But with large language models and text-to-speech technologies, these AI streamers can say whatever you wish them to say—meaning they will speak other languages too.

Just last week a recent AI-translation product was blowing up on social media: LA-based HeyGen launched a tool that translates video into seven different languages, clones the speaker’s voice, and syncs the speaker’s lips so every part looks natural. The result (including translation to Hindi, the one non-Western language offered now) is surprisingly good!

With tools like this, it’s now not mandatory to seek out local talent for livestreams. “Language is definitely a bonus of virtual streamers [compared to humans]. A lot of our clients are concerned with doing cross-border e-commerce in Southeast Asia. The demand could be very high,” says Huang Wei, the director of virtual influencer livestreaming business on the Chinese AI company Xiaoice. 

Xiaoice and Quantum Planet now work together to pitch these AI streamers to Chinese clients. Their virtual streamers can speak 129 languages, including English and just a few Southeast Asian languages, like Vietnamese, Thai, and Indonesian. 

In March, they used a Thai-speaking AI streamer for the primary time to sell furniture for a Chinese company, and sold $2,000 price of products in an hour. I asked a native Thai speaker to look at a clip and assess the standard of the AI; he told me the intonation was so impressively natural that he almost thought it needed to be the results of voice dubbing.

There’s also an English version so you possibly can judge for yourself, although I don’t think it’s on par with the Chinese or Thai versions. 

Obviously the AI won’t have the ability to do every part a human streamer can, especially testing products in real time in response to audience questions, but it surely suits the businesses which can be just seeking to break right into a recent market and never spend an excessive amount of money for the dangerous enterprise. Because the Chinese publication Huxiu reports, the monthly salary for an area streamer in Indonesia is nearly similar to the fee for customizing an AI streamer, and in the long run, it costs much less to reuse the AI than to maintain an actual person on the payroll. Plus, the result is healthier than most individuals expect. 

Could this mean that livestream e-commerce will finally get popular outside China? I’d be very cautious and say that it probably won’t be the case soon. But I do think AI could help Chinese corporations expand globally by overcoming language and cultural barriers. And either way, it’s clear the technology of synthetic media is moving ahead at an incredibly fast pace, so it might only be a matter of time before Chinese e-commerce corporations can finally capitalize on it.