AI Presenters Now Sell Around the Clock on China's Biggest Shopping Stages

In the small hours of the night, presenters on Chinese shopping apps keep explaining products and answering questions from viewers. Many of them do not exist. Between the start of China’s autumn shopping festival on the evening of 12 October and 30 October 2026, AI generated presenters on one of the country’s largest online retail platforms streamed more than 9 million hours of live selling. More than 100,000 merchants have now used the service. For retailers everywhere it is the clearest sign yet that the live shopping host, one of the most expensive and least scalable jobs in digital commerce, can now be synthesised.

What happened

The platform published its midpoint figures for the festival at the start of November, counted to the evening of 30 October. Alongside the 9 million hours of livestreaming, it said its digital human service had passed 100,000 merchants. A business news service reported more than 70,000 merchants in March, when the platform released new avatar models. A Chinese technology column published on 17 October said the platform was citing more than 90,000 merchants for the festival.

The growth has been engineered. The platform made its official digital human tool free for all merchants, a product it had previously priced at 30,000 yuan a year, with the free offer running until 31 December 2026. It gave AI presenters their own quality rating and their own lane for visibility on the app, so that a new virtual channel does not have to compete with established human streamers for traffic. Since the third quarter, top rated digital human accounts have received priority exposure and up to 24,000 yuan in rewards for livestream giveaways.

The same month brought a contrasting signal. A major Chinese cloud computing provider announced in October that it would close its entire general purpose virtual human product line, including avatar customisation and livestream products, with full service ending in November 2027. A Chinese technology publication reported that the provider is concentrating on AI models, chips and cloud computing, and that its sister retail marketplaces build their own digital presenters for their own shopping scenarios.

From studio crews to synthetic hosts

For years live selling in China depended on people. A brand hired a host, booked a studio and paid a production crew to stream for hours. A specialist China retail publication noted in 2024 that a single livestream session could cost tens of thousands of yuan. Few brands could afford to keep a channel running all day.

The first virtual presenters were costly. A Chinese technology publication reported that early custom avatars cost millions of yuan per character. In April 2024 the platform’s own founder appeared as an AI avatar for about 30 minutes, drawing more than 10 million views across two livestream rooms.

What changed was the arrival of large language models and fast video generation. In June 2025 the avatars of a well known Chinese entrepreneur turned livestreamer and his cohost ran a broadcast of more than six hours that drew over 13 million views and about 55 million yuan in merchandise sales, according to a Chinese state media report. Order volumes in electronics and food beat those of his real person debut on the same platform a month earlier.

Prices then collapsed. Subscription fees for digital presenters have since fallen to around a thousand yuan. A rival marketplace’s official service now costs 499 yuan a month for its advanced tier and 1,299 yuan for its flagship tier. The platform behind the festival figures says its service can cost as little as one tenth of a human streamer.

How the technology works

The platform’s March 2026 model release lets merchants create a digital twin of a presenter from their own past livestream footage. The model generates video in real time at 30 frames per second. The company says its presenters can now walk, change pose and follow a moving camera, and keep a stable face when partly hidden.

Behind the face sits a large language model. The free tool includes AI generated livestream scripts, and the newest presenters interact with viewers in real time while keeping speech, expression and gesture in step. Full service packages add a central control screen, live room management and a review of the data after each stream.

The presenters work best in standardised categories. A Chinese technology publication found that beauty, household goods and consumer electronics suit long, steady product explanations, while jewellery and luxury still rely on human hosts because buyers want trust and personality. Many stores now run a round the clock stream as their basic setup and use digital presenters to cover night time traffic.

Where it is spreading

China is far ahead. Across five major Chinese platforms, digital human livestreams generated more than 45.1 billion yuan in merchandise sales during the June 2026 mid year shopping festival, up 186% on the year before, with more than 300,000 merchants taking part. One marketplace averaged more than 100 million yuan a day in sales from digital presenters over that period.

South Korea’s television home shopping channels were early movers outside China. In September 2024 a Korean home shopping broadcast featured an AI generated version of one of its regular presenters, built from recorded footage of her face and movements, appearing beside the real host to sell tour packages to Spain and Portugal. Korean retailers have since turned to AI to multiply video output. A Seoul business daily reported in September 2026 that one home shopping group had raised its monthly short video output more than thirtyfold with AI. Another lifted staff output from an average of six clips a day to as many as 15.

In Southeast Asia the picture is more mixed. In Indonesia, where live commerce employs possibly hundreds of thousands of hosts, mostly women, sellers have tried AI presenters for snacks, Korean cosmetics and spicy sauces. A global technology publication reported in October 2025 that the avatars struggled with the quick banter that keeps Indonesian viewers watching. One agency head said that having an avatar chat with consumers cost more in data charges than hiring a person and that his firm would consider AI hosts only for overnight slots.

Gains and growing pains

The first gain is coverage. A digital presenter never tires, so a merchant can stay live through the night and through every peak of a festival. One merchant quoted by a Chinese technology publication estimated that a real presenter plus an operations team costs at least 60% more than digital presenters.

The second is capacity. When a channel costs a few hundred yuan a month instead of tens of thousands per session, the economics of live selling change. A Chinese technology column argued that many brands on shelf based marketplaces lack the people to produce content, so digital presenters give them streaming capacity they did not have before.

The third is control. A synthetic presenter follows the approved script in a steady tone. Brands also avoid the risk of a celebrity host falling into scandal, a concern that Chinese state media said was pushing companies towards virtual hosts.

The limits are just as clear. Regulation is tightening fast. China’s rules requiring labels on AI generated content took effect on 1 September 2025. Live ecommerce supervision measures that took effect on 1 February 2026 require AI presenters to disclose their nature continuously and prominently, and place legal responsibility on the operators. Interim measures on humanlike AI interaction services followed on 15 July 2026. A Beijing district fined one operator 5,000 yuan after an AI host promoted food with health claims.

Platforms disagree on how far to go. A leading Chinese short video platform requires every virtual presenter to be registered and driven in real time by a real person who has registered under their own name, and it penalised more than 450,000 livestream rooms in 2025 for recorded or unattended broadcasting. Its business depends on content that competes for viewers’ time, so synthetic hosts compete directly with its large supply of human streamers. A shelf based marketplace sees AI presenters as extra selling capacity for brands that have none.

Engagement remains the weak point. Industry estimates cited in a Chinese technology column put viewer dwell time on digital presenter streams at about 40% of that for human hosts. The general purpose provider’s exit also shows the business is hard to defend. As tools become similar and cheap, merchants who built channels on one supplier face real costs to rebuild avatars, scripts and data links elsewhere.

What it means for retailers

For retailers outside China the lesson lies in the economics of live selling. When a host costs a monthly subscription rather than a studio day, the format becomes viable for catalogue heavy categories such as electronics, home goods and beauty. In these categories product explanation matters more than personality.

The Chinese experience also shows that the platform matters as much as the technology. Adoption grew where a marketplace removed the cost, built a separate lane for visibility and paired the tool with clear disclosure rules. It stalled where synthetic hosts simply replaced human ones in a crowded feed. Retailers testing the format will need disclosure built in from the start, human supervision for questions and complaints, and honest measurement of whether night time streams add sales or only add hours.

Hosts that never go off air

The platform’s free offer for merchants runs to the end of 2026, and the general purpose provider’s service closes in November 2027, leaving its customers to move to rival suppliers. Both dates will test how much of the current boom rests on subsidy. The regulatory direction is already clear. Every synthetic presenter in China must say what it is, and someone must answer for what it says. The festival’s second half, ending on 11 November, will show whether nine million hours of tireless selling turn into lasting habits. Either way, the always on shop window is now a working format, and the cost of staffing it has fallen to the price of a monthly subscription.