On the afternoon of April 16th, Liu Qiangdong's AI digital avatar made its "live broadcast debut", with the "Procurement and Sales Brother" digital avatar appearing as the anchor in both JD Home Appliances and JD Supermarket's procurement and sales live broadcast rooms. According to JD Supermarket's disclosure, the AI digital person of Qiaomai Dongge was broadcasted for 30 minutes, and the number of viewers in the live broadcast room exceeded ten million; In just 40 minutes, the number of viewers in the live broadcast room exceeded 13 million, creating the highest number of viewers since the launch of JD Supermarket's sales live broadcast room; In the past hour, the number of views exceeded 20 million, and the average duration of user stay during live streaming reached 5.6 times the daily average. Within 40 minutes, the overall order volume of the live broadcast room exceeded 100000.
(Liu Qiangdong AI Digital Live)
During the live broadcast, Dongge AI digital person explained 13 products, and the overall order volume increased by 7.6 times compared to last Sunday; JD Supermarket's "billion yuan agricultural subsidy" products saw a 5.7 times increase in transaction volume compared to last Sunday after half an hour of broadcasting. It is worth mentioning that this is Liu Qiangdong's live broadcast debut on the JD app. In the live broadcast room, the reporter noticed that Liu Qiangdong's digital products include various daily necessities such as Hisense air conditioning, Skyworth TV, blueberries, milk, corn, etc.
From the perspective of live streaming effects, Liu Qiangdong's AI digital avatar is almost identical to a real person in terms of sound quality and image. However, many netizens believe that this "knockoff version" of Liu Qiangdong still lacks some emotional connection compared to a real person.
Why do we do live streaming at this time? What impact will digital people bring to the industry?
JD has always appeared in the public eye as a traditional e-commerce platform, and live streaming sales have not been involved in JD's business sector. So, why did JD.com use "Liu Qiangdong Digital Human" for live streaming at this time? Is this another measure to resolve its lack of super head? What impact will this live broadcast bring to the e-commerce industry?
For this reason, a poster news reporter interviewed Pan Jun, the Director of Product Strategy Consulting at a globally renowned consulting company. He believed that "JD. com's use of 'Liu Qiangdong Digital People' for live streaming can undoubtedly leverage its influence to attract more consumer attention and participation. In the fiercely competitive e-commerce field, how to better attract and retain consumers has been a problem that major e-commerce platforms have been striving for. Using Liu Qiangdong Digital People for live streaming can help improve JD. com's visibility and influence to a certain extent, and thus attract more consumers."
In the opinion of Hong Yong, a think tank expert at the China Digital Fusion 50 Forum, "This move may be a new attempt by JD.com to expand its layout in the live streaming e-commerce field, attracting traffic through virtual IPs, compensating or replacing the traffic impact caused by the departure of some top anchors, and building a more stable and controllable content ecosystem."
As for whether it is a measure to resolve the shortage of excess, Pan Jun believes that this may also depend on specific market environment and strategic considerations. "In some cases, using 'Liu Qiangdong Digital People' for live streaming may help alleviate the problem of missing super heads, as it may bring more traffic and attention to the platform. However, this is not the only solution, and other e-commerce platforms may also adopt similar strategies to address the problem of missing super heads. The core value of all live streaming lies in 'credit', which mainly depends on consumers' credit evaluation of this method."
In Pan Jun's view, the emergence of digital humans may bring consumers a brand new shopping experience and increase the interactivity and fun of the live streaming format, which will have an impact on the industry. "As a cutting-edge technology and innovative marketing method, AI digital humans can promote products and interact 24 hours a day, which helps to increase user attention and activity," said Hong Yong.
What game did JD play when joining the live streaming sales army at this time?
In fact, before this, JD.com had already begun to expand into the short video field. On April 10th, JD.com announced that it will invest 1 billion in cash and 1 billion in traffic as rewards to attract more original authors and high-quality content institutions to settle in. At the same time, a 5 million yuan institutional incentive list will be set up, and as long as the number of people attracted by the institution reaches a certain scale, there is a chance to receive a monthly cash subsidy. After the institution is established, JD.com provides one-on-one guidance and services to help the institution improve its operational capabilities.
In fact, not only JD, but also many Internet platforms are gradually infiltrating into the field of short video, such as Tencent, where video number is its main position. Data shows that in 2022, the sales revenue of live streaming sales through video accounts increased by more than 8 times year-on-year, and maintained a strong growth momentum last year.
Meituan Video has also recently launched a new recruitment plan, which includes guaranteed bonuses and traffic sharing incentives. Among them, the highest monthly income for a single account is 30000 yuan; The institution also offers special rewards ranging from 8000 to 18000 yuan per month.
The reason why everyone is turning to short videos is due to the intense competition in e-commerce. The Research Report on the Development of Online Audiovisual Services in China (2024) shows that as of December 2023, the number of online audiovisual users in China has reached 1.074 billion, with the highest user stickiness in short video applications, with over 70% of users watching short videos and shopping live.
In this context, with the popularity of short videos, Tiktok e-commerce has sprung up, attracting many businesses to settle in, which undoubtedly poses a huge challenge to traditional e-commerce platforms such as Taobao and JD. According to the data of fiscal year 2023 released by Tiktok, in 2023, Tiktok's shelf scene business will grow at a high speed, and the total volume of commodity transactions in the mall will increase by 277% year on year. A total of 8.84 million authors have earned income from carrying goods through live broadcast, short videos, shop windows, pictures and texts, among which the number of authors whose cumulative total volume of commodity transactions exceeds 100000 yuan will exceed 600000. At the same time, Tiktok also launched the APP of "Tiktok Mall", which is targeted at the shelf e-commerce of JD