯飞智作) deployed its AI anchor Xiaobahui (小百惠) at China's Two Sessions (两会) in 2026, operating through a virtual human interactive platform equipped with real-time semantic understanding and multimodal interaction capabilities to support natural, fluid exchanges with delegates and representatives on-site. The mobile digital human product layered onto the platform additionally enables proactive greeting and guided navigation functions. In Zhejiang, a digital human named Hang Xiaoxiao (杭小消) was introduced to transform consumer rights services in Hangzhou, shifting the service model from scheduled in-person appointments to immediate online resolution. In Wuxi, Jiangsu, the digital human Xi Xiaobao (锡小保) provides round-the-clock consumer rights assistance, operating in coordination with offline one-click mediation systems installed at consumer venues. Yunnan's financial regulatory authorities upgraded their AI digital human for deployment during the Yunnan Financial Consumer Protection City Walk series, using the character to render complex financial terminology accessible to general audiences. Gansu Rural Credit Remote Banking (甘肃农信远程银行) developed a new digital human interaction architecture specifically trained for the dialect patterns and informal speech of elderly rural users in Gansu province. At spring recruitment events in Guangdong, job fair venues incorporated digital human live broadcast systems for position introductions alongside AI interview pods and intelligent employment terminals as part of AI-driven cloud recruitment experience zones.

Finance and Consumer Services: Jiangsu Rural Commercial United Bank (江苏农商联合银行) issued a public procurement notice in 2026 for its annual interactive digital human construction project, with the project based at its Nanjing headquarters. Xiaoying Technology (小赢科技), operating in the consumer lending sector, further upgraded its virtual digital human systems in 2026 as part of a broader initiative to reshape AI-driven customer service in fintech. Erliusan (二六三) deployed AI digital human characters Yun Xiaoduo (云小朵) and Chang Xiaoping (昌小平), developed on its metaverse and real-time network infrastructure, in virtual hosting roles and 3D exhibition hall environments.

Healthcare: The Dr.PAI high blood pressure intelligent management platform, which was deployed in Shaoguan, Guangdong, integrates wearable continuous blood pressure monitoring hardware with a large language model and doctor AI avatar (医生AI分身) technology to deliver a full-cycle health management system covering personalized consultation and clinical risk assessment. The platform embeds the diagnostic logic of clinical specialists into its AI avatar layer to form a closed-loop monitoring, evaluation, and intervention workflow. Lingxi Biology (灵析生物) presented a structurally comparable approach at AWE 2026, also incorporating doctor AI avatar technology to embed clinical expert diagnostic reasoning directly into its health management pipeline, connecting continuous biometric monitoring to AI-driven intervention without manual clinical handoff.

Entertainment and Media: Xiaoxue Film Group (潇影集团) unveiled an AIGC strategy and introduced two 3D holographic digital humans, Xiao Yangyang (肖阳阳) and Li Ranran (李燃燃), designed for virtual-physical fusion and interactive presentation across digital human production, virtual cinematography, and immersive content creation contexts, with plans for multi-scenario deployment. At the Jiangsu Spring Festival Gala, the music sketch New Ma Ye's Crazy (《NEW马也疯狂》) combined live-action filming with AIGC interaction and real-time linkage via Unreal Engine 5, staging an immersive performance environment in which human performers interact with AI digital beings. Haimacloud (海马云), pursuing an IPO with a reported valuation of 2.5 billion yuan and strategic support from Migu Culture (咪咕文化), operates digital human collaborative meeting and AIGC design rendering services, and in the entertainment sector runs virtual idol performances and cloud XR concerts. Huiboxing (慧播星) digital humans are deployed as video presenters in online news productions distributed across multiple platforms and media outlets.

Education: The newly approved National Cybersecurity Academy, formally approved by China's Ministry of Education in March 2026 and sited within the Wuhan National Cybersecurity Talent and Innovation Base known as China Cyber Valley, incorporates digital human tutors and administrative robots into its fully intelligent campus design to enable smart interaction with students and faculty. The Shandong University of Arts Metaverse Research Institute (山外大元宇宙研究院) launched the Yuanchuang Guangnian (元创光年) platform, which generates customized AI digital actor and anchor personas for individual users, with stated applications in short drama production, knowledge broadcasting, and related content creation formats. In a public safety education context, a virtual character named Xiao Wukong (小悟空), modeled on the Monkey King from Journey to the West, was deployed in an open class setting to guide students through fire prevention fundamentals, hazard identification, fire suppression equipment, and emergency evacuation procedures.

The Metaverse Research Institute of Shandong Foreign Affairs Vocational University (山东外事职业大学元宇宙研究院), commonly abbreviated as Shānwài Dà Metaverse Research Institute (山外大元宇宙研究院), is a university-affiliated research and commercialization body based in Weihai, Shandong, focused on frontier metaverse technology development and industry application. Its core product portfolio includes the Xingyuan (星元) metaverse technology base, the Yuanbu (元捕) intelligent motion and face capture system, and the Lifeng (立风) AI multimodal no-code editing engine, alongside a self-developed digital human platform used in faculty training and educational content creation. The institute operates an enterprise incubation function, having spun off Xiong'an Xingyuan Technology Co., Ltd. (雄安兴元科技有限公司), which won a Xiong'an New Area innovation award and secured a Bank of China digital human contract in 2024, as well as a separate venture that completed a seed round in August 2025 targeting foundational metaverse and world model technology. In July 2025 the institute launched the Rise-M1 omnidirectional haptic platform and initiated the Xingyuan Cup game development competition, and in March 2026 it released the Yuanchuang Guangnian (元创光年) platform under an OPC one-person company model, integrating the OpenClaw (小龙虾) tool to deliver customized AI digital human actors and hosts for short drama and livestream applications. The institute maintains inter-institutional partnerships, notably with Jilin University's Weihai Bionic Research Institute, and engages in external outreach through government exchanges, national innovation competitions, and media appearances including a 2024 Zhongguancun Forum keynote and a 2025 Tianjin Satellite TV recruitment program appearance by its Chief Engineer. 

OpenClaw (小龙虾) is an open-source AI agent platform whose Chinese nickname derives from its red crayfish icon and the nimble, deep-reaching quality of its core capability: autonomous, persistent operation inside a device's system layer. In China, the platform went viral in early 2026 — accumulating 250,000 GitHub stars within weeks — and was rapidly framed in the domestic discourse specifically through the lens of digital human applications. Its architecture, which combines a visual interface, remote device access, a built-in AI browser, file management, and a dedicated digital human scheduling module, made it a natural substrate for integrating digital human functionality into autonomous workflows. Chinese users quickly experimented with pairing OpenClaw with digital human cloning tools to replicate voices and likenesses, then have the agent autonomously generate and publish digital human videos to platforms such as Douyin and WeChat with no human intervention required — a workflow described in coverage as "godlike" in its content production potential. Tencent integrated OpenClaw access via QQ, dramatically lowering the barrier for ordinary users to deploy digital human-powered agents. Baidu Intelligent Cloud (百度智能云) launched a national rollout initiative pairing its Xiling (曦灵) digital human platform directly with OpenClaw. On the enterprise and security side, Mintu Technology (明途科技) collaborated with MoFa Technology (魔珐（上海）信息科技有限公司) to develop what they termed a "safe digital human" framework specifically designed to address OpenClaw's identified security vulnerabilities — including blurred trust boundaries and persistent memory risks — while the China National Industrial Information Security Development Research Center issued a formal risk advisory warning against unguarded OpenClaw deployment in industrial settings. The broader cultural framing in China positioned OpenClaw as an always-on "digital employee" (数字员工) working 24 hours a day without pay or complaint, a framing that normalized and accelerated its adoption within the digital human ecosystem. 

Sports: Lenovo Group (联想集团) integrated a 3D digital human visualization solution into the inaugural AI World Cup event, where the system provides real-time tactical inference and personalized match analysis in conjunction with its Football AI Pro intelligent sports agent, embedding synthetic character visualization into live sports analytics workflows at the core of the event infrastructure.

Ethical Contexts: China's 315 Consumer Rights Day coverage in 2026 focused sustained critical attention on the misuse of virtual human and digital human technology in online commerce. One documented category of abuse involves operators constructing AI-generated virtual personas styled as product experts, mothers, or rural producers, building false identities to lower consumer vigilance and simulate authentic endorsements with fabricated personal histories. A parallel category involves deploying AI face-swapping and voice cloning to produce digital human likenesses of named celebrities for unauthorized livestream sales. The AI digital human character Jianguo (建国), presented in a suit and framed as a mature, attentive male companion, was distributed widely across short video platforms and generated documented cases of elderly women spending significant sums on virtual products and writing personal correspondence to the character, including one reported case of an 84-year-old woman in Yunnan who engaged with the character for up to ten hours daily before attempting to send it a handwritten letter. The 315 exposé formally listed AI digital humans and virtual humans among the sectors directly affected by AI fraud disclosures alongside livestream e-commerce and AIGC content generation platforms. At the legislative level, actor and NPC delegate Feng Yuanzheng (冯远征) stated during NPC review proceedings that as AI becomes capable of generating performance content and virtual humans approach the capacity to substitute for live actors, creative practitioners bear greater responsibility for preserving human values within the artistic process.

Research and Technology: A neural network system has been developed to advance virtual human facial realism by predicting facial keypoint coordinates directly from raw 3D point cloud data, enabling a fundamental structural shift from generalized averaged facial geometry to individualized facial modeling. The approach is presented as a technical foundation for high-fidelity virtual human face driving applications as well as for high-realism facial expression rendering in robotics.

The peer-reviewed paper is titled "CF-GAT: Curvature-fused Graph Attention Network for High-Precision Unordered Facial Point Cloud Landmark Detection," published in IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems for Video Technology by Prof. Song Zhan of the Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology (Chinese Academy of Sciences) and Dr. Ye Yuping of Fujian University of Technology. The paper introduces a curvature-fused graph attention network (CF-GAT) that predicts 3D facial landmark coordinates by processing raw, unordered point cloud data directly, bypassing the 2D texture mapping and synthetic predefined template models that characterize conventional approaches. The core technical argument — framed in press coverage as a shift from "one-size-fits-all" to personalized modeling — is that working from real-world individual facial geometry rather than averaged or synthetic models produces more accurate, noise-robust landmark localization with better generalization across varied facial shapes. To train and validate the model, the team constructed one of the largest structured collections of real 3D facial data reported to date, comprising approximately 200,000 high-fidelity 3D scans along with multi-expression, landmark, body, and 4D expression subsets, a dataset subsequently selected for Fujian Province's 2025 High-Quality AI Dataset Program. The stated downstream applications span virtual human face driving, high-fidelity facial expression rendering in humanoid robotics, and biometric systems. 

March 16 News

Consumer Protection: The Hangzhou Consumer Protection Commission (杭州市消保委) deployed "Hangzhou Xiaoxiao" (杭小消), described as China's first AI digital human dedicated to consumer rights services, providing round-the-clock intelligent assistance and enabling a shift from scheduled offline appointments to immediate online responses; the initiative was highlighted at the 2026 Zhejiang Consumer Rights Day event in Hangzhou on March 15 as a model for AI-driven dispute resolution. Ping An Property Insurance (平安产险) Heilongjiang branch introduced an original digital ambassador character at its own March 15 consumer protection event, marking the company's first use of digital human technology for consumer education, with the character deployed in animated video format to expose fraudulent practices including unlicensed solicitation, concealed risks, and false high-return claims. At the Jiangsu financial consumer rights event held in Nanjing, virtual digital humans appeared among the live demonstrations alongside mobile payment and digital renminbi scenarios, and a consumer finance company in Guizhou was separately reported to have placed a digital human at the center of its smart consumer protection service strategy.

Government Services: An intelligent digital human named "Xiao Wei" (小维) has been deployed at the Urumqi Economic and Technological Development Zone government service hall in Xinjiang, positioned at the entrance to greet visitors and provide interactive guidance. At the founding ceremony of the Xinjiang "AI+" Data Annotation Industry-Education Integration Community, a virtual digital human performed the public reading of the organization's charter in coordination with a humanoid robot, illustrating the combined ceremonial use of synthetic presenter characters and embodied robotics in formal institutional contexts.

Entertainment and Film: Xiaoxiang Film Group (潇湘电影集团) held its "Xiaoxiang AI, Jingzhe Speaks" AIGC strategy launch event in Changsha on March 13, 2026, formally unveiling two 3D holographic digital humans named "Xiao Yangyang" (肖阳阳) and "Li Ranran" (李燃燃), which were subsequently featured as co-presenters in a screened production at the event. The launch positioned digital human technology as a central component of the company's intelligent transformation strategy for the film and television sector, framed within a broader AIGC product matrix and ecosystem plan. The Jiangsu Spring Gala featured a musical sketch, "NEW Horses Go Crazy," which combined live-action filming, AIGC interaction, and real-time Unreal Engine 5 integration to construct an immersive scene in which human performers interacted with AI digital beings, representing a deployment of virtual characters as active co-participants rather than background elements in live entertainment. The Shanghai AI Micro-Drama Investment Conference (上海AI微短剧创投大会) showcased the application of digital human technology within talent management, with one presented project described as using digital human systems to transcend traditional constraints in artist representation and production workflows. During a Shenzhen company visit by Hong Kong youth competing in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Commissioner's Office "My Hong Kong Story" English video competition, staff demonstrated AI-powered rapid generation of personalized digital humans and automated animation video production, generating visible interest among the visiting participants.

The 2026 Shanghai AI Micro-Drama Investment Conference, officially titled "品质东方·AI微短剧创投大会," was held on March 11 at the 视听静界·π空间 venue within the Daning functional area of Jing'an District. Organized with the involvement of SMG (Shanghai Media Group) and the Daning district, the event positioned itself as a resource aggregation and enablement hub for the micro-drama industry, with a focus on AI-driven audio-visual content and the broader hundred-billion-yuan short drama market. Three core projects presented at the conference were reported to signal the direction of industry transformation, with coverage noting applications including digital human technology in talent and idol economy contexts. 

Media and Broadcasting: iFlytek Zhizuo (讯飞智作) deployed its AI anchor "Momoe" (小百惠) at the 2026 National Two Sessions, where the digital human demonstrated real-time semantic understanding and multimodal interaction capabilities via the company's virtual human interactive platform, enabling natural live dialogue with NPC delegates and CPPCC members, as well as proactive greeting and guided tour functions through a companion mobile digital human product. Huibofax (慧播星) digital human technology was credited across multiple regional news video productions during the same period, with the synthetic presenter format applied to news content from outlets covering stories in Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Guangdong. Guangdong Literature Museum (广东文学馆) deployed an AI digital human host named "小鹅" to co-present a literary event, with the virtual host appearing alongside the museum's director and the editor-in-chief of a literary publication.

Live Commerce and Fraud: Investigative reporting published around March 15, 2026 identified a widespread pattern of AI digital humans being used on major short video platforms to construct deceptive romantic personas — commonly labeled "AI CEO" (AI霸总) — that targeted elderly women, with multiple documented cases of individuals spending thousands of renminbi on goods linked to these characters' livestream storefronts while under the impression they were in a genuine relationship with a real person. One case in Henan involved a woman named Zhang Yulan who began purchasing from windows linked to AI digital human videos in October 2025, with goods including items available on Taobao for 9.9 yuan being sold at dramatically inflated prices through the digital human's associated commerce channel. An 84-year-old woman in Jiangxi was reported to have watched AI digital human videos for up to ten hours per day and composed handwritten letters to the synthetic character. A parallel category of fraud documented in 315 consumer day coverage involved AI digital humans impersonating named celebrities in e-commerce livestreaming, applying face-swapping, voice cloning, and full synthetic presenter generation to mislead consumers into believing they were watching authentic celebrity endorsements. Broader investigative analysis also identified the use of fabricated virtual personas — synthetic identities constructed with fictional personal histories and product usage experiences — as a mechanism for lowering consumer vigilance in live commerce environments.

Sports: Lenovo Group (联想集团) contributed AI capabilities to the inaugural AI World Cup, deploying a 3D digital human visualization solution as part of the event infrastructure to deliver real-time tactical demonstrations and match analysis in conjunction with the Football AI Pro sports intelligence agent, which generates tactical reasoning and personalized performance breakdowns at second-level speed.

Healthcare: Wenyuan Intelligence (文元智能) deployed Dr.PAI, an intelligent hypertension management platform, in Shaoguan, Guangdong, positioning it as an AI-assisted cardiac health management service. The platform integrates wearable continuous blood pressure monitoring devices, a doctor AI avatar (医生AI分身) technology, and a large language model to provide full-cycle health management across patient care workflows.

Enterprise: Haima Cloud (海马云), an AIGC infrastructure company currently advancing toward IPO with backing from Migu Culture (咪咕文化) and carrying a reported valuation of 2.5 billion yuan, operates digital human collaborative meeting systems and AIGC design rendering as part of its product portfolio, alongside cloud-rendered digital twin applications for cultural tourism and virtual idol performance infrastructure for its entertainment vertical. Zhongchuang Network (众创网) of Wuhan filed a patent in February 2026 for a digital human question-and-answer system, designated CN121658531A, designed to drive digital human execution of voice broadcast and interactive response functions.

March 15 News

Media & Broadcasting: iFlytek (科大讯飞), through its "iFlytek Smart Creation" (讯飞智作) content production platform, deployed its AI digital human anchor Xiao Baihui (小百惠) to cover China's Two Sessions in March 2026, marking the character's use in national political news broadcasting. Huiboxing (慧播星) has been adopted as a standard digital human video production tool across multiple news outputs on NetEase, with finished video content explicitly labeled as produced using its digital human system. JD.com's (京东) JoyAI large model digital human appeared in a widely circulated short video with origins in Shaanxi province, demonstrating platform-branded synthetic presenters in viral content distribution.

Cultural Tourism & Heritage: Shiyou Technology (世优科技) deployed an AI digital human guide at the Tibet Film Culture Gallery in Lhasa, creating an intelligent visitor experience for the cultural venue. Qihu Technology (奇虎科技) has developed a proprietary AI digital human tour guide system with multilingual real-time interaction capability, positioned among the leading smart cultural tourism vendors serving scenic areas nationwide. Haima Cloud (海马云), currently pursuing an IPO with support from Migu Culture (咪咕文化) at a reported valuation of 2.5 billion yuan, offers cloud rendering services for scenic area digital twin construction, online immersive tours, and high-precision artifact restoration within its cultural tourism segment, with Digital Dunhuang cited among its reference deployments. In Gansu province, a smart village management platform developed for earthquake-affected Tuanjie Village incorporates digital human scenarios alongside other AI-assisted governance tools.

Financial Services: Guangfa Bank (广发银行) deployed digital human consumer protection assistants alongside physical robots at branch locations in Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and other cities as part of its 2026 "3·15" consumer rights education campaign, integrating the figures into environments combining AR and VR equipment. The Yunnan Financial Supervision Bureau (云南金融监管局) conducted a full technical upgrade of its AI digital human "品云品惠民生," originally launched during the 2025 "3·15" period, for the 2026 edition of its Financial Consumer Protection City Walk campaign in Kunming. The Hangzhou Consumer Protection Committee (杭州市消保委) deployed the AI digital human Hang Xiao Xiao (杭小消) to provide on-demand consumer rights inquiry services, shifting the service model from scheduled offline consultations to immediate online response.

Healthcare & Education: Shandong Digital Human Technology Co., Ltd. (山东数字人科技股份有限公司) was awarded a procurement contract worth 3.4316 million yuan from Zunyi Medical University in Guizhou province in February 2026, covering the expansion and upgrade of anatomy and functional laboratory platforms at the university's basic medical experimental teaching center. Jiangsu Yangzi Evening News Co., Ltd. (江苏扬子晚报有限公司) and the Science and Technology Park of Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine (南京中医药大学科技园) jointly developed a virtual digital human health lecturer deployed within Jiangsu province's elderly care services framework, applying synthetic presenter technology to extend health education to aging populations.

Entertainment & Virtual Idols: Haima Cloud's entertainment segment spans virtual idol performances and cloud XR concerts alongside its cultural tourism and enterprise services, reflecting the company's positioning across live experience formats. Industry commentary circulating on Chinese media platforms notes that virtual avatars of existing performing artists have begun securing independent commercial endorsements — including one case in which a virtual avatar signed an automotive brand deal independently of the human artist — while AI-driven facial replacement and motion capture are identified as the technologies enabling holographic performances, pointing toward an emerging model for commercializing synthetic performers within China's entertainment industry.

Marketing & E-commerce: Guangzhou Lianjian Shuzhi Technology Co., Ltd. (广州量剑数智科技有限公司) created digital human avatars for Zhongshan Yiyangtang chain wellness centers, producing a daily pipeline of AI-generated health and wellness short videos integrated with a full-domain traffic management system for client lead generation. Zhongwang Chuangxin (中网创信), through its Hainan service center, applies self-developed AIGC tools to enable digital human live streaming for client brands, combining synthetic presenter deployment with automated lead qualification. In Shandong, Laisi township's rural revitalization initiative pairs a locally cultivated "Morel Mushroom Secretary" character IP with digital human technology and e-commerce distribution channels to develop new commercial formats in agricultural communities.

Enterprise & Governance: Volcano Engine (火山引擎), ByteDance's (字节跳动) enterprise cloud division, upgraded its ArkClaw AI assistant security solution in response to widespread deployment of the OpenClaw open-source AI agent framework across personal digital avatar and enterprise digital employee scenarios, addressing high-risk vulnerabilities in agentic systems that operate with digital human-adjacent identity functions. Qihu Technology separately issued a deployment security guide noting that AI agents operating as digital avatars carry elevated risk if compromised, and advocating for security mechanisms to be established from the initial deployment stage. In Xinjiang, the founding ceremony of the AI+ Data Annotation Industry-Education Integration Community featured humanoid robots and virtual digital humans jointly reading the organization's charter, combining physical and synthetic figures in an institutional public communication event. Guangdong Vocational College of Building Materials and Architecture (广东建院) activated an AI digital human within its campus student community infrastructure, integrating the system into an immersive teaching and service environment.

Ethical Contexts: Doubao Seedance 2.0 (豆包Seedance 2.0), ByteDance's video generation model, introduced a policy restricting the synthesis of real individuals' likenesses, limiting portrait-based generation to users' own personal digital avatars and prohibiting the unauthorized creation of other real persons' images. People's Daily (人民日报) published editorial commentary urging audiences to critically evaluate the potential influence of virtual avatar-based news broadcasting on viewers' perception of reality and to scrutinize the credibility of AI-generated content, framing media literacy as a necessary response to the proliferation of synthetic presenters. Sina's (新浪) security news aggregation flagged the use of digital humans to impersonate family members as an emerging category of internet fraud, identifying it alongside other AI-enabled deceptive practices as a distinct threat in the current consumer environment.

March 14 News

Financial Services: Across multiple provinces, Chinese financial institutions deployed digital humans as the primary interface for consumer education and financial protection campaigns in the lead-up to the 2026 March 15 Consumer Rights Day. In Chongqing, banks integrated digital human consultation services alongside mobile banking and digital renminbi functions at smart consumer terminals, while Ping An Property Insurance (平安财险) demonstrated its rapid claims platform using similar AI-driven touchpoints. In Shaanxi, Ping An Life Insurance's (平安人寿) Xi'an branch deployed a digital human as an interactive science-and-technology layer within its financial education activities, framing the application as a demonstration of AI-enabled consumer outreach. In Yunnan, Guangfa Bank's (广发银行) Kunming branch announced plans to deploy AI digital humans to conduct compliance education across 154 partner institutions in phased batches throughout the year, while Hengfeng Bank's (恒丰银行) Kunming branch incorporated a "Yunnan Financial Consumer Protection Digital Human" video course into a live-streamed educational activity, using the synthetic character to explain financial risk scenarios in a visual and accessible format. In Shanghai, digital human broadcasts were used at the North Bund financial consumer protection event to present five case studies of technology-enabled banking services from institutions including Bank of China's Shanghai branch and Shanghai Pudong Development Bank. In Hubei, China Ping An's (中国平安) local branch installed an ultra-realistic digital human interactive unit within a consumer education kiosk, using intelligent question-and-answer functions and scenario-based content to engage visitors. In Guangdong, Guangfa Bank deployed its digital human consumer protection assistant alongside its robot "Fa Xiaobao" and AR/VR equipment at consumer rights events across its Guangzhou and Shenzhen branches.

Media and Broadcasting: Xunfei Zhizuo (讯飞智作), the content creation platform of iFlytek, and Anhui Broadcasting Television jointly produced the AI virtual anchor "Xiao Baihui" (小百惠), modeled on real Anhui News anchor Shi Baihui, who reappeared for a second consecutive year during the 2026 National Two Sessions coverage. The upgraded version of Xiao Baihui represented a significant functional advance over its predecessor, transitioning from a pure broadcast role to full interactive capability, including proactive greeting, guided navigation, and direct conversational exchange with delegates and attendees at the Two Sessions studio in Beijing. The character was additionally equipped to perform autonomous welcome and tour-guiding functions after integration with digital human hardware products. In Xinjiang, an AI digital human named "Xiao Xin" (小新) was deployed by Tulufan Net to deliver a report on the region's agricultural production achievements, presenting data-driven content in the form of an interactive broadcast character. In Hubei, two digital human characters named "Jingjing" (荆荆) and "Chuchu" (楚楚) were presented at the 2026 "Encounter Spring — Cherry Blossom" trade and investment event in Wuhan, where they delivered promotional introductions as part of a showcase that also included robot dialogue and AR real-time translation.

Government and Public Services: Several provincial and municipal governments in China deployed named digital human characters to serve public-facing functions across administrative and civic domains. The Shaanxi Women's Federation introduced its digital human "Qin Xiaomei" (秦小妹) at a Women's Day ceremony, where the character delivered the federation's 2026 service pledge for women, children, and families to attendees including provincial leadership. In Zhejiang, the Hangzhou Consumer Protection Commission launched an AI digital human named "Hang Xiaoxiao" (杭小消) to provide on-demand consumer rights consultation, shifting the service model from offline queuing to instant online response. In Qingdao, city authorities announced plans to upgrade their AI digital human customer service agent "An Xiaojing" (安小青), deepening its knowledge base and semantic recognition capabilities as part of a broader smart urban services initiative. In Guangdong, an AI digital human job broadcast machine was displayed at a provincial recruitment fair held at the Canton Fair Exhibition Hall, operating alongside AI entrepreneurship advisor terminals and the "Yue Pingyun" intelligent agent. In Guangxi, a digital human character named "Xiao Zhong" (小仲) made its debut as a fire prevention promoter in school-based public safety education campaigns, presenting fire safety knowledge through scenario-based content. In Shandong's Heze city, policy research proposed expanding government digital human applications to provide round-the-clock policy consultation and administrative service across all levels of local government. In Foshan, Guangdong, digital human avatars of officials from four township-level governments and eleven district departments were unveiled at a startup and innovation launch event, constituting an early example of government leadership using synthetic replicas for institutional representation.

Healthcare: China Telecom's (中国电信) Shaanxi provincial operation, in partnership with Xianyang First People's Hospital, deployed a 14B-parameter digital human all-in-one machine at the hospital to support patient-facing intelligent services, representing a substantive deployment of large-model-powered synthetic characters in a clinical environment. In Jiangsu, Jiangsu Yangzi Evening News Co., Ltd. (江苏扬子晚报有限公司) and the Science and Technology Park of Nanjing University of Traditional Chinese Medicine jointly developed a "virtual digital human health lecturer" designed not to replace human practitioners but to extend their reach, integrating fall detection monitoring and other elder-care functions as part of an AI-assisted aging services framework.

Tourism: Within the smart cultural tourism sector, multiple suppliers have developed AI digital human tour guide systems with multilingual real-time interaction and personalized itinerary planning capabilities. Qihoo Technology (奇虎科技) is identified as having independently developed an AI digital human tour guide product. Qingdao Tourism Group (青岛旅游集团) has implemented an MR cruise metaverse project incorporating AI guide and virtual experience features. A broader landscape overview of smart cultural tourism suppliers identifies AI digital human tour guides as a core product category, with systems designed to support scenic area navigation, visitor interaction, and immersive experience delivery across multiple deployment contexts in China.

Entertainment and Gaming: Quwan Technology (趣丸科技), a Guangdong-based games and interactive media company, deployed digital human volunteers during gaming industry events, achieving a reported 30 percent reduction in staffing costs. The application is cited in the context of Guangzhou's game industry reporting, which notes that Guangzhou-based publishers accounted for approximately 40 percent of national mobile game revenue in 2025. In Chengdu's High-Tech Zone, digital humans are identified as one of several hot sectors attracting solo-founder startup applications under the city's inaugural "one-person company" pilot program, alongside AI interaction, AI-integrated toys, and digital creative content, with venture capital reviewers from firms including Inno Capital and Fuhua Capital evaluating submissions in these categories.

Open-Source Technology Development: Soul App (Soul), whose founder Zhang Lu led the technical effort, open-sourced SoulX-FlashTalk, a 14-billion-parameter real-time digital human generation model, and subsequently released SoulX-FlashHead, a follow-on model addressing concurrent constraints in computational load and visual quality for real-time synthetic character rendering. These releases form part of a broader open-source strategy by the company's AI team in the digital human generation space. Separately, the open-source agentic framework OpenClaw has been noted in community discussions as a platform through which developers are building digital human applications, reflecting broader grassroots adoption of open-source tooling for synthetic character development in China.

SoulX-FlashHead is a real-time streaming talking-head and portrait-video generation framework developed by Soul-AILab and presented as a unified 1.3B-parameter system for producing high-fidelity, effectively unlimited-length video from portrait-and-audio inputs. In the material you uploaded, it is described as focusing on fast inference, strong lip-sync, and continuous streaming performance on consumer GPUs such as the RTX 4090 and 5090, while also being positioned as a research-backed project with an associated paper, code repository, demo site, and community distribution channels. 

Ethical and Fraud Contexts: Beijing Daily reported on a category of AI-enabled fraud specifically targeting elderly people, in which perpetrators use digital human technology to fabricate non-existent individuals — including synthetic grandchildren and fake digital currency promoters — to deceive victims financially. The fraudulent use of AI to generate synthetic characters for impersonation purposes is framed as a distinct and growing threat vector alongside deepfake voice cloning and AI face-swapping. At a national level, investigative coverage identified virtual human live-streaming as a mechanism widely used for fake celebrity endorsements and false advertising, noting that the concealed nature of the technology makes enforcement difficult. These cases are contextualized within China's broader March 15 consumer rights landscape, where AI-generated synthetic media and unauthorized digital human deployment have become prominent concerns.

Regulatory Standards: China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (工业和信息化部) released a package of 151 communication industry standards that includes dedicated specifications covering digital human indicator requirements and evaluation methodologies, alongside standards for AI development platform performance. The inclusion of digital human-specific standards within this national regulatory release marks a formal step toward standardized technical benchmarking for synthetic character systems in China.

Corporate Developments: Shandong Digital Human Technology Co., Ltd. (山东数字人科技股份有限公司), listed on the Beijing Stock Exchange under code 920670 and headquartered in Jinan's High-Tech Zone, held its 29th meeting of the third board of directors on March 13, 2026, and issued notice of its 2025 annual shareholder meeting with provision for online voting. The company also published an independent director nominee declaration for candidate Yuan Haobing during the same period.

March 13 News

Finance: China CITIC Bank (中信银行) Lanzhou branch has deployed a self-developed intelligent AI wealth advisor digital human named Xiaoxin, which uses large model technology to provide uninterrupted 7×24-hour asset allocation guidance and has accumulated a significant volume of customer service interactions since going live. Beijing Zhongke Jincai Technology Co., Ltd. (北京中科金财科技股份有限公司) won a contract valued at 1.198 million yuan to supply Tianjin Bank with an online customer service digital human and intelligent Siri capability as part of an intelligent customer service platform upgrade. Ping An Health Insurance's Foshan branch deployed a digital human alongside rap-format content for consumer financial education during the March 15 consumer rights period. Hisense Vision (海信视像) has built AIGC-based capabilities for both semi-realistic and ultra-realistic digital human modeling and interaction, including a single-image AI workflow for semi-realistic digital human generation, positioning the company within the virtual digital human and metaverse investment themes tracked by market analysts.

Recruitment and Employment: A digital human named Gui Xiaobing (桂小兵) was deployed at the 2026 Guangxi job fair for college graduate veterans held at Nanning Vocational and Technical University on March 11, running on a continuous loop to guide veteran job seekers through available positions and career matching services. At a Guangzhou recruitment expo held at the Canton Fair exhibition halls, Guangdong authorities demonstrated AI digital human job broadcasting machines alongside employment service smart terminals and entrepreneurship advisor AI units, presenting these as examples of technology-enhanced public employment services.

Tourism and Cultural Heritage: Across China's cultural tourism sector, digital human applications have moved from promotional novelty to operational infrastructure. In Chengdu, digital human versions of the Tang Dynasty poets Du Fu and Li Bai were deployed during the Spring Festival period to engage visitors in simulated cross-historical dialogues, forming part of a broader digital technology strategy to reshape festival consumer experiences. A startup team that returned from Silicon Valley developed a digital human tour guide embedded in a small physical card format, which was reported to have generated strong domestic and international market interest following its launch in Wuhan; the team cited the city's historical depth, including the 3D light shows at Yellow Crane Tower, as the context motivating the product. Yunnan's financial consumer protection campaign featured a digital human identity named "Pinyun Pinhui Minsheng" (品云品惠民生), which was designed to incorporate visual and cultural references to Yunnan's signature products including Yunnan tea, flowers, and coffee. National media and government sources have framed AI digital humans for scenic area tours, cultural tourism promotion campaigns, and VR-based immersive destination exploration as key expressions of the AI-plus-cultural tourism trend.

Enterprise and Marketing: Wutubang (屋凸邦) has introduced what it describes as a super digital human product tailored to the home renovation and decoration industry, positioning it as a 7×24-hour livestream lead-generation solution designed to restructure how decoration companies acquire customers online. Guangdong-based Hudongpai (互动派) has been developing deep integration of digital humans with product presentation in e-commerce livestreaming contexts, exploring scenarios where the digital human takes on the combined role of host and product demonstrator. Beijing Qianliyan Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd. (北京千里眼智能科技有限公司), through its Taiyuan subsidiary Taiyuan Qianlizhi Eye Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd. (太原千里之眼智能科技有限公司), has been providing self-developed digital human solutions to enterprises in Shanxi, positioning the technology as a cost-efficient marketing tool capable of continuous iteration. Hangzhou Gaishi Technology (杭州盖视科技), whose founder Lu Yi developed a multilingual oral broadcast digital human platform, enables users to complete scripting, intelligent shooting, and multilingual delivery through a single system, with edge computing cited as enabling stable performance in low-connectivity environments. In Nanjing, the livestream e-commerce ecosystem recorded 760,000 cumulative sessions and 280 million units sold in 2025, with AI algorithms supporting a hybrid model in which digital human livestreamers and human hosts operate in coordinated shifts across categories including consumer electronics and fashion. During a Yangtze River Delta AI industry promotion event held in Shanghai, Yibin city in Sichuan highlighted digital humans and smart retail stores as applied AI scenarios alongside quality inspection systems in battery and photovoltaic manufacturing.

Hangzhou Gaishi Technology (杭州盖视科技有限公司) is a Hangzhou-based software company recognised as a national high-tech enterprise, best known as the developer of Shuode AI (shuodeai.com), a mobile-first platform that integrates digital human technology into accessible, low-cost video content production. The company's primary offering positions digital humans not as standalone synthetic characters but as functional production tools embedded within a broader creative workflow that includes AI scriptwriting, teleprompter-assisted filming, intelligent video editing, and lip-sync-driven avatar generation for e-commerce livestreaming. Shuode AI's digital human module enables users to upload a photograph and script to generate a speaking avatar — extending the capability to animate not only human likenesses but also animals and illustrated characters — with a dedicated e-commerce feature that composites product imagery with a digital presenter to produce shoppable video content at scale. The platform is distributed via the Apple App Store and promoted through Douyin, reflecting a consumer and self-media orientation rather than an enterprise or broadcast focus, and its free-tier model has secured consistent top rankings in Chinese digital human software comparisons for 2025–2026, distinguishing Gaishi from higher-cost competitors in the domestic market. 

Media and Broadcasting: Jilin's regional broadcaster China Jilin Network listed digital human design as a credited production role in the news commentary program Jinshun Says News (金顺说新闻), indicating routine integration of digital human presenters in regional news formats. Huiboxing (慧播星) digital human technology was credited in a Wuhan news video production on a medical incident, reflecting the application of digital human platforms as standard production tools for video news content. Silk Road Vision (丝路视觉) operates within the virtual digital human concept cluster alongside film, television, and cultural media sectors, with analyst tracking placing the company in the online education and virtual digital human investment thematic categories.

Education: Shandong Hexie University Computer College conducted a seminar on March 10 focused on AI-driven courseware innovation, with digital human and intelligent agent technologies identified as the central subjects for piloting new instructional design approaches in the Design Fundamentals course. Zhengzhou educators have called for combining VR, AR, and AI digital human technologies to build blended online-offline instructional environments, with specific applications proposed including AI counselors, AI political theory instructors, and AI professional tutors equipped with emotional interaction capability. Yunnan Xinhua Computer School (云南新华电脑学校) in Kunming has updated its AI short video curriculum to include hands-on work with virtual digital human tools, positioning the content alongside drone operation as a response to AI-related labor market demand.

AI Agents and Personal Avatars: Mindverse (mindverse.com), whose co-founder and CEO Felix Tao (陶芳波) has been publicly vocal about experimentation with personal AI agents, has developed an application in which a user's AI avatar conducts virtual global travel and automatically generates travel journals, framing this as a concrete demonstration of personal AI agent capability. The broader OpenClaw technology adoption wave in China has catalyzed a class of applications in which user-controlled digital avatars engage in social interactions, information retrieval, and negotiation tasks on behalf of their owners, described in analyst commentary as a shift from advertising based on browsing history to commerce mediated by AI agents. Doubao (豆包), the AI application operated by ByteDance, has implemented a user personal digital twin function that requires biometric liveness verification before activation, while separately enforcing content restrictions that prevent the generation of named celebrities and actors, with users noting that the personal digital twin is explicitly exempted from these restrictions.

Exhibitions and Industry: The 2026 China International Consumer Electronics Expo (CITE) has listed virtual digital humans as a designated exhibit category alongside AI large models, intelligent computing centers, and edge computing hardware, reflecting the technology's consolidated position within the mainstream consumer electronics and enterprise AI landscape. In Chengdu, the High-Tech Zone launched what has been described as the country's first AI-plus-digital-creative one-person company community, attracting over 300 enterprise applications; at the inaugural review session, projects involving digital humans represented a significant share of the digital creative applications, alongside manga drama, short-form AI drama, brand design, and gaming. Jinbaoxin Technology (金保信科技) has built a metaverse exhibition hall in which AI digital humans operate alongside digital twin large-format display systems, enabling the digital human to respond to voice commands, retrieve live power grid data, display network operational status, and guide visitors through service procedures.

Ethical and Regulatory Contexts: A National People's Congress delegate, Zhong Zheng (钟铮), has formally proposed accelerating the legislative process for an artificial intelligence law and strengthening regulatory oversight of digital human livestreaming, citing documented cases in which the AI-generated likenesses of public figures including athlete Quan Hongchan, actor Wang Jinsong, and actress Wen Zhengrong were used without consent in livestream commerce. A separate controversy emerged around AI-produced drama content in which the generated lead male character was found to closely resemble actor Xiao Zhan in facial features, raising portrait rights infringement questions under provisions that explicitly list AI-generated face-swapping and virtual likenesses as recognized forms of infringement; legal analysts cited in Beijing's Xin Jing Bao estimated that litigation damages in such cases could reach the multi-million yuan range. Multiple AI platforms including Doubao responded to the actor Chen Yi (成毅) portrait controversy by activating restrictions that block generation of specific actors' likenesses and voices, with platform policies described as involving proactive intervention on high-risk instructions. Fuzhou market regulators, in their interpretation of the Livestream E-commerce Supervision and Administration Measures, confirmed that any digital human used for commercial livestreaming must display a clearly visible "AI Generated" label throughout the entire broadcast and must be managed by an identifiable responsible operator.

March 12 News

Broadcasting & Media: 263 (二六三网络通信股份有限公司) launched two AI digital humans named Yun Xiaoduo and Chang Xiaoping, deployed in virtual hosting roles and 3D exhibition hall scenarios, representing concrete production deployments of named synthetic presenters within the company's metaverse and real-time networking infrastructure. Jilin Broadcasting Media (吉视传媒股份有限公司) introduced a digital human called Ji Xiaozhi as part of a broader investment in an AIGC compute center, adding a named character to its growing portfolio of AI-driven broadcast assets. Haibao News (海报新闻), a digital outlet affiliated with Shandong, deployed a digital human broadcaster to present key statistical data in its Two Sessions series of reports, framing the technology as a production tool for data-driven journalism.

Tourism & Cultural Heritage: Juyu Technology (巨有科技) has achieved scaled deployment of AI digital humans across cultural tourism settings, with a named example being a character called Little Red Army, placed at a red tourism site in an unspecified location to narrate Red Army history with the depth and accuracy attributed to an experienced human guide. The Central Radio and Television Station reported more broadly on the AI-plus-cultural-tourism trend, describing conversational digital humans capable of thinking and generating personalized travel itineraries as a defining feature of China's emerging smart tourism ecosystem. Hangzhou's tourism promotion platforms highlighted similar digital human deployments for visitor engagement, and digital tourism benchmark evaluations noted that leading platforms now incorporate digital human guides alongside high-fidelity digital twin modeling and augmented reality interaction as a standard suite of immersive visitor services.

Entertainment & Film: Two Beijing-based AIGC production companies announced a joint project to adapt the science fiction novel Wusheng Jingjie as a film, with the stated goal of using AI-trained digital humans to portray characters inhabiting a future world, positioning the project as the first AI feature film of its kind in China. In a separate entertainment context, actor Bai Jingting appeared at a quality awards ceremony AI red carpet event alongside a virtual horse figure named AI White Steed, rendered in real time using advanced visual imaging systems as a paired synthetic presence, marking a notable live integration of a virtual character with a human public figure at an entertainment industry event. Sohu reported on the short drama industry's growing commercial interest in substituting real performers with AI virtual humans, noting the appeal of shortened production cycles, reusable materials, and reduced expenditure on cast fees and set construction, while acknowledging that practical implementation remains technically complex.

Commerce & Live Streaming: Zhihu AI (智狐AI) was identified as a leading AI live streaming software platform for 2026, with its core function centered on virtual digital human live streaming for e-commerce through highly customized three-dimensional avatars. Hebei-based cross-border exporters were described as deploying digital human hosts capable of operating across time zones, directly addressing the structural difficulties faced by dispersed county-level small and medium enterprises that lack the scale to build conventional international sales teams. Yibin city released a twenty-billion-yuan AI industry opportunity list in which Wuliangye (五粮液) and Kaiyi Automobile (凯翼汽车) are named participants in plans to build three-dimensional virtual digital humans for smart retail stores, alongside augmented reality showrooms and virtual reality experience zones. A Qinghai-based report separately noted a venture founded by a Wuhan entrepreneur that combined a digital human live streaming platform with a supply chain system, demonstrating the cross-regional character of digital human commerce deployments.

Education & Public Services: At a joint civics class event held at Xi'an Tieyi High School, a digital human modeled on the late aerospace scientist Qian Xuesen was presented in a video segment to convey the transmission of scientific spirit across generations, representing a named historical figure rendered as a synthetic character for ideological and political education purposes. The Shandong Province Cadre AI Training Base formally incorporated digital human technology into its curriculum alongside general-purpose large language models and embodied intelligence systems, signaling institutional adoption of the technology within government-level professional development infrastructure. In Hohhot, the municipal Communist Youth League deployed an AI digital human named Hu Xiaozhi across youth employment service stations to deliver automated twenty-four-hour career guidance and administrative assistance. Huayi Yuanjie (华艺元界) partnered with the Tianjin Heping District Teacher Development Center to create a borderless, continuously available cloud exhibition hall in which digital humans feature as an exploratory component of artificial intelligence integration in art education.

Huayi Yuanjie (华艺元界), operated by Jinchengyu (Tianjin) Technology Co., Ltd. (金辰宇（天津）科技有限公司) and accessible at huayiyuanjie.com, is a Tianjin-based digital art and metaverse platform whose service portfolio includes digital human customization alongside Web3D lightweight development, VR panoramic production, blockchain-based digital asset protection, and copyright authentication for artists. Digital humans feature in the platform's broader strategy to merge creative industries with emerging technology, most concretely evidenced by its collaboration with the Heping District Teacher Development Center, through which AI-driven digital human applications have been introduced into art education as part of an ongoing experiment in intelligent, immersive pedagogy. The platform markets itself as an open ecosystem for calligraphers, fine artists, and cultural practitioners, positioning digital humans as one tool within a wider suite designed to extend the reach of traditional art forms into virtual exhibition and collectibles environments. 

Healthcare & Financial Services: Ping An Life Insurance (平安人寿) Anhui branch incorporated digital human technology into its consumer rights education campaign by encouraging employees to use the company's proprietary digital human tools and AI applications to produce user-generated content centered on financial literacy and consumer protection, embedding synthetic character production within internal institutional communications. Aier Eye Hospital Group (爱尔眼科医院集团) had its digital human base development and application project formally listed among Hunan Province's one hundred landmark Digital New Infrastructure projects, representing government-level endorsement of digital human technology deployed within a healthcare enterprise context.

Enterprise & Industry: CloudWalk Technology (云从科技) has developed smart industrial digital humans as a component of its broader pan-AI business, applying synthetic character systems to industrial and mining environments as task-oriented deployments rather than consumer-facing applications. 

Ethical & Legal Contexts: Following the circulation online of AI-generated face-swapped content, synthetic likeness imagery, and voice-cloned material targeting actor Cheng Yi (成毅), the actor's studio pursued formal rights protection actions, after which major AI platforms including Doubao (豆包) implemented restrictions on generating content related to Cheng Yi, establishing a concrete precedent for platform-level content controls in response to unauthorized virtual likeness production. Legal commentators in Chinese media simultaneously called for comprehensive regulatory frameworks governing AI deepfakes and virtual likeness synthesis, arguing for full-chain standards addressing technology development, content labeling, platform liability, and infringement remediation, with the proliferation of synthetic character and avatar technologies cited as the primary driver of escalating portrait rights disputes.

Policy & Governance: CPPCC member Li Zhengguo, vice chairman of the Sichuan Provincial Committee of the China Democratic League, called in an interview with Shanghai Securities News for government-led coordination involving enterprises and social organizations to develop a standards and guidelines framework for digital humans, characterizing the category as an AI-native application whose untapped scenario potential requires systematic policy support to accelerate. Beijing People's Art Theatre director Feng Yuanzheng (冯远征), also a CPPCC member, stated publicly that digital humans will not weaken or displace other performers, articulating a position on the professional boundary between synthetic characters and human actors that reflects broader institutional concern about the role of AI in live performance and creative industries.

March 11 News

Healthcare: Guoshentang (固生堂) has deployed 18 AI consultation rooms built on an "AI avatar plus offline junior doctor collaborative diagnosis" model, enabling patients in Guangzhou to remotely consult the AI avatars of senior traditional Chinese medicine practitioners based in Beijing and Shanghai. The system is positioned as a mechanism for distributing high-quality specialist expertise across geographic boundaries without requiring patient travel. Separately, in Sichuan, the digital avatar of Wang Gang, director of the Sichuan Provincial Women and Children's Health Hospital (四川省妇幼保健院), was independently tested against the human physician in live consultations addressing HPV infection guidance, as part of a provincial evaluation of AI agents integrated into the Two Cancers cervical screening program. In Hunan, a research team from Hunan Normal University (湖南师范大学) conducted field research and teaching experiments at Shimen County Special Education School in Changde, examining the application of AI sign language digital human technology in hearing-impaired education as a model for technology-assisted special education services.

Guoshentang (固生堂) is a Guangzhou-founded traditional Chinese medicine clinic chain listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange that has pursued an AI strategy since 2019, accumulating large volumes of clinical data to build AI-driven TCM models. Its digital human work centers on replicating the diagnostic expertise of senior named physicians as AI avatars, enabling patients in remote or non-specialist locations to consult a virtual representation of a top practitioner, with institutions and analysts framing this as a mechanism for amplifying scarce specialist resources across geographic boundaries. The company partnered with Baidu's medical AI brand Lingyi Zhihui (灵医智惠) on large model development and was recognized in the 2024 National AI+ Action Innovation Top 100 list for this collaboration. Its CTO Hu Zhongkai has publicly described the digital human format as a vehicle for both operational and sales functions and for positive public outreach on behalf of the traditional Chinese medicine sector more broadly. 

Lingyi Zhihui (灵医智惠) is Baidu Intelligent Cloud's dedicated AI healthcare brand, applying Baidu Brain technology across clinical, research, administrative, and patient service workflows in both inpatient and outpatient settings. Within the digital human space, Lingyi Zhihui deploys interactive digital human figures powered by Baidu's intelligent voice analysis and knowledge graph capabilities, available in 3D, 2D, and animated forms, with customization options for deployment in hospital lobby Q&A environments. The platform also offers a short-video digital doctor pipeline in which real physicians are filmed, a digital avatar is generated from that footage, and the resulting digital doctor is used to produce medical education and patient-facing short video content. This positions Lingyi Zhihui as one of the earlier adopters of digital human technology in China's healthcare sector, using virtual physician avatars not as standalone entertainment products but as functional service interfaces embedded within hospital infrastructure and health communication channels. 

Commerce: Samsonite partnered with JD.com (京东) to deploy a digital human built on the JD JoyAI large model platform, creating a one-to-one replication of a human livestream host capable of operating continuously without downtime. The collaboration addresses a structural limitation in e-commerce livestreaming in which content produced by a human presenter cannot be readily reused after a broadcast session ends, with the JD digital human enabling the presenter persona and associated content to be reproduced and adapted on an ongoing basis. Hangzhou Yunxiang Commercial Robot Co., Ltd. (杭州云象商用机器有限公司), based in Hangzhou's Binjiang district and founded by Mi Xudong, has developed digital human broadcasters capable of conducting product promotion in fluent Thai for overseas markets, positioning the technology as a tool for Chinese cross-border e-commerce targeting Southeast Asian consumers.

Media and Entertainment: Zhejiang Satellite Television (浙江卫视) launched a dedicated AI digital human segment titled "财鲸一哥说两会" during the 2026 National Two Sessions, using a synthetic presenter to interpret policy terminology and session highlights for general audiences. In Hunan, the program Super Bright Voice deployed a digital human matrix as a long-term content distribution mechanism designed to sustain a music intellectual property while supporting rural agriculture promotion initiatives. Wanxing Technology (万兴科技), a Hunan-based technology company, is active in the AI short drama production sector, which has established itself as one of the most aggressive early adopters of synthetic characters in China's entertainment industry. Guomai Culture (国脉文化) has also entered this space, having launched virtual digital human figures as part of a content strategy centred on cloud-based production and AI-generated programming. An AI digital human presenter was additionally deployed for daily Beijing weather forecasts distributed through Sohu, reflecting the embedding of synthetic presenters in routine broadcast content.

Finance and Public Communication: Xiaoying Technology (小赢科技) officially launched its virtual digital human Win-Daidai to provide financial consultation and lending guidance on an uninterrupted seven-day, twenty-four-hour basis, reflecting a wider pattern among Chinese fintech firms of deploying virtual digital humans as continuously available customer service agents. The Huibo Xing (慧播星) digital human was used to present public health messaging in a Shanghai municipal anti-smoking awareness video, illustrating the use of synthetic presenters in government-adjacent communication campaigns. Music rights platform 100Audio (100audio.com) provided licensed soundtrack content for the Qixin Huiyan (启信慧眼) digital human promotional series, indicating the formation of a supporting commercial services ecosystem around digital human content production in China.

Enterprise: Yunjiazouke Technology (云家族科技) has developed enterprise digital human solutions deployed at Moutai and at the Hangzhou Hubin scenic area administration, applying what the company describes as a logic bionics and scene specialization methodology to move enterprise digital humans beyond scripted repetition toward context-aware operational performance. The Hangzhou Hubin deployment was recognized at the provincial level as a model smart community project following direct evaluation by Zhejiang provincial leadership. Changan Automobile (长安汽车) made a public-facing appearance in digital human form at an industry event, with the company framing the digital human presentation as the opening chapter of its strategic adoption of AI-driven transformation.

Cultural and Public Services: The virtual digital human Fu Xiaohua (福小华), deployed by the Shenzhen United Front Work Department, provides Cantonese-language services to Hong Kong business visitors and residents in Shenzhen, functioning as a culturally specific interface intended to support deepening Shenzhen-Hong Kong integration. At the Hangzhou Chengxi Yintai City Huashu Silver Age Life Center (华数银龄生活馆), elderly visitors can generate a personalized digital avatar within one second using an on-site scanning station, as part of a broader smart technology experience designed for older residents. In Wuhan, Dagong Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd. (武汉大公智能科技有限公司) has applied proprietary digital avatar technology to a youth matchmaking service in Jianghan District, where digital avatars of participating individuals are used within an AI-mediated matchmaking workflow framed as a technology-enabled emotional service scenario.

Ethical Contexts: Minister of Industry and Information Technology Li Lecheng identified digital human livestream consumer fraud as one of the AI governance issues requiring regulatory action, raising it at the opening ministerial corridor session of the Fourteenth National People's Congress. National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference member Li Zhengguo, interviewed by Shanghai Securities News, recommended that the government take a leading role in compiling a standards framework and admission criteria for digital humans to provide a regulatory foundation for the technology's accelerated commercial and social deployment. Feng Yuanzheng (冯远征), director of the Beijing People's Art Theatre (北京人民艺术剧院), publicly stated that digital humans will not diminish the presence of human actors and that AI must not be permitted to assume a dominant position over human creative work, articulating a boundary-setting perspective on the relationship between synthetic performers and live theatrical practice.

March 10 News

E-commerce & Live Streaming: JD.com (京东) has deployed its digital human platform in a collaboration with Samsonite, enabling the luggage brand to produce a 1:1 replica of its human livestream host through the JD JoyAI large model, with the system supporting round-the-clock broadcasting and revenue generation in the absence of a human presenter. JD.com characterizes this capability as an "hour-level cloning, full-day monetization" phase of live commerce. In Hebei province, cross-border e-commerce operators have adopted AI digital human hosts to eliminate language barriers and bypass time zone constraints in overseas-facing livestreams. In Qinghai's Hualong county, the local ramen industry has integrated digital human livestreaming with supply chain platform infrastructure to extend a regional food product into a broader commercial ecosystem. Shandong's textile sector deployed 3D digital human hosts at the 2026 China Textile Federation Spring Exhibition to present entries from the Shandong Province Innovative Workwear Product Promotion Catalogue through scenario-based demonstrations. Dongpeng Holdings (东鹏控股) has launched a virtual digital human named Yiming (沂鸣) as part of its brand operations.

JD.com (京东) rebranded its large model family as JoyAI at the 2025 World Artificial Intelligence Conference, with the model series spanning 3B to 750B parameters across language, speech, image, video, and digital human modalities, achieving 1.8x faster inference and 70% lower training costs through algorithmic innovations including dynamic hierarchical distillation and cross-domain data governance. Within the digital human domain specifically, JoyAI underpins the Digital Human Platform 4.0, which introduced brand spokesperson digital humans for livestream commerce at one-tenth the cost of human hosts, currently serving more than 20,000 brands; the JoyAI LiveHuman model drives these deployments and is available to third parties via open interface and toolchain. The platform also powers JD Health's deployment of over 500 expert doctor digital avatars providing round-the-clock medical consultation services, and the consumer-facing digital human assistant HeSheIt (他她它), which integrates voice, facial expression, and action capabilities and can be embedded into physical hardware devices. A lightweight open-source variant, JoyAI-LLM-Flash, was released on Hugging Face in February 2025 as a 4.8 billion parameter mixture-of-experts model pre-trained on 20 trillion tokens. 

Media & Broadcasting: Dazhong Wang and Haibao News (大众网·海报新闻) launched a multi-episode digital human broadcast series titled "Two Sessions Key Numbers" starting March 6, 2026, in which a digital human presenter interprets government work report statistics across thematic episodes covering economic growth, public welfare, and cultural tourism data. The series applies the digital human format to deliver data journalism content tied to national legislative session reporting, with at least three episodes confirmed across different topic areas.

Entertainment: Yi Tiao Xiao Tuan Tuan (一条小团团), one of China's most recognized gaming livestreamers, returned to the platform on March 5 after an absence of more than two years, appearing exclusively through a 3D virtual avatar. The stream, centered on the game PUBG: Battlegrounds, drew nearly 50,000 VIP viewers within five minutes of launch and accumulated 340,000 yuan in gifts over the full broadcast, indicating continued audience demand for virtual avatar-format entertainment in Chinese livestreaming. On Douyin, a virtual character called Xiaohuo Ren (小火人) reached a daily active user figure exceeding 100 million, with platform data indicating that young users are engaging in collaborative virtual world construction around the character as a mechanism for social bonding. A Wuhan-based production company owned by director Yang Hanhan, located in the Hanjiangwan Artificial Intelligence Industrial Park in Qiaokou District, operates across AI short drama, AI promotional film, virtual digital human, and digital music verticals; the company's AI-generated historical short film Huo Qubing, produced by a three-person team, attracted significant online attention in early 2026, with Yang Hanhan publicly disputing viral claims that 80 episodes had been produced for 3,000 yuan.

Cultural Heritage: A Yunnan-based multimedia integration firm deployed an AI digital human in combination with a humanoid explanation robot and an online component at the Dali Martyrs Memorial Hall, making it the first venue in Yunnan province to combine all three presentation formats within a single interpretive installation. The company situates its work within local government communication priorities and integrates regional cultural heritage, red culture, and anti-corruption culture themes into its digital human designs. In Harbin, the first Ice and Snow Science Fiction Works Exhibition, organized under guidance from the China Science Writers Association and co-hosted by the Heilongjiang Provincial Association for Science and Technology, incorporated a digital human component within an agri-cultural tourism framing. A Nanjing Jianye High-tech Zone community event featured a digital human named Hong Xiao (红小) as part of a public-facing program launch.

Enterprise: Bank of Communications (交通银行) Sichuan Branch conducted anti-fraud digital human livestream sessions that each exceeded one million viewers. Ping An Life Insurance (平安人寿) Anhui Branch incorporated the company's digital human tools and AI applications into its 2026 "3·15" consumer rights education campaign, directing employees to produce user-generated promotional content using the platform. A newly announced AI industry center in Suqian, Jiangsu province, will build a demonstration application scenario for "AI digital human plus government services," targeting improvements in public service delivery and enterprise productivity. Guangzhou Financial Development Service Center (广州金融发展服务中心) deployed a digital human avatar teaching format in a fintech education event co-organized with South China Normal University's School of Economics and Management, using the avatar to deliver instructional content on technology finance. The Guangzhou Development District and Huangpu District AI action plan targeting 100 billion yuan in AI industrial output by 2030 includes the development of AI digital human technology for emergency warning and targeted information dissemination systems. Yangcheng Electronics (扬程电子) developed a customized digital human for Alibaba's Shanghai showroom, configured to navigate the exhibition space via voice command and deliver point-by-point explanations at designated stops along the visitor route. Leyard (利亚德) offers integrated venue deployment packages combining virtual digital human guides, interactive performance content, and IP operations for display exhibitions and nighttime cultural economy applications.

Healthcare: Tianjin Normal University and the Tianjin Science and Technology Museum jointly developed an AI digital human program for traditional Chinese medicine science education, using the digital human to deliver interactive content about Chinese medicine culture at the museum. In Fujian, an AI digital human was incorporated into the "AI-Empowered Digital Pharmacy Training Activity" co-organized by the Fujian Health Newspaper and the Fujian Provincial Pharmaceutical Association in Fuzhou.

Ethical Contexts: Wang Zhongyi, addressing the micro-drama and short video sector, characterized the practice of AI virtual humans deliberately replicating the appearance of celebrities as commercial infringement rather than creative coincidence, specifying that unauthorized use of a celebrity's likeness in a virtual human application constitutes infringement of portrait rights, voice rights, and name rights, while simultaneously crossing ethical boundaries around reputational harm. The remarks were made in the context of China's rapidly expanding short video and micro-drama industry, where AI-generated virtual humans have increasingly been deployed in ways that closely approximate the visual identity of public figures.

Investment & Industry: A virtual human AI community platform named Nie Ta (捏Ta), founded by a post-90s Peking University graduate, completed a Pre-A+ funding round exceeding ten million US dollars. Li Tao, founder of Kirin Hesheng Group (麒麟合盛集团) and a Henan Provincial CPPCC member, proposed at the national legislative session the establishment of national-level cultural large models and multilingual corpus platforms, and specifically advocated for enterprises to build immersive digital human experiences as vehicles for Chinese cultural IP expansion into international markets. A project under the name Digital Bianque (数字扁鹊) has been proposed to deploy virtual human and robotic representations of the ancient Chinese physician Bianque across overseas social media platforms as a vehicle for transmitting traditional Chinese health culture to global audiences.

March 09 News

Regulatory and Policy Contexts: Two Sessions proceedings in early 2026 produced multiple converging signals around digital human governance. Midea Group (美的集团) NPC (National People's Congress) delegate Zhong Zheng called for comprehensive legislation targeting AI digital human misuse, identifying a regulatory blind spot that allows individuals to be replicated without consent through video fragments and in real-time live streams. Zhong noted that 2025 had already seen coordinated regulatory engagement from the Cyberspace Administration of China, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Public Security, and the National Radio and Television Administration, yet structural gaps persisted. Separately, the State Administration for Market Regulation announced that AI digital human anchors would be formally incorporated into the live-streaming e-commerce supervisory framework. A delegate discussion at the NPC further flagged the complete absence of dedicated technical standards, laws, or policies governing digital human identity markers, characterizing this as generating "information silo" conditions for regulators, including difficulty in tracing origin and assigning liability. In Beijing, the Beijing Economic and Technological Development Zone (北京经济技术开发区) issued what has been described as China's first virtual idol identity certification to AI virtual idol Yuri, with creator Zhao Hanqing stating the certification was obtained to prevent accountability gaps in the event of reputational incidents; the zone subsequently announced plans to develop specific supervisory guidelines to normalize the digital human sector.

Cultural and Heritage Applications: Several deployment cases reflect the growing use of digital humans to mediate China's cultural and historical content. A team of post-1990s returnees operating out of Wuhan's Hanjiang Bay Artificial Intelligence Industrial Park (武汉汉江湾人工智能产业园) developed AI explainer digital humans to present Jingchu cultural relics to international audiences, framing the technology as a mechanism for bringing Hubei heritage overseas. Xinjiang University collaborated with designers to produce digital cultural creative products featuring hand-embroidered representations of historical sites, employing AI digital human models to present the embroidered works set against imagery evoking the ancient Loulan ruins. A digital human rendering of the historical figure Confucius made repeated public appearances at the Two Sessions, described as a cultural representative capable of transcending historical time. Shandong media outlets deployed digital human anchors as presenters in their Two Sessions reporting series, using the technology to deliver figures on cultural tourism market growth and other quantitative themes.

Entertainment and Live Streaming: Commercial applications of virtual humans in content production and e-commerce live streaming continued to develop through disclosed partnerships and financial disclosures. Yao Wang Technology (遥望科技) confirmed a strategic collaboration with Xiaoice (小冰) for virtual human live streaming, combining AI-generated virtual human presenters with batch short-video production pipelines to reduce operational costs, with the company reporting AI research and development investment exceeding 94 million yuan and targeting a gross margin improvement from approximately two percent to over fifteen percent by 2026 alongside a thirty-percent reduction in labor costs. Director Yang Hanhan's Wuhan-based studio, whose business scope includes virtual digital human services alongside AI short drama and promotional film production and is located within the Hanjiang Bay Artificial Intelligence Industrial Park, attracted substantial online attention for its AI short film Huo Qubing (霍去病), with the studio confirming the production was completed by a team of three. Entrepreneur Wei Xue (韦雪) operates a vertically integrated enterprise spanning beauty products to AI digital human production across a portfolio of eight controlled companies, with reported 2025 gross merchandise value reaching 1.5 billion yuan.

Education: Youdao (有道), a subsidiary of NetEase (网易), launched Hi Echo, a virtual oral English language tutor positioned as a one-on-one spoken language practice companion available continuously and without scheduling constraints. Hi Echo is built on Zi Yue (子曰), described as China's first education-focused large language model, and is designed to function as a persistent virtual foreign language teacher delivering individualized oral practice to users on demand.

Public Sector and Community Deployment: Regional public institutions deployed digital human figures at official events and as service delivery tools in early 2026. Huanan County Women's Federation (桦南县妇联) in Heilongjiang Province introduced its AI digital human "Lianlian" (联联) at a Women's Day event marking the 116th International Women's Day, where the virtual figure appeared as a featured participant before assembled representatives from across the county. The Liaoning Provincial Women's Federation incorporated digital human technology into its 2026 service strategy, deploying virtual human figures as a channel for precise community outreach and information delivery.

Technology and Product Development: Tencent (腾讯) filed a patent for a virtual avatar generation method in which a user interface trigger initiates the capture of real appearance data, which is then combined with the content of a target book to generate and display a personalized virtual avatar, with the application framing the technology as a mechanism for stimulating reader engagement.

March 08 News

Entertainment: Nieta (捏Ta) is an AI-native virtual human community platform founded by a post-90s Peking University graduate, Hu Xiuhan, whose prior experience at Meta shaped the platform's technical development; by March 2026 the platform hosted a community of 5.84 million virtual humans. Baidu Ventures (BV百度风投) announced on March 6 that Nieta had completed a Pre A+ funding round exceeding ten million US dollars. The virtual human Yuri is an AI-generated character developed by a team led by Zhao Hanqing (赵汗青); within three months of Yuri's debut, officials from Beijing's Economic Development Zone (北京经开区) proactively approached the team to offer institutional support for expanding the character's public profile, including the issuance of a formal identification document for the virtual identity. A-SOUL is a virtual idol group whose member personas are operated by real performers, known as "person in the middle," working behind the virtual character models; internal information about the identities of those performers was leaked publicly. HeyDream is an AI-driven group in which real female performers are presented through AI-mediated virtual character personas, occupying a hybrid position between human idol and virtual being. Online debate has emerged in Chinese media over whether virtual humans performing classic songs constitutes creative innovation or cultural transgression.

Kanjian Concept (看见概念) is a Beijing-based AI technology company founded in December 2022 by CEO Hu Xiuhan (胡修涵), whose prior experience at Meta informed the platform's technical architecture. The company operates Nieta (捏Ta), an AI-native virtual character creation and community platform accessible at nieta.art, which by March 2026 had accumulated a community of 5.84 million user-generated virtual human characters. The platform provides users with a proprietary AI character illustration engine enabling the creation of original virtual personas through image generation, comic strip production, and AI-assisted narrative scenario writing, positioning it within the broader Chinese digital human ecosystem as a user-facing creative layer rather than an enterprise digital human production pipeline. Hu has described the user experience as analogous to directing a film: users define a character's settings and plot parameters, and the AI populates the performance. In April 2024 Nieta completed an earlier funding round, and in March 2026 Baidu Ventures (BV百度风投) announced the company's completion of a Pre A+ round exceeding ten million US dollars, with Jiuyue (九月) participating, reflecting institutional confidence in the consumer-oriented virtual character creation segment of China's digital human market. 

Media and Broadcasting: During the 2026 National Two Sessions, the official China Government Network (中国政府网) WeChat public account deployed two AI digital human presenters to interpret the Government Work Report in a dialogue format for the first time, drawing positive audience responses online. Dazhong Web Haibao News (大众网•海报新闻) produced a series titled "Two Sessions Key Numbers" in which a digital human anchor delivers data-driven analysis of government statistical achievements across multiple themed episodes, including coverage of Shandong economic performance and ecological indicators. Guangdong Broadcasting Television (广东广播电视台) deployed a digital human named Xiaoyu (数字人小宇) to present policy analysis on the silver economy, making the character a recurrent on-screen presenter. At the 2026 CCTV Spring Festival Gala, AI digital humans appeared alongside humanoid robots and engaged in live dialogue with human hosts, with the combined performance generating widespread attention. In Harbin, a strategic cooperation agreement for AI short drama and digital human co-production was signed by Harbin Institute of Technology Press (哈尔滨工业大学出版社) at the inaugural Ice and Snow Science Fiction Works Exhibition event.

Public Services: Shijiazhuang Municipal Government Service Center deployed a government affairs digital human named Xiaoshi (政务数字人"小石") to assist residents with administrative procedures at the service counter. In the Xiong'an New Area, a library digital human named Tu Xiao'an (图小安) greets visitors at the entrance via a large display screen and offers personalized book recommendations. The Shaanxi Provincial Women's Federation (陕西省妇联) unveiled its official digital human representative Qin Xiaomei (秦小妹) at a ceremony marking the 116th anniversary of International Women's Day, where the character formally announced ten livelihood initiatives for 2026. In Nanning, Guangxi, AI digital human systems have been deployed in hospital settings to perform triage and patient navigation functions, operating as a digital staff member alongside human medical personnel; comparable systems at Nanning Wuxu International Airport provide flight inquiry, check-in guidance, and transport consultation services, reducing pressure on human service counters. Across the Hangzhou metropolitan area, multiple district-level government and civic organizations used digital human presenters to formally announce 2026 work plans and deliver activity briefings at Women's Day commemorative events in Lin'an and other districts.

Cultural Heritage and Tourism: Hebei University of Science and Technology (河北科技大学) used motion capture and speech synthesis technologies to construct a Taihang digital human character that brings to life scenes of wartime mass production in the Taihang Mountain region, as part of a broader cultural digitization initiative that also includes a VR reconstruction of the Song dynasty scroll Qingming Shanghe Tu. A planned AI Future Street installation in Nanning features holographic projection environments in which digital human versions of intangible cultural heritage practitioners interact with the public. Following the broad impact of AI digital human performances at the 2026 CCTV Spring Festival Gala, operators across the scenic area and cultural tourism sector have accelerated deployment of AI digital humans as interactive visitor engagement assets, with future applications envisioned to draw on full-domain tourism and commercial data infrastructure. In Nankang, Jiangxi, the local furniture industry cluster deployed an AR digital human combined with e-commerce livestreaming as part of a production management digitization system positioned as the sector's operational intelligence hub. In Yangjiang, Guangdong, a lifelong learning platform features an intelligent digital human modeled on the historical figure Su Dongpo, enabling users to ask the character conversational questions including those related to culinary and cultural history.

Technology: Meituan (美团) open-sourced a virtual human video generation model called LongCat-Video-Avatar (longcatavatar.com), designed to produce naturalistic idle-state motion sequences in which a virtual human continues to exhibit subtle, lifelike physical movement during periods of silence, maintaining temporal consistency across extended video output. Soul App (Soul) has developed a multimodal generative technology stack under the SoulX brand comprising the SoulX-Podcast podcast synthesis model, the SoulX-FlashTalk real-time digital human model achieving sub-second latency at 0.87 seconds with video output at 32 frames per second, and the newly open-sourced SoulX-Singer model for zero-shot singing voice synthesis, which the team describes as bringing industrial-grade vocal generation capability into open deployment. An application developed within China's AI developer community under the influence of the OpenClaw framework implements an AI travel journal in which the user's AI avatar independently travels through a virtual world and exchanges interactions with other users' AI alter egos. In Beijing, the XR Immersive Audio-Visual Joint Laboratory was formally inaugurated through a three-party agreement among Jingxi Zhigu (京西智谷), CCTV (央视网), and the National Virtual Reality Innovation Center (国家虚拟现实创新中心), with a research mandate covering immersive environment construction, digital human generation and interaction, and AI-generated content production.

Enterprise and Commerce: Baotong Technology (宝通科技) is developing integration between virtual digital human characters and its BotonSpace1 metaverse platform, using naked-eye 3D display technology to deliver immersive character-based experiences. Zhejiang Mobile Hangzhou Branch (浙江移动杭州分公司) signed a virtual digital human cooperation agreement, reflecting continuing commercial partnership activity in the provincial digital human market. In Guangzhou, a digital human avatar was used in a financial literacy outreach program for schools, functioning as an on-screen presenter to explain technology finance mechanisms to student audiences in accessible terms. Chuangye Heima (创业黑马) operates a metaverse digital human accelerator service targeting startup enterprises seeking to develop virtual human products and applications.

Regulatory and Ethical Contexts: The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (工信部) initiated a public consultation process for a proposed mandatory national standard titled "Metaverse Classification and Identification — Digital Human Identity Identification Requirements," signaling regulatory intent to establish formal identity frameworks for digital human characters operating within metaverse environments. Zhong Zheng (钟铮), Vice President of Midea Group (美的集团) and a delegate to the National People's Congress, identified AI digital human livestreaming as a regulatory priority, calling for accelerated AI legislation and the establishment of dedicated compliance frameworks for digital human commercial applications, and separately noted that GEO and AI digital human technologies are being maliciously misused. Reporting in Chinese media has documented the use of LoRA generative models to produce highly detailed synthetic virtual human figures for adult content platforms, with these models capable of controlling fine-grained visual attributes including hair dynamics, pupil dilation, and subcutaneous microvascular detail; characters generated through these pipelines are deployed in role-playing scenarios including professional female archetypes. A China–ASEAN Symposium on AI Ethics and Safety convened in Nanning, Guangxi, addressed sustainable development pathways for AI technologies, with digital human regulation forming part of the broader ethical and governance discourse between China and Southeast Asian partners.

March 07 News

Governance: Zhong Zheng, NPC delegate and Vice President of Midea Group (美的集团), raised at the 2026 Two Sessions that GEO and AI digital human technologies are being maliciously abused and called for improved laws, enhanced supervision, mandatory identity authentication, and liability tracing frameworks for AI digital human live streaming. She proposed that the Cyberspace Administration of China take the lead jointly with the State Administration for Market Regulation and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology to address these regulatory gaps. This legislative attention signals growing policy concern at the national level over the misuse of synthetic character technologies in commercial and public-facing broadcast contexts.

GEO stands for Generative Engine Optimization, a practice analogous to traditional SEO but targeting AI-generated search outputs — specifically, optimizing content so that it appears favorably in the responses produced by large language models and AI-powered search engines such as Perplexity or similar platforms. Rather than gaming keyword rankings in conventional search indexes, GEO involves structuring content, phrasing, and authority signals to influence what generative AI systems select and surface when answering user queries. 

Healthcare: Guangzhou activated China's first multi-role doctor digital twin deployment, comprising five distinct virtual identities: attending physician, health manager, dietary nutritionist, sports rehabilitation specialist, and rehabilitation physiotherapist. Based on examination data submitted by patients, each digital twin generates domain-specific digital prescriptions, enabling more comprehensive post-diagnosis guidance across clinical and health management functions. This deployment represents a practical application of differentiated synthetic medical characters operating in parallel within a single patient care workflow.

Cultural and Memorial: China's first "digital worker Lei Feng" (数智工人雷锋), a multimodal immersive exhibition character, was created jointly by Angang Museum (鞍钢博物馆), a cultural institution under Angang Group (鞍钢集团有限公司), and Anshan City News Media Center (鞍山市新闻传媒中心), in Liaoning province. The character debuted on March 1, 2026 at China (Shenyang) Industrial Museum, timed to the 63rd Lei Feng Memorial Day, and is the centerpiece of an original immersive performance titled "Hello, Worker Lei Feng" (《你好，工人雷锋》) combining multimodal interaction techniques with historical commemoration.

Public Services: Multiple Chinese cities deployed virtual digital characters in civic service and administrative contexts. In Xiong'an New Area, Hebei province, the Xiong'an Library installed a large-screen digital human named "Tu Xiao'an" (图小安) at its entrance to greet visitors and offer book recommendations. In Beijing's Sanlitun district, a team led by Yuan Qianming developed a multilingual digital human volunteer capable of serving foreign visitors in over 80 languages, with cumulative service interactions exceeding 80,000 and a second-generation character named Sally in development. In Shijiazhuang, a government affairs digital human named "Xiao Shi" (小石) was deployed at the municipal government service center to assist citizens with administrative procedures, while in Xinjiang, digital human guide officers were introduced in government service halls as part of the region's smart economy development.

Media and News Broadcasting: AI digital human anchors were prominently deployed during the 2026 National Two Sessions to explain the Government Work Report, appearing in a paired conversation format that drew positive audience response online and represented an evolution from the single-anchor format used in prior years. Haibao News (海报新闻), a Shandong-based media outlet, deployed digital human broadcasters for its "Two Sessions Key Numbers" (两会关键"数") series decoding economic statistics. Huibo Star (慧播星), a digital human video generation service provider, has also been used in standard video news production by regional media outlets including outlets based in Chongqing. A post-90s Peking University graduate built a virtual human AI community of 5.84 million users that recently raised over ten million USD, reflecting broader commercial momentum in virtual human social platforms.

Education and Cultural Heritage: Tanlu Technology (探履科技) deployed a virtual digital human at the Palace Museum accessible via an AI family study planning mini-program, enabling young visitors to interact with the Ten Ridge Beasts of the Hall of Supreme Harmony as animated narrators voicing their own symbolic meanings. Guangdong's provincial lifelong learning platform (广东全民终身学习平台) integrated historical Guangdong figure digital humans and simulated learning scenarios for adult and vocational education users across the province. Hebei University of Science and Technology (河北科技大学) used motion capture and voice synthesis to produce the "Taihang Digital Humans" (太行数字人) as part of a local cultural heritage digitization initiative, while the same team also reconstructed the Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival using VR technology. Tianjin University of Foreign Studies (天津外国语大学) collaborated with Baidu (百度) to develop a multilingual AI platform that incorporates a digital human Q&A engine as one of its four core modules, intended for foreign language education and intelligent translation services.

Marketing, E-Commerce, and Live Streaming: JD.com (京东) made digital human live streaming services freely available to merchants, contributing to a reported GMV increase exceeding 23.5 billion yuan, and announced continued deployment of AI digital human live streaming for its upcoming 618 shopping event. In Nankang, Jiangxi, the regional furniture industry cluster adopted an AR digital human combined with e-commerce live streaming model to support brand promotion and online retail. The agricultural brand "Wushan Crispy Plum" (巫山脆李) from Chongqing evolved its brand IP character "Xiao Lizi" (小李子) from a flat two-dimensional visual identity into a three-dimensional digital human, contributing to a reported brand value of 10.517 billion yuan over seven consecutive years at the top of the national plum product category. Silicon Intelligence (硅基智能) published a white paper on digital human identity numbering and application protocols under the Space2 framework, establishing formal infrastructure for identity management within virtual human ecosystems.

Space2 is a platform initiative by Silicon Intelligence (硅基智能) introduced in early 2026 through a governance white paper (Space2 数字人与硅基智能身份编号与申领协议白皮书v1.0) that establishes a formal Identity ID application and registration protocol for digital humans, assigning them discrete, registerable identities analogous to civil identification and defining the terms under which those identities can be claimed, assigned, or administered. Framed around Silicon Intelligence's established concept of a "silicon-carbon coexistence society" (硅基与碳基共生社会), in which AI-generated digital entities and biological humans are positioned as co-inhabitants of a shared social and operational order, Space2 functions less as a deployable product than as a jurisdiction-like ecosystem with its own identity infrastructure — moving Silicon Intelligence beyond content generation into platform governance and implicitly into questions of digital personhood, rights, and accountability that intersect with ongoing regulatory debates in China around virtual humans. As of early 2026, Space2 is documented only through this white paper and associated news coverage, with no independent sources confirming its technical architecture, commercial status, or deployment scope. 

Tourism and Wellness: Juyo Technology (巨有科技) built an integrated "technology, health, and tourism" service model deploying digital human health consultants that guide visitors through personalized health assessments and demonstrate traditional exercises such as Baduanjin in animated form within smart health tourism venues. This deployment positions virtual characters as on-site wellness advisors operating within physical tourism environments, combining AI-generated instructional content with experiential health programming.

Technology and Patents: Shanghai Ruierke Information Technology Co., Ltd. (上海瑞而克信息科技有限公司) filed a patent for a dynamic interactive method and system for intelligent digital humans based on multimodal data (publication number CN121614590A), covering real-time interaction between users and AI digital characters using multimodal input streams. AOC Electronics (Fujian) Co., Ltd. (冠捷电子科技（福建）有限公司), a Fuzhou-based manufacturer established in 2002, obtained a utility model patent for a control box designed to match AI digital humans for display hardware, with the system collecting visual and acoustic data to enable more efficient human-computer interaction at the device level. A Yunnan tobacco bureau engineer separately used voice cloning tools and historical personal audio recordings to synthesize a digital human voice for herself, an individual case of synthetic voice production framed explicitly in digital human terms.

Entertainment: The 2026 TV Drama Quality Gala announced plans to introduce AI digital twin technology on its red carpet, enabling real-time audience interaction with stars through synthetic character interfaces described as an immersive, forward-looking experience. Harbin Institute of Technology Press (哈尔滨工业大学出版社) signed a strategic cooperation agreement for a project titled "AI Short Drama · Digital Human," combining AI-generated short-form drama production with digital human character systems as part of the inaugural Ice and Snow Science Fiction Works Screening event held in Harbin in March 2026.

March 06 News

Regulation: During China's 2026 National People's Congress, multiple representatives put forward proposals addressing the misuse and inadequate oversight of AI digital humans in commercial contexts. NPC representative Zhong Zheng called for a national digital human registration and filing system requiring mandatory public disclosure of the AI-generated nature of each digital human and the identity of the operating entity behind its deployment, citing a documented case in which a single celebrity was replicated and placed across six simultaneous livestream rooms without any genuine participation from the individual. NPC representative Jin Buhuan from Henan separately recommended that dedicated digital human livestreaming management clauses be incorporated into forthcoming national legislation on online livestreaming, treating synthetic human anchors as a distinct and insufficiently regulated category. An Anhui-based representative similarly advocated for the registration requirement, framing it as a consumer protection imperative in a landscape where ordinary viewers cannot reliably distinguish real from AI-generated on-screen presences.

Entertainment: Lehua Entertainment (乐华娱乐) launched HeyDream, an AI girl group composed entirely of virtual personas with no real social identities, using AI technology across the full production pipeline including stage performance, music creation, and content output, and positioning the group as a mechanism for eliminating the reputational risks associated with real celebrity talent. Commentary from national television critics and legislative delegates noted that synthetic virtual digital humans have advanced to the point of taking lead roles in scripted drama productions, creating structural competitive pressure on human performers across the entertainment industry.

Marketing and Live Streaming: Mingyuan Cloud (明源云) developed a marketing digital human named Xinghe (星河) for deployment in real estate sales scenarios; the product was selected as a national-level typical case in a joint metaverse and AI application evaluation organized by four government ministries, distinguishing it within the property technology sector. Ziniu News (紫牛新闻), the digital platform of Yangtze Evening News, produced an AI creative video titled Opening the Report, Seeing My Home, deploying a Ziniu-branded digital human anchor to present the content to viewers. Mintegral Group (汇量科技), through its Playturbo (playturbo.com) platform, added a digital human livestreaming feature in August 2025 as part of an expanding AI content production toolset for advertising and marketing clients. JD.com (京东) representative Cao Peng, addressing national policy discussions, identified digital human services as a key mechanism for reconstructing commercial scenarios, framing the technology as a central pillar of JD.com's industrial AI strategy alongside open-source toolchains and embodied intelligence.

Healthcare: Wang Jianan, president of the Second Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University Medical School (浙江大学医学院附属第二医院), presented a full vascular digital human (全血管数字人) technology system that applies AI computational power and data analysis to construct a comprehensive digital model of the human vascular system for precision diagnostic and clinical analytical purposes. The system represents a specialized application of digital human technology to medical imaging and physiology, distinct from interactive or performative deployments, and was described by its developer as a flagship product demonstrating the convergence of AI-driven computation with clinical medicine.

Education and Cultural Heritage: Zhengzhou 18th Middle School (郑州市第十八中学) deployed a 3D holographic digital human named Yunyun (云云) during its new semester opening ceremony, with the character presented as an interactive figure engaging the school audience in real time. At Nanjing Kelihua Middle School (南京市科利华中学), a digital human appeared on a large display screen to hold a live dialogue with the school principal on AI-era pedagogy, reflecting the expanding institutional use of synthetic presenters in educational settings. Xinjiang University of Technology (新疆理工学院) developed the Silk Road Aesthetic Education (丝路美育) metaverse digital human case, which was selected by China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology as one of the national 2025 metaverse typical cases and one of only three entries chosen from the Xinjiang region. Hebei University of Science and Technology (河北科技大学) created digital human representations of historical cultural figures from traditional Chinese heritage and applied digital technology to reinterpret Tangshan shadow puppetry for contemporary audiences within a stated framework of game-film integration for cultural preservation. Angang Museum (鞍钢博物馆) produced what it described as China's first Shuzhi Worker Lei Feng (数智工人雷锋), a multi-modal immersive AI exhibition character based on the historical labor model figure Lei Feng, presented at the China (Shenyang) Industrial Museum (中国（沈阳）工业博物馆) as an inaugural format combining AI-driven character systems with heritage commemoration.

Social and Companion Applications: A virtual character known as Lao Zhao Speaks Reason (老赵讲道理) achieved widespread online circulation after being created by an anonymous Chongqing internet user using AI tools; designed to function as an advisory specialist in parent-child relationship dynamics with a fabricated professional background, the character served as a socially acceptable proxy voice for individuals navigating family conflict, and its persona was subsequently deepened through user-generated biographical elaborations. The Nie Ta (捏Ta, nieta.art) platform, founded by a 1994-born graduate of Peking University (北京大学), operates as a creation and social community built around AI virtual characters, enabling users to design and interact with persistent synthetic personas; the platform reported 5.84 million virtual characters created, a total user base exceeding 12 million, and the completion of a fundraising round of over ten million US dollars. In Shanghai, a professor's AI digital persona published social media content indistinguishable from the professor's own output, generating public attention, while a pattern emerged of individual entrepreneurs using AI personas as functional stand-ins for their own professional and business activities. (Both developments were cited alongside prior cases involving AI constructs such as the OpenClaw (openclaw.ai) super assistant and the MoltBook (moltbook.com) AI-only community as evidence of the deepening integration of synthetic personas into everyday social and commercial life.)

Enterprise and Technology: Beijing Huarui Shidian (北京华锐视点) offers an AI digital human production platform under the name Digital Human Factory (数字人工厂), providing enterprise clients with low-cost, high-efficiency creation of immersive metaverse content and deployed AI digital human products. Tencent (腾讯) announced the open-source release of its Hunyuan voice digital human model, making the underlying voice-driven digital human technology publicly available to external developers and researchers. Hunan Bank (湖南银行) conducted a formal procurement process for a digital human system construction project, with bid candidates publicly announced in early 2026, reflecting active institutional adoption of digital human infrastructure within the financial services sector. Research in manufacturing and production technology fields identified new theoretical foundations for high-fidelity virtual human facial driving with direct application to digital human animation systems and robotic facial expression rendering. In the automotive sector, vehicle-integrated digital human generation technology deployed across Jiangsu and Sichuan contexts has been reported to reduce in-vehicle voice interaction latency to 250 milliseconds, reflecting the integration of digital human interaction systems within connected vehicle platforms.

In China's AI digital human sector, the concept of a "digital human factory" (数字人工厂) has evolved from a metaphor for organized specialist labor into a fully automated, AI-driven industrial model capable of generating photorealistic virtual avatars at scale within hours and at a fraction of former costs. Across state media, commercial vendors, cloud platforms, municipal governments, and industry analysts, a consistent narrative has emerged: digital human production has shifted from bespoke, months-long creative projects into standardized pipeline manufacturing, with generative AI handling modeling, voice cloning, lip sync, and real-time interaction in increasingly integrated systems. Deployment spans an exceptionally broad range of verticals — broadcast journalism, government public services, retail, exhibition halls, education, healthcare, energy, finance, tourism, and e-commerce livestreaming — with both enterprise-grade custom avatars and mass-produced low-cost clones serving different tiers of demand. Government participation is substantial, with municipal authorities investing in digital human industrial clusters as anchor infrastructure for regional digital economies, while industry forecasts project the Chinese digital human core market to surpass 25 billion RMB by 2029. An emerging international dimension is also visible, with some vendors repositioning their factory model not merely as a content tool but as a smart manufacturing and global marketing platform for Chinese industry overseas. 

March 05 News

Technology Infrastructure: The Chinese Academy of Sciences (中国科学院), in collaboration with Dr. Ye Yuping, completed construction of China's largest high-precision 3D facial database, providing a foundational technical resource for generating more photorealistic digital humans and representing a significant advance in the underlying infrastructure of synthetic character production. The database received public attention following demonstrations tied to an elderly-care themed performance segment at the 2026 Spring Festival Gala, where it supported facial expression fidelity in a digital human character. At the procurement level, a Beijing-based public tender was issued for a domestic film 4D digital human AI generation application system valued at 6.38 million yuan, covering both hardware and software components intended for cinematic-grade digital human production. Beijing Huarui Shidian (北京华锐视点), an AI digital human production company, has concurrently positioned itself around interactive digital human deployment as a commercial service offering for institutional and enterprise clients.

Healthcare: Guangdong Provincial Second People's Hospital (广东省第二人民医院), co-organizing with the Guangdong Medical Association (广东省医学会), launched what has been described as the country's first physician digital avatar system at a dedicated release event held in Guangzhou, developed in partnership with Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. (华为技术有限公司) and other collaborators as part of a three-component digital therapy ecosystem encompassing personal health data capsules, proactive health intelligent agents, and physician digital avatars. Separately, international media reported on the widespread adoption by prominent Chinese physicians of AI avatar services for patient consultation, citing the case of senior obstetrician Duan Tao, whose avatar is accessible through the Afu (阿福) platform, which has accumulated over 100 million registered users, with a pregnant patient named Wang Yifan serving as a documented consultation example illustrating the system's clinical accessibility.

Cultural & Historical: China (Shenyang) Industrial Museum (中国（沈阳）工业博物馆) debuted the country's first digital intelligent worker character, designated "Digital Intelligent Worker Lei Feng" (数智工人雷锋), in a multimodal immersive performance titled "Hello, Worker Lei Feng" — a 35-minute situational stage drama in which student performers engage in cross-temporal dialogue with an AI-generated digital human based on Lei Feng's years working at Angang Steel, set against reconstructed historical imagery and large-format digital displays. The themed cultural district built around the drama series "Chang'an Shi Er Shi Chen" (长安十二时辰), presented at a Kunming venue during the Lantern Festival, deployed two named digital human characters — "Chang'an Daolan Cheng" and "Chang'an Fengli Lang" — to deliver visitor consultation and interpretive commentary in stylized Tang Dynasty vernacular. In Anhui Province, the provincial cyberspace administration working with Phoenix Net Anhui (凤凰网安徽频道) produced an AI digital human rendering of the Tang Dynasty poet Li Bai as part of a regional tourism promotion campaign, inviting audiences to experience the province's historical landscape through the poet's perspective and voice. Actor You Benchang disclosed at the "2025 Zhengzhou Micro-Drama High-Quality Development Conference" (2025郑州微短剧高质量发展大会) that he plans to deploy digital human technology to recreate a younger likeness of himself for a forthcoming Ji Gong (济公)-themed premium short drama production.

The 2025 Zhengzhou High-Quality Development Conference for Micro-Dramas (2025·郑州微短剧高质量发展大会) ran September 22–24 at the Zhengzhou International Convention and Exhibition Center, organized by a national-level body. The conference's central theme was moving the micro-drama industry from chasing traffic metrics toward deeper content value. The most widely covered digital human moment was 92-year-old actor You Benchang appearing via video to announce his involvement in a Ji Gong-themed micro-drama titled "Ji Gong: The Fake Dragon Subduer" (《济公·冒牌降龙》), produced under the "Guoran Plan" (果燃计划) initiative by short-drama platform Honguo (红果短剧). You Benchang stated that digital human technology would be used to recreate his younger likeness for the role. The conference's official implementation framework explicitly encouraged the use of AIGC, VR, AR, and digital human technologies to drive creative innovation in the micro-drama format, with particular emphasis on interactivity and multi-perspective storytelling as emerging production modes.

Entertainment & Media: The newly staged Huju opera "Feng Xue Ye Gui Ren" (风雪夜归人), which premiered at Shanghai's Hongqiao Art Center, incorporated an AI digital human into its concluding scene, adapting the romantic narrative device of butterfly transformation to integrate a synthetic character alongside live performers. Hunan Satellite Television's Lantern Festival gala staged a performance by singer Zhou Shen in which an AR-constructed stellar tunnel served as the environment and transparent digital humans co-performed with the artist through real-time motion capture rendering, with a dynamic overhead visual layer generating synchrony between the physical and virtual stage elements. Sichuan Broadcasting and Television (四川广播电视台) deployed a virtual digital human as a digital journalist during its Two Sessions coverage, tasked with contextualizing the national government work report in relation to Sichuan's specific provincial conditions and communicating it to audiences in an AI-mediated format. Ta Kung Pao and Wen Wei Po (大公文匯網), a Hong Kong Chinese-language media group, similarly deployed a digital human anchor to report on Two Sessions proceedings, reflecting the growing use of synthetic news presenters across Chinese-language media organizations.

Education: Hangzhou Shengli Primary School Education Group introduced an AI digital human modeled on the school principal's persona at the start of the new semester, allowing students to interact with the virtual figure through voice commands and framing the deployment as an accessible point of engagement between school leadership and young learners. Xinjiang University of Science and Technology (新疆理工学院) had its "Silk Road Arts Education" (丝路美育) metaverse digital human case included in the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology's official list of 2025 Metaverse Typical Cases, making it one of three selected cases from the Xinjiang region and the only one anchored in arts education content. Jilin Yuwen Middle School incorporated AI digital human performance footage from the Spring Festival Gala into its back-to-school first lesson, using the material as a classroom entry point for introducing students to applied AI in performance and entertainment contexts.

Employment & Public Services: A large-scale job fair held in Guangzhou's Baiyun District deployed AI job recommendation terminals integrated with digital human online service interfaces, providing job seekers with real-time intelligent position matching during the event. Shandong's Weifang Spring Wind Action recruitment initiative introduced digital human mock interview services at no cost to participants, combining simulated interview practice with resume optimization as part of an AI-enhanced employment assistance offering. In Hubei Province, Spring Wind Action recruitment events used AI digital humans to help job seekers rehearse interview techniques on-site, with additional smart matching services extended to applicants beyond the physical event venue, reflecting a convergent pattern across multiple provinces of deploying digital humans as interactive public service interfaces in high-traffic hiring environments.

Government & Policy: Beijing's 14th Five-Year (十五五) planning document explicitly identifies the exploration of digital human services in government affairs processing, intelligent approval systems, and educational settings as priority development directions for the city's AI ambitions. Jiangsu Province's "AI+" Action Plan calls for virtual government service halls and the broad adoption of government affairs digital humans (政务数字人), including pilot programs deploying large models in administrative domains alongside smart government assistant applications. Shanghai Pudong New Area's development blueprint for Zhangjiang AI Innovation Town envisions digital humans as front-line community service nodes within a mixed deployment environment that also includes autonomous vehicles, robotic vendors, and security robots. Baidu (百度) CEO Li Yanhong's digital human appeared as a virtual presenter at the company's financial earnings call, representing a continued enterprise use of an executive's synthetic likeness in formal investor communications.

Enterprise & Commerce: One-person companies operating in cross-border e-commerce have adopted AI digital humans as a primary operational mechanism, enabling micro-enterprises to handle sales, marketing, and customer-facing functions without additional personnel. QLab, a China-based AI accelerator specializing in helping Chinese AI products enter the Japanese market, uses a virtual human named Q in a CEO role, with founder Frank positioning the virtual entity as a functional business collaborator rather than a conventional software tool. MiniMax (稀宇科技), developer of the Talkie AI social platform, reported average monthly active users exceeding 20 million for Q1 through Q3 of 2025 in its overseas virtual companion product, while Kunlun Wanwei (昆仑万维), through its Linky platform, reached a single-month revenue peak exceeding one million US dollars in 2024 in the same international AI companion segment. NetEase Zhiqi (网易智企) demonstrated a procurement scenario in which a locally rendered digital human participates as an independent attendee within a meeting environment, interacting in real time with human participants as a distinct presence rather than a display interface.

Regulatory & Ethical Contexts: Zhong Zheng (钟铮), National People's Congress delegate and Vice President of Midea Group (美的集团), submitted a formal proposal calling for dedicated management clauses governing AI digital human livestreaming, a mandatory registration and filing system for digital human identities to ensure traceable accountability, the development of real-time content review infrastructure to detect violations at scale, and increased investment in underlying detection technologies. The accessibility of synthetic media production was illustrated by investigative reporting in which a commercially available AI digital human software tool costing 16.8 yuan enabled a journalist to produce within one minute a video depicting a celebrity appearing to endorse a product, with no authorization from the depicted individual. Legal commentary has drawn attention to China's emerging regulatory initiative targeting anthropomorphic AI, citing widely discussed cases in which extended user interaction with virtual humans has raised concerns about psychological dependency, accountability gaps between operators and users, and the need for mandatory identity disclosure requirements in virtual being deployments.

March 04 News

Education: Xinjiang Institute of Technology's (新疆理工学院) "Silk Road Arts Education" (丝路美育) digital human project was selected as a 2025 Ministry of Industry and Information Technology typical case, recognised for its innovative practices in digital human-enabled smart teaching within a metaverse educational framework. In Shanghai, a digital human rendering of the late scientist Qian Xuesen was deployed as part of the city's "Museum at Your Doorstep" school outreach programme at the start of the 2026 spring semester, with the AI-driven figure delivering an inspirational address across time to approximately 1.82 million primary and secondary school students on their first day back.

Xinjiang Institute of Technology's (新疆理工学院) "Silk Road Arts Education" (丝路美育) project represents one of the more educationally specific deployments of digital human technology in China's higher education sector, applying a virtual digital human teacher as the primary instructional presence within an Art Appreciation course rather than as a supplementary or administrative tool. The system combines a 3D virtual digital human rendered with generative AI with a large language model backend, operating through a dual-engine architecture that serves simultaneously as an intelligent study companion for students and a lesson-preparation assistant for educators, all structured around the university's "technology empowerment + three-interest classroom" pedagogical framework. Its selection for the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology's "2025 Metaverse Typical Cases" list — and a prior recognition by the Ministry of Education's Online Education Research Center (教育部在线教育研究中心) — positions it as a nationally acknowledged example of digital human deployment in smart teaching, notable for being developed and operated at an institute in Xinjiang, a region not typically associated with frontier AI or digital human development, and for embedding the virtual human within a humanities and arts curriculum rather than the STEM or vocational training contexts where such deployments are more commonly reported.

The Ministry of Education's Online Education Research Center (教育部在线教育研究中心), established in 2013 and housed at Tsinghua University, is China's premier state-backed institution for advancing digital education at scale. It serves as the research, exchange, and achievement application platform for online education under the Ministry of Education, and operates XuetangX — China's first MOOC platform — which hosts over 2,300 quality courses from top domestic and international universities across 13 academic disciplines. In the context of digital humans, the Center sits at the forefront of AI-driven pedagogical innovation: as early as 2018, XuetangX launched "Xiaomu," an AI virtual teacher developed in cooperation with Tsinghua's Department of Computer Science, designed to serve as a personalized study partner, reduce teacher workload, and improve student learning efficiency through a large knowledge map built from the platform's MOOC resources. This early foray into virtual instructors has since evolved into a broader institutional push, with affiliated platforms now deploying digital human teachers capable of real-time interactive teaching, automated assignment grading, and 24/7 student support — directly addressing the Center's own data showing that average online course completion rates remain as low as 23% and student question response times often exceed 48 hours. 

Entertainment: The 2026 Spring Festival Gala incorporated a digital human in a dedicated dream-sequence performance segment. Separately, AI-generated simulated humans — referred to interchangeably as digital humans, virtual humans, or AI digital doubles — are being created using diffusion models for photorealistic rendering, TTS technology for natural voice synthesis, and large language models for dialogue and emotional expression; a concrete example involved AI-generated comic drama content produced using the likeness of actor Tang Guoqiang, which achieved wide circulation as casual viewing content. Content commentator Han Lu has publicly characterised virtual human IPs anchored to real-person identities as structurally advantaged over purely fabricated virtual characters, arguing that inherited persona, identity history, and emotional backstory produce deeper audience resonance, and identifying this model as one of three viable strategic paths for content creators in the AI era.

Marketing: On 1 March 2026, JD.com (京东) jointly launched the virtual idol girl group "Shi'er Ji" (十二姬) with 12 hardware brands including Lenovo (联想), Red Magic (红魔), and ROG, with each of the twelve group members corresponding to a participating brand's representative virtual image and deployed across outdoor, home appliance, apparel, and global shopping livestream channels. The launch represents a deliberate shift beyond the previously dominant model of individual virtual human livestream hosts toward a multi-character group IP format that combines virtual identity with content-driven e-commerce. Yao Wang Technology (遥望科技) has positioned itself within the virtual human and AI-driven livestream e-commerce space as a core pillar of its business transformation strategy. At a Guangzhou trade exhibition, a virtual human livestream interactive system was deployed to engage global buyers throughout the event period, with the deployment subsequently cited in the Guangzhou Digital Exhibition Demonstration Case Collection.

Enterprise: Baidu (百度) is a key infrastructure provider in the virtual digital human platform space: Zhejiang Rural Commercial United Bank (浙江农商联合银行) issued a procurement tender for virtual digital human platform software maintenance and service requiring authorised technology from Baidu; Baidu Intelligence Cloud signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Hangzhou's Shangcheng District covering digital human development, content co-creation, and intelligent marketing, described by the company as a major strategic move into the Zhejiang market; and Hainan Province signed a deepened strategic cooperation agreement with Baidu in Haikou encompassing digital economy initiatives including digital humans. Beijing Huarui Shidian (北京华锐视点) operates as a specialised AI digital human production company developing new modalities of interactive experience. SenseTime (商汤科技) took a leading role at the 2026 Shanghai XR Expo, where it was positioned as a driver of XR and virtual digital human standardisation. Shandong Digital Human Technology (山东数字人科技股份有限公司) held its first extraordinary general meeting of 2026 on 3 March, at which shareholders voted unanimously to approve the resolution closing out a fundraising investment project.

Government Services: Shenzhen's municipal government published a detailed plan titled "AI + Government Services," comprising three task categories and more than twenty specific measures, centred on building a virtual digital human identity named "Shen Xiao i" (深小i) as the unified digital government IP for the entire city. The plan establishes standards for the digital human's visual appearance, UI specifications, and naming conventions, while permitting individual districts and departments to customise local variants based on the shared identity framework.

"Shen Xiao i" (深小i) is an AI-powered virtual government assistant launched in February 2025 by Shenzhen's Bureau of Government Services and Data Management, available on the "i Shenzhen" app and operating 24/7. Recognized as one of China's first officially certified government AI agents and the nation's first large language model application deployed for public government services, it allows citizens and businesses to get instant, conversational answers on a wide range of topics including education, healthcare, social security, and transportation — with a single-query accuracy rate of nearly 90% following upgrades that integrated advanced models like DeepSeek. The system has since scaled significantly, now covering over 240 service scenarios and handling more than 150,000 interactions per day, and has been deployed beyond the city level to districts and individual subdistricts, such as powering a localized digital assistant called "Min Yue" (民悦) in Longhua's Minzhi subdistrict. A recently released Shenzhen government plan aims to push this "AI + Government Services" initiative even further, envisioning a future where complex bureaucratic tasks — like coordinating pensions across multiple cities — can be resolved through a single spoken request, representing a broader ambition to transform public services from a model where "people search for services" to one where "services understand people."

Healthcare: As part of Shanghai's 15th Five-Year health development plan, municipal health and medical insurance authorities are refining a dedicated "Medical Insurance Digital Human" (医保数字人) AI tool, with the function described as streamlining interactions between residents and the health insurance system, and being developed alongside the expansion of mobile payment and facial-recognition payment applications citywide.

While no publicly disclosed contract names a single vendor for Shanghai's "Medical Insurance Digital Human" under the 15th Five-Year health plan, the evidence overwhelmingly points to Ant Group (蚂蚁集团) as the most likely technical partner. Ant Group has already powered medical insurance AI assistants for Shanghai and several other Chinese cities through its Alipay platform, which is China's largest third-party online medical insurance service platform. It pioneered the government "digital health human" format by co-developing "安诊儿" with Zhejiang's health authority — a direct template for what Shanghai is now building — and has since replicated that model across multiple provinces. Its AI Health Manager product already includes dedicated medical insurance query features. Ant also sits at the center of the national push to expand mobile and facial-recognition payment in healthcare settings, with Alipay-based medical insurance payments already dominant at leading Shanghai hospitals. The company has been building this infrastructure since 2014, and its AI medical insurance agency model has been explicitly extended to Shanghai's local insurance bureau. It typically co-develops such solutions with partners including Alibaba Cloud and Huawei, so the final product is likely a consortium effort, but Ant Group appears to be the primary technical architect.

Recruitment: In Hunan Province, digital human systems have been deployed to conduct 24-hour uninterrupted candidate interviews within the human resources services sector, highlighted as an example of digital transformation in the industry. At Qinghai Province's 2026 "Spring Breeze Action and Employment Assistance Season" provincial job fair, a dedicated smart recruitment zone was introduced that incorporated both an AI job-matching system and an AI digital human livestream job-broadcasting function, in which virtual presenters promoted open positions to job seekers online.

Cultural: China's first "Digital Worker Lei Feng" (数智工人雷锋) was officially unveiled at the China (Shenyang) Industrial Museum in Shenyang, Liaoning Province, coinciding with the simultaneous launch of two themed exhibitions including "Eternal Legacy — Lei Feng in Liaoning," using the digital human format to convey the contemporary significance of the Lei Feng spirit to visitors including patriotic education study groups. In a distinct social use case, young Chinese users independently created an AI virtual expert character — assigned a complete persona and deployed on social media specifically to present arguments to their parents in intergenerational disagreements — with the account accumulating more than 200,000 followers within approximately one month and inspiring community co-creation of the character's expanding fictional background.

Ethical Contexts: At the 2026 National People's Congress, Zhong Zheng (钟铮), NPC delegate and Vice President of Midea (美的集团), tabled a formal proposal calling for governance of AI-driven false marketing and non-compliant digital human livestreaming practices. The proposal set out three specific measures: establishing dedicated regulatory clauses for AI digital human livestreaming; implementing a digital human registration and filing system designed to ensure that digital images are identifiable and that accountability can be traced to responsible parties; and constructing a real-time, high-efficiency content review system supported by increased technology investment. Separately, reporting on China's livestreaming ecosystem has noted that certain digital human-fronted livestream accounts deploying AI-generated female avatars in suggestive formats have sustained peak concurrent viewership exceeding 100,000, raising questions about content boundaries and platform accountability in the absence of clear regulatory frameworks.

Ahead of China's 2026 National Two Sessions, Zhong Zheng, Vice President and CFO of Midea Group and a National People's Congress delegate, announced a legislative proposal targeting the misuse of AI "digital humans" in online commerce. Digital humans — AI-generated virtual personas used in livestream shopping — have become a growing source of fraudulent marketing in China, with bad actors deploying them to run unauthorized broadcasts, spread fake advertising, and manipulate consumer trust at scale. Zhong's proposal calls for tightening regulations around these digital human livestreams, updating the Anti-Unfair Competition Law to explicitly flag AI-driven deception as illegal, and launching dedicated government crackdowns on the black-market services that supply the underlying AI tools — such as script generators, mass comment bots, and generative SEO manipulation — that power these operations.

March 03 News

Healthcare: In Shanghai, digital human doctor technology has been deployed across multiple healthcare systems, developed through a collaboration between Shanghai Jiao Tong University (上海交通大学) AI Institute and Medical School, addressing difficulties in accessing specialist care for complex conditions. On February 28, 2026, Guangdong Medical Association (广东省医学会) and Guangdong Second People's Hospital (广东省第二人民医院) jointly held a doctor digital avatar and digital therapy ecosystem launch event in Guangzhou, positioning the initiative as a move from mere question-answering toward AI embodiments capable of reasoning and clinical judgment. More than 1,000 doctors have created their own digital clones on the associated application, enabling patients to interact with physician avatars outside of in-person consultation hours.

E-commerce and Livestreaming: JD.com (京东) partnered with twelve hardware brands to launch a virtual idol girl group named "十二姬" (Twelve Ji), deploying digital human characters whose technical specifications emphasize high lip-sync accuracy, strong expressiveness, and robust text-controlled performance, positioned as a new format bridging product promotion and virtual entertainment. Baidu (百度) reported that its AI-native marketing services revenue grew 301% year-on-year in 2025, with digital human livestreaming playing a central role; Buke Education (布克教育) reduced marketing costs by 12% and increased conversion rates by 30% through Baidu digital human livestreaming, while an unnamed travel agency reduced lead acquisition costs by 8% and raised conversion by 14%. During the Spring Festival period, merchant AI agent interactions reached nearly 4.5 million per day across Baidu's platform, with digital human deployment also active in the tourism sector. In Chongqing, merchants producing local specialty products, including Yuwei Jin (渝味锦), have been adopting AI digital humans for localized traffic generation and same-city customer acquisition. In Changsha, Jiuyi Technology (九易方科技) is identified as a leading provider of unmanned livestreaming services using digital humans; industry projections cited indicate the national digital human market will exceed 10 billion yuan in 2026. Huibo Star (慧播星数字人) technology has also been used in digital human video production for regional media content in Gansu province.

Jiuyifang Technology (九易方科技) is described as having independently developed JyfLive, positioned as Wuhan’s first open-source digital-human livestreaming SaaS platform. JyfLive is characterized by a real-time interaction engine with millisecond-level response to audience feedback, a high-fidelity digital-human capability covering appearance generation plus voice and animation synthesis, and 24-hour operation. The system combines computer graphics and artificial intelligence to raise efficiency in livestream e-commerce and content creation, with multi-scenario deployment focused on livestream sales and content distribution. 

Government and Public Services: Qinghai Provincial Human Resources and Social Security Department, together with several co-organizing agencies, deployed AI digital human live job broadcasting at the 2026 "Spring Wind Action" provincial recruitment fair held in Xining on March 1, integrating the technology into a smart recruitment zone alongside AI job-matching systems and self-service terminals for one-stop registration. In Hubei province, the Zaochi City Administrative Approval Bureau (枣阳市行政审批局) innovated a service model combining digital human guidance, robot navigation, and joint processing at application desks, connecting to government data infrastructure to streamline enterprise services. The human resources and social security system in Neijiang, Sichuan is actively advancing digital human deployment for public-facing social security services. At a large recruitment fair in Guangzhou's Baiyun district offering over 3,000 positions, on-site AI recruitment terminals incorporated digital humans to provide online candidate services alongside livestreamed job matching sessions.

Cultural and Memorial: In Shenyang, Liaoning, China's first "Digital Worker Lei Feng" (数智工人雷锋) was unveiled, created using AIGC technology, digital human modeling, and immersive sound and light design to place audiences in a mixed real-virtual environment conveying the cultural significance of the Lei Feng spirit. A March 2026 art exhibition hosted in Shanghai's Huangpu district employs digital human animation alongside other multimedia formats to narrate the lives of classical Chinese poets including Li Bai, Du Fu, Tao Yuanming, and Li Qingzhao. In Beijing's Chaoyang district, a 150,000-square-meter facility under development integrates digital human companions for conversation and interactive shopping alongside VR-based Tang Dynasty immersive experiences, framing digital humans as central to a new generation of consumer metaverse environments. The first intelligent agent digital human named "萌莎" (Mengsha) at Dafen Oil Painting Village (大芬油画村) in Shenzhen debuted at a Lantern Festival public event on March 3, 2026, at Dafen Art Museum square, with support from the Shenzhen Longgang District Culture, Broadcasting, Tourism and Sports Bureau (深圳市龙岗区文化广电旅游体育局), introduced as a digital IP-format interface for cultural engagement.

数智工人 (shùzhì gōngrén, literally "digital-intelligent worker") is a Chinese concept that sits at the intersection of AI-generated digital humans and the broader global shift toward automated labor. Chinese tech companies are banking on digital employees powered by AI agents to enhance productivity, liberate people from repetitive work, and bolster digital transformation. In this context, 数智工人 refers to AI-driven digital human avatars — photorealistic, conversational, and interactive — designed to embody and perform the role of a worker in virtual or hybrid environments. More specifically, the concept aligns with what Forrester defines as digital worker automation: a combination of intelligent automation building blocks, such as conversational intelligence and robotic process automation, that work alongside employees, understand human intent, respond to questions, and act on the human's behalf. The "Digital Worker Lei Feng" exhibition in Shenyang exemplifies how China is pushing this concept beyond commercial utility into the cultural and ideological sphere — deploying AIGC technology and digital human modeling not just to automate tasks, but to resurrect a beloved national figure as an interactive, lifelike presence capable of engaging audiences across time. This signals a distinctly Chinese application of digital human technology: one that fuses labor, identity, and patriotic symbolism into a single AI-rendered persona.

Tourism and Trade: Sichuan tourism operators, including Rongcheng Zhilian Weekend Tour Travel Agency (四川蓉城智联周末游旅行社), have incorporated digital human tour guides, immersive historical scene reconstruction, and online research-learning check-in features as differentiating service offerings. At the Yiwu new spring market opening in Zhejiang on February 28, 2026, multilingual digital humans were stationed at storefronts to hold conversations with both domestic and international merchants, supporting the city's trade facilitation needs. Guangdong Broadcasting Television (广东广播电视台) is developing multilingual AI digital humans integrating VR, AR, and AIGC technologies to provide interactive and participatory experiences for the promotion of Guangdong exports in global markets.

Financial Services: Zhejiang Rural Commercial United Bank (浙江农商联合银行) is procuring maintenance and technical personnel services for its existing virtual digital human platform, signaling ongoing operational investment in deployed digital human customer-facing systems. Hunan Bank (湖南银行) has both a digital human system construction project underway and a separate AI large model platform computing expansion tender, indicating a dual-track infrastructure investment in digital human capabilities. Skyworth Digital (创维数字), recognized in 2026 as a national manufacturing single champion enterprise by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, won the July 2025 bid for Guangdong Broadcasting Network's (广东省广播电视网络股份有限公司) AI TV Butler digital human project.

Entertainment and Media: The Hunan Youth Symphony Orchestra's concert opened with an AI-generated virtual host appearing in real time alongside a human co-host, capable of understanding live contextual cues and conducting natural interaction rather than delivering scripted broadcasts, presented as an example of technology-culture fusion programming for youth audiences. SenseTime (商汤科技) is taking a leading role at the 2026 Shanghai XR Exhibition (中国上海VR/AR产业博览会), driving standardization efforts covering both extended reality and virtual digital human technologies, signaling the company's positioning at the intersection of hardware and synthetic character industries.

VRAREXPO (vrarexpo.cn) — China's premier VR/AR Industry Expo — has established itself as a key showcase for the country's rapidly maturing digital human technology sector. Held in Shanghai, the event brings together leading Chinese companies pushing the boundaries of AI-generated digital humans, with applications spanning government, retail, tourism, and entertainment. The 2024 edition was nearly sold out, and digital humans were a standout theme: companies like Youchain Era (优链时代) and Ant Special Forces (蚂蚁特工) drew significant attention, the latter winning the expo's top "Planet Award" for Best AI+ Solution after deploying AI digital humans at China's national legislative Two Sessions (两会). Holographic digital human service desks, AI-powered live-streaming avatars — including a near-perfect replica of JD.com's CEO — and low-cost one-shot digital human creation tools all featured on the show floor. Looking ahead, the 2026 Shanghai edition is already generating buzz, signaling that digital humans are not a fringe exhibit but a central pillar of the event's identity, reflecting China's broader ambition to lead the world in practical, large-scale deployment of this technology.

Ant Special Forces (蚂蚁特工), formally Ant Special Forces (Xiamen) Technology Co., headquartered in Xiamen's Torch High-Tech Software Park in Fujian, is a Chinese technology company carving out a niche at the intersection of spatial computing and AI digital humans. The company's core offerings span a cross-platform AR creative platform, an AI digital human intelligent Q&A system, and a spatial intelligence presentation system — a suite that positions them squarely in the business of bringing interactive, AI-driven virtual personas into real-world environments. Their focus on cultural tourism and heritage digitization ("文旅数智化") is particularly notable, suggesting their digital humans are being deployed not just in corporate settings but as guides, narrators, and interactive interfaces within tourist destinations and cultural spaces. Their win at VRAREXPO 2024 for deploying AI digital humans at China's national Two Sessions further underscores their credibility with government clients. gxar.com is the official website for 蚂蚁特工 (Ant Special Forces).

Technology and Research: A research team has developed a large-scale, high-precision three-dimensional facial database providing theoretical and technical foundations for virtual human facial expression driving and high-fidelity robot facial expression rendering; the methodology applies geometric approaches for 3D facial landmark detection, addressing limitations of prior 2D-texture-reliant or standard 3D model-based approaches. Endpoint (Shaanxi) Technology Co., Ltd. (端点（陕西）科技有限公司) is working to define next-generation intelligent interaction through AI digital humans, covering applications ranging from virtual hosts to intelligent customer service. Shikong Jiepai (时空节拍), a Hangzhou-based digital human company, has established industry-academia-research cooperation with the School of Arts at Zhejiang Agricultural and Forestry University (浙江农林大学) to advance digital human applications in educational settings. The Guangxi Science Museum (广西科技馆) coordinated a Spring Festival science outreach event across 19 regional science museums; at the Yulin City Science Museum in Guangxi, an AI holographic cabin digital human interactive installation became one of the event's most prominent attractions.

Policy and Regulatory Context: National People's Congress delegate 钟铮, drawing on analysis of digital economy trends and commercial pain points, submitted proposals including specific recommendations to regulate AI digital human livestreaming and to clean up the online marketing environment, reflecting legislative recognition of digital humans as a commercially significant category requiring dedicated oversight. Inner Mongolia's government, through a policy document jointly issued by six agencies including the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region Government Services and Data Management Bureau, introduced subsidies of up to three million yuan for data and AI industry development, with digital human talent cultivation explicitly listed as one of nine designated policy areas. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (工业和信息化部) Humanoid Robot and Embodied Intelligence Standardization Technical Committee (人形机器人与具身智能标准化技术委员会), organized with participation from over 120 research institutions, enterprises, and industry users, published China's first national standards system for humanoid robots and embodied intelligence, a framework that formally encompasses digital humans as a category of embodied intelligence carrier alongside physical humanoid robots. A Ningxia Women's Federation (宁夏妇联) digital image ambassador named "宁姐姐" debuted on February 28, 2026, described as custom-built by the federation for community engagement, representing official adoption of a digital human as an institutional representative identity at the provincial women's organization level.

China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) formally established the Humanoid Robot and Embodied Intelligence Standardization Technical Committee (工业和信息化部人形机器人与具身智能标准化技术委员会) on 26 December 2025 in Beijing, with its secretariat housed at the Chinese Institute of Electronics (中国电子学会). The committee, comprising 65 members drawn from government bodies, universities, research institutions, and industry — including Unitree Robotics founder Wang Xingxing and AgiBot co-founder Peng Zhihui as deputy chairs — is mandated to develop and revise industry standards across humanoid robotics and embodied intelligence, covering foundational technologies, key components, complete systems, applications, and safety. At its first annual meeting on 28 February 2026, the committee released the "Humanoid Robot and Embodied AI Standard System (2026 Edition)," described as China's first comprehensive, top-level standards framework covering the entire industrial chain and lifecycle of humanoid robotics, structured around six areas: basic commonality, brain-like and intelligent computing, limbs and components, complete machines and systems, applications, and safety and ethics.

March 02 News

Healthcare: Guangdong Provincial People's Second Hospital (广东省第二人民医院) launched what has been described as the first "souled" physician digital human in China, unveiled at a digital twin and digital therapeutics ecosystem event held in Guangzhou on February 28. Developed in collaboration with Huawei (华为), the system goes beyond static AI tools by incorporating a named doctor's clinical reasoning and diagnostic thinking, enabling the digital human to learn and evolve over time. The initiative also introduced a set of personalized "three digital prescriptions," representing a broader shift in medical AI from single-function digital instruments toward cognitive systems capable of independent clinical thought.

Education and Training: Nanjing University of the Arts (南京艺术学院) has integrated digital human production into its curriculum, with students demonstrating end-to-end capability from creative concept to realized digital human output, reflecting a pedagogical emphasis on applied AI competency. In a separate healthcare education context, an AI-based virtual human communication simulation system called AI-VHCom has been developed and evaluated for use by nursing students practicing communication with elderly patients, providing a scalable training environment that addresses the shortage of real clinical practice opportunities.

Commerce and Trade: In Yiwu, Zhejiang, the Yiwu International Trade City deployed multilingual digital humans at the Global Digital Trade Center — which recently served as a Spring Festival Gala venue — to facilitate real-time multilingual dialogue with international buyers at the market's new year opening. The deployment supports cross-border e-commerce and live-streaming commerce use cases, signaling the integration of digital human technology into physical wholesale trade infrastructure.

Enterprise and Recruitment: At a large-scale job fair will be held in Guangzhou's Baiyun District on March 4, AI recruitment terminals featuring digital human online service agents will be deployed on-site to assist job seekers with intelligent matching and position screening. Similarly, Qinghai Province's 2026 Spring Employment Campaign in Xining incorporated digital human live-streaming for job posting presentations alongside intelligent policy Q&A services, demonstrating the use of digital humans to expand the reach and efficiency of public employment services.

Government and Civic Affairs: The Ningxia Women's Federation (宁夏妇女联合会) introduced its first digital ambassador, named "Ning Jiejie" (宁姐姐), at the 2026 commemoration of International Women's Day on February 28. The character was purpose-designed for the federation's constituency and made her public debut via a large display screen at the event venue in Yinchuan, wearing symbolic accessories including a red wolfberry pendant and a pomegranate emblem.

Public Safety: Fujian Province deployed what has been described as the first 3D police affairs digital human in the province, named "Rong Xiao'an" (榕小安), developed for online public security service delivery in Fuzhou.

Entertainment and Virtual Idols: Jingdong (京东), operating under its JoyAI large model, partnered with twelve hardware brands — including Lenovo (联想), Red Magic (红魔), ROG, ASUS (华硕), AOC, Gigabyte (技嘉), Colorful (七彩虹), and Galaxy (影驰) — to launch "Shier Ji" (十二姬), described as the industry's first virtual idol group IP. Each of the twelve members corresponds to a brand's representative virtual character, and the group simultaneously released an AI-generated debut single titled "Unlock My Love." The digital human technology underpinning the group was noted for high lip-sync accuracy, strong expressiveness, and robust text-controllability.

Media and Broadcasting: Wanxing Technology (万兴科技) has developed the proprietary "Wanxing Tianmu" (万兴天幕) large model, enabling three-second video generation, intelligent editing, and digital human broadcast anchoring across use cases including image design and overseas market content. Jiechenng Shares (捷成股份) deploys virtual digital human technology through its investee company Shiyou Technology (世优科技), providing services to ByteDance (字节跳动) among other clients, with the capability integrated into its broader AI short-drama and animated-drama production pipeline via the proprietary "LingXi" AI platform and "ChatPV" engine in conjunction with Seedance 2.0.

Seedance 2.0 is ByteDance's (字节跳动) second-generation AI video generation model, developed by the Jianying (剪映) team under their Jimeng AI (即梦AI) platform. It was released on February 7, 2026. Given a text prompt or an image, it can generate multi-shot cinematic video sequences with native audio in under 60 seconds. It sits at the foundation of ByteDance's AI content ecosystem and has become a significant market event in China's A-share AI video sector, driving stock movements across multiple listed companies. Importantly, Seedance 2.0 is also reported to have faced a copyright infringement lawsuit from Disney and Hollywood studios filed around February 14, 2026, which has accelerated industry pressure toward licensed training data.

The LingXi platform (灵犀) is Jiechenng Shares' (捷成股份, listed as SZ300182) proprietary full-pipeline AI production platform, formally described as the "Jiechenng LingXi Agent Platform" (捷成灵犀智能体平台). It modularizes the entire content production workflow — scriptwriting, storyboarding, character design, voice synthesis, and editing — allowing these steps to be largely automated. The platform is built on top of Jiechenng's proprietary four-tier film and television understanding large model, which gives it domain-specific comprehension of cinematic language, narrative structure, character motivation, and directorial style that general-purpose video models lack. LingXi is also described as having an open interface connected to the ByteDance ecosystem through a joint AI audio-video laboratory, with tens of millions of licensed clip segments made available through it.

ChatPV (now reportedly at version 3.0) is Jiechenng's proprietary AI intelligent creation engine, described as the "AI Intelligent Video Production Engine." It functions as the generation and output layer of the production stack: it supports one-click video production, text-to-video, and — most relevant to virtual being applications — digital human broadcast anchoring. It integrates Huawei's Pangu large model capabilities and is built on multimodal large model technology. In practical terms, ChatPV is what converts the understanding and planning done by the LingXi platform into finished video and character output. Jiechenng has also built a "film-grade AI vector library" that converts unstructured video content into structured parameters — shot composition, lighting, camera movement, style tags — so that when a Seedance user requests a specific cinematic feel, the model can call precise parameters derived from Jiechenng's licensed library.

Industrial and Smart City Applications: Kaipu Cloud (开普云) applies generative machine learning to its metaverse business, including automated text content generation, virtual digital human voice driving, and text-to-image generation. In Shenyang, Liaoning, the first "Digital Intelligence Worker Lei Feng" (数智工人雷锋) figure was unveiled, built using AIGC technology, digital human modeling, and immersive audio-visual design to recreate a multi-perspective digital representation of the historical figure Lei Feng during his years in Liaoning, as part of a thematic exhibition running through June.

March 01 News

Tourism And Culture: Metaverse Matrix (元界矩阵) was reported deploying an AI companion tour “sprite” named Miaoyuanzhang (“喵元章”) in Chongqing during the Lunar New Year period as a virtual-being layer for local cultural tourism experiences, positioned as an interactive accompaniment for visitors in a city tourism context. China Unicom Anhui Branch (中国联通安徽分公司) was reported packaging “AI digital human” experiences into Spring Festival cultural-tourism offerings in Anhui, alongside its delivery of smart-museum construction work in the province, framing the digital-human component as an on-site experiential layer tied to visitor services rather than a purely online promotion.

Government And Public Services: Endpoint (Shaanxi) Technology Co., Ltd. (端点（陕西）科技有限公司) was reported presenting AI digital humans as a practical content-production and service interface in the context of software delivery and its collaboration positioning within the Huawei HarmonyOS ecosystem, describing digital humans as moving from a simple auxiliary tool toward a more capable “creative partner” role in applied deployments. In Shaanxi’s justice-administration system, an initiative branded as the “Pufa Qianwen” AI digital-human public-interest lecture program (“普法千问”AI数字人公益大讲堂) was reported as a digital-human delivery format for legal-popularization education, with topic examples including food-safety law and village-committee related content, and with livestream-style public outreach described as part of the operating context. In Nanning’s Qingxiu District, a neighborhood governance program was reported introducing a “community digital human” assistant into the “Xinzhuzhilian” smart platform (“芯竹智联”), framing the virtual being as an assistant interface embedded in community management workflows rather than a standalone media character. In Fuzhou, a police-service deployment was reported as a 3D digital human named Rongxiao’an (“榕小安”), described as a public-facing policing digital-human application and positioned as a local “first” in that category.

Healthcare: A hospital setting in Jiangsu was reported using named digital humans “Zhenzhen” (“真真”) and “Ruru” (“儒儒”) in an outpatient context, with the report stating that they run on a hospital “digital human” intelligent system and are presented to patients as an interactive front-end for service delivery in a clinical environment. In Guangxi, an “AI digital human Liang Qiongping” (“AI数字人梁琼平”) was reported as a virtual-being representation attached to a public representative’s identity within a health-industry and medical-branding discussion focused on Yao medicine and related specialty areas, indicating a deployment pattern where a human public figure is mirrored by a digital-human persona to communicate policy and industry proposals in healthcare-adjacent contexts.

Employment And Public Recruitment: In Qinghai, Xining’s “odd-jobs station” model was reported adding “AI digital human livestream job-matching” (“AI数字人直播带岗”) to expand coverage and reduce constraints associated with conventional livestream recruiting, positioning the digital human as the on-camera virtual anchor for job postings and matching. In Guangzhou, a large spring recruitment event was reported as showcasing “digital human livestream job-matching” alongside other AI hiring devices, describing an on-site pipeline where jobseekers interact with AI tools for simulated interviews, evaluation, and role matching, with the digital human specifically framed as the virtual-being interface for livestream-style recruitment services. In Henan’s “Spring Breeze Action” employment campaign, the presence of recruiting employers involved in “virtual digital human” development and applications was reported as part of the hiring landscape, indicating that virtual-being production and deployment roles were being recruited in a public job-fair setting even when individual product names were not specified.

Media, Broadcasting, And Live Commerce: Shandong Radio and Television Station (山东广播电视台) was reported using an AI digital human named Yunyun (“运运”) for event coverage and broadcast presentation, described as a first-time adoption by the broadcaster for this reporting format and positioned as an interactive, youth-oriented media presentation layer for sports broadcasting workflows. Baidu (百度) was reported discussing its Huibo Xing digital-human product (慧播星数字人) as a deployed digital-human capability used by enterprises including JD.com (京东) and TikTok in commerce-oriented scenarios, framing the virtual being as a functional presenter or sales-communication interface in corporate operations rather than a purely entertainment avatar. Metaverse Matrix (元界矩阵) was also reported tying its Chongqing tourism deployment to an “AI smart-broadcast innovation service center” concept that supports merchants via short-video distribution and AI digital-human presentation, indicating a linkage between tourism activation and merchant marketing operations where digital humans act as the on-screen, repeatable presenter layer.

Content Creation, Creative Tools, And AI Doubles: Wondershare Technology (万兴科技) was reported describing its self-developed Tianmu large model (“万兴天幕”) as enabling rapid video generation and intelligent editing, explicitly listing “digital human broadcasting” as an included application scenario alongside image design, framing the digital human as a controllable presenter format within a broader creator-toolchain. ByteDance (字节跳动) was reported releasing a video-creation model branded Seedance 2.0 (“Seedance 2.0”) with a workflow that includes users uploading their own likeness to create an AI double (“AI分身”) and then generating short videos from text or image prompts, placing synthetic-character output in a consumer-facing creative pipeline where the virtual being is derived from a real person’s appearance and used as the on-screen actor. A separate China-based social-media case study was reported around an AI-generated virtual persona presented as an “expert” character named Lao Zhao Jiang Daoli (“老赵讲道理”), created by a Chongqing user and used to script and produce persuasive content aimed at parent–child communication dynamics, with the character’s credibility and backstory also being co-constructed by online audiences as part of the persona’s ongoing operation.