Our reporter Li Bing trainee reporter Yu Junyi

　　Currently, virtual digital people are all the rage.

Recently, Vanke's first digital employee "Cui Xiaopan" won the "Best Newcomer" award, which has become a topic of concern in the industry.

Subsequently, the news of the virtual human, holography, AR and other technologies or the extensive use of technologies at the opening ceremony of the Beijing Winter Olympics aroused extensive discussions in the industry.

　　As the time of the Winter Olympics approached, a reporter from Securities Daily found that, taking advantage of the popularity of the metaverse concept and virtual digital human, there are already many companies keen to "create human beings", including banks.

　　Banks keen to create 'digital workforce'

　　In terms of function, virtual people are mainly divided into idol type and practical type. The core of the former lies in the value and derivative ability of the IP behind it, while the core of the latter lies in technical ability.

　　The reporter noticed that financial institutions have already established a layout in the field of virtual digital people, and they are more inclined to create virtual digital employees with strong technical capabilities.

　　The "Securities Daily" reporter found that many banks have launched virtual digital people, but their manifestations are mostly digital employees.

For example, at the end of 2021, Baixin Bank launched AIYA, the first virtual digital employee.

　　In early December 2021, Jiangnan Rural Commercial Bank and JD Smart Customer Service Yanxi jointly launched VTM digital employees.

This digital employee has the face of a simulated person, and can independently and accurately complete the whole process of self-response, business processing, active service, risk control and compliance of bank transaction scenarios.

　　Earlier, in April 2019, Xiaopu, the "AI-driven 3D financial digital human", was officially unveiled and became the first digital employee of Shanghai Pudong Development Bank. In December of that year, Xiaopu took a job rotation in some outlets of Shanghai Pudong Development Bank to serve users.

　　In the opinion of most industry insiders, virtual digital human, as the core interactive carrier of the Metaverse, is an important form for banks to conduct brand-mind dialogues with young users and create an immersive service experience in the future.

The layout of virtual digital people by banking institutions is different from the "speculation concept", which is more in line with their own development needs.

　　Pan Helin, executive dean of the Digital Economy Research Institute of Zhongnan University of Economics and Law, told the Securities Daily reporter that the combination of artificial intelligence and finance can meet two major needs of the financial industry through a fully automatic question-and-answer method: one is risk control needs, through Q&A locates credit users; secondly, the needs of financial after-sales customer service, automatically answer the questions faced by customers, reducing the need for manual labor in the financial industry.

　　Wang Pengbo, a senior analyst at Broadcom, told the "Securities Daily" reporter, "In the future, the development and improvement of virtual digital employees by banking institutions and enterprises will definitely become a trend, because digitalization is one of the certain future development directions, and the emergence of digital employees will be very important for enterprises. There are many benefits, such as lower labor costs, improved internal processes and efficiencies, can be replicated at scale, etc. Globally, the adoption of AI digital workforce is also growing.”

　　Industrial development enters a period of acceleration

　　Under the iterative advancement of technology and the blessing of Internet giants, virtual humans have now emerged in the commercial arena and are expected to become the first rapidly developing and large-scale revenue-generating industries in the Metaverse industry chain.

According to the "Virtual Digital Human Depth Industry Report", it is estimated that by 2030, the overall market size of my country's virtual human will reach 270 billion yuan.

　　Yu Baicheng, Dean of Zero One Research Institute, told the Securities Daily reporter that virtual digital employees first automate business processes to reduce costs and increase efficiency, and many repetitive human tasks will be replaced.

The virtual digital human is a more intelligent and visualized digital employee, which helps in brand communication, marketing, user stickiness, etc. At present, the virtual digital human industry has entered an accelerated period.

　　Yu Jianing, executive director of the Metaverse Industry Committee of China Mobile Communications Federation, told the "Securities Daily" reporter that digital people and digital employees will have broader development space in the direction of "intelligence" in the future.

However, at present, there are still some technologies to be broken through, and the technological leadership gap of artificial intelligence enterprises among enterprises is not obvious. Therefore, with the accelerated application of 5G and the gradual arrival of 6G, the application and coverage of virtual digital humans will enter a stage of magnitude development.

(Securities Daily)