How AI Digital Human Transforms Live Streaming

AI-powered digital humans are transforming live streaming across industries. A recent livestream by Baidu drew over 13 million viewers and generated $7.65 million in sales—powered entirely by two virtual hosts. One of them mimicked a top Chinese influencer so realistically that it outperformed his own previous show. While the example comes from China, it reflects a global shift: AI digital human live streaming is now capable of engaging audiences at scale, around the clock, and without human limitations.

What is an AI Digital Human?

An AI Digital Human is a virtual character powered by artificial intelligence that interacts with people in real time using natural language, lifelike speech, facial expressions, and sometimes full-body movements. These digital personas are built using a combination of conversational AI, text-to-speech synthesis, voice cloning, avatar rendering, and sometimes motion capture technologies. The result is a human-like virtual agent capable of understanding and responding to users naturally and intelligently.

AI digital humans are increasingly used across industries such as live streaming, customer service, education, and e-commerce. They offer always-available, scalable, and engaging interaction—removing the limitations of human hosts while enhancing user experiences. In essence, an AI digital human is a virtual persona that behaves like a real person, but is powered entirely by AI.

The Rise of AI Digital Human Live Streaming

AI avatars are changing the game for livestreaming by staying online 24/7, responding in real time, and reaching global audiences at a fraction of the cost.

Always-On, Always-Engaging

Compared with human hosts, digital humans can stream 24/7, engage hundreds or thousands of viewers simultaneously, and respond to real-time comments through LLM-powered conversational AI. No memorizing product info. No fatigue. And no scheduling conflicts.

Cost Efficiency & Global Reach

AI avatars can run multilingual broadcasts, breaking down geographic and language barriers. They’re scalable across markets and reduce labor, studio, and operational costs—ideal for brands entering new regions.

Case in Point

Just 26 minutes into Baidu’s June 15 broadcast, the digital human had already surpassed the real Luo Yonghao’s 1-hour sales performance from May. This shows that AI-hosted streams are not only engaging but also commercially viable.

3 Popular Scenarios for Digital Humans in Social & Entertainment

The success of digital human hosts is quickly expanding beyond e-commerce into vibrant social and entertainment streaming scenes.

1. Party Rooms and Social Chats

In party room or social chat scenarios, AI agents can serve as intelligent co-hosts. They monitor the room in real time, suggest conversation topics, prevent awkward silences, and help drive group engagement. Viewers can customize the AI’s voice, personality, and gender to better suit the room’s vibe. During idle times, the AI can entertain with stories, trivia, or astrology readings to keep the energy high.

2. Talent Shows and Performance Streams

For creators focused on music, dance, or other performances, it’s tough to interact with fans mid-act. An AI assistant can take over engagement duties by welcoming new viewers, introducing the host’s background, answering FAQs, and thanking users for gifts. This gives performers space to focus on their craft while still maintaining a lively and interactive environment.

3. Proven Impact: YY Live’s Ling’er

YY Live’s digital human, Ling’er, is a leading example. In just six months, Ling’er served over 6,000 live rooms and over 1 million users daily. Ling’er actively recommends personalized chat topics and facilitates bonding between hosts and audiences. The impact? A 30%+ rise in conversation volume, an 80%+ increase in paying users, and a staggering 670% surge in device interactions. Plus, it helped reduce operational costs by replacing some assistant-host roles

ZEGOCLOUD: One-Stop Platform for AI Digital Human Live Streaming

ZEGOCLOUD is ideal for brands expanding globally with AI digital human live streaming, offering the infrastructure needed to support real-time, intelligent, and immersive user interaction.

It is a real-time cloud communication service provider empowering businesses to create high-performance, scalable, and immersive interactive experiences. Trusted by global developers across industries like social, gaming, e-commerce, and entertainment, ZEGOCLOUD’s infrastructure is built to support next-gen AI-driven use cases, such as digital human live streaming.

Why Choose ZEGOCLOUD for AI-Powered Digital Human Streaming

ZEGOCLOUD delivers an end-to-end solution tailored for building smart, engaging, and scalable AI hosts. Here’s what sets it apart:

• Conversational AI Integration: Compatible with ChatGPT, MiniMax, Doubao, and other LLMs, with flexible TTS support.
• Voice and Avatar Intelligence:
  • 95% voice recognition accuracy, even in noisy environments
  • Real-time lip-sync avatar generation (<200ms delay)
  • 100+ lifelike voice options and real-time cloning
  • Persona customization: tone, knowledge base, and gender
  • Multi-user, multi-agent conversation support
• Cross-Platform SDKs: Easy integration into iOS, Android, Web, Flutter, and more.
• Global Low Latency: 1-second global audio response, robust edge-node network.
• Real-Time Audio Excellence: Includes noise suppression, echo cancellation, and voice activity detection.
• Developer-Centric Design: Less than 10 lines of code to get started; optimized for concurrent scenarios and cost-efficiency.

How to Create an AI Digital Human with ZEGOCLOUD

Want to build your own AI-powered digital human? With ZEGOCLOUD’s Conversational AI Agent, you can create lifelike virtual hosts that speak, respond, and engage in real time—across any platform.

Step 1: Define the AI Persona

Start by configuring the digital human’s personality. ZEGOCLOUD allows you to customize tone of voice, gender, language, and knowledge base. You can choose from over 100 realistic voice styles or clone a specific voice using real-time voice cloning technology.

Step 2: Set Up Voice and Avatar Rendering

Leverage ZEGOCLOUD’s voice interaction SDK to enable real-time speech recognition and response. The system ensures >95% accuracy even in noisy environments. Pair this with ZEGOCLOUD’s avatar engine to generate lip-synced facial animations with latency under 200ms for smooth and lifelike performance.

Step 3: Conversational Intelligence with Multi-LLM Support

Integrate large language models (LLMs) such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, MiniMax, or Doubao to power the digital human’s conversational capabilities. Through a unified API, the AI can understand user intent, recall context, and engage in meaningful multi-turn conversations.

Step 4: Enable Real-Time Communication

Use ZEGOCLOUD’s low-latency real-time audio and video SDKs to connect the digital human to your end users. Whether you’re building for web, iOS, Android, or Flutter, ZEGOCLOUD ensures scalable delivery with global edge network coverage and 1-second voice response times.

Step 5: Launch and Optimize

Deploy your AI digital human in live streaming rooms, customer service interfaces, or social spaces. ZEGOCLOUD supports concurrent multi-user and multi-agent interactions, and provides built-in analytics for behavior tracking, interaction volume, and engagement optimization.

The Future of AI Digital Human Live Streaming

With continuous advancements in artificial intelligence, digital humans are becoming a central force in the transformation of live streaming. These AI-driven avatars offer lifelike interaction, support multiple languages, and remain available around the clock. They enable businesses and content creators to connect with global audiences more efficiently. As adoption expands across e-commerce, social entertainment, and education, AI digital humans are shaping the next generation of interactive experiences.

Conclusion

From e-commerce to social entertainment, AI-powered digital humans, particularly in AI digital human live streaming, are opening new frontiers in online communication, engagement, and sales. They offer businesses a way to scale interactions, reduce costs, and deliver immersive, always-available experiences. With ZEGOCLOUD’s robust real-time infrastructure, building a high-performance AI host for live streaming has never been more accessible.