Tech company Baidu said the number of virtual people projects it’s worked on for clients has doubled since 2021, with a wide price range of as little as $2,800 to a whopping $14,300 per year.
Virtual people are a combination of animation, sound tech and machine learning that create digitized human beings who can sing and even interact on a livestream. While these digital beings have appeared on the fringes of the U.S. internet, they’ve been popping up more and more in China’s cyberspace.
Some buyers of virtual people include financial services companies, local tourism boards and state media, said Li Shiyan, who heads Baidu’s virtual people and robotics business.
Source:cnbc.com