China’s $7.6M AI Livestream Just Flipped the Script

What if a livestream had two digital avatars talking, reacting, and engaging in real time?

That just happened.

Luo Yonghao, one of China’s top livestreamers, debuted his AI avatar on Baidu’s e-commerce platform.

Co-hosted with another digital avatar named Xiao Mu, this was the first-ever dual-avatar livestream and it wasn’t a gimmick.

Powered by Baidu’s ERNIE 4.5 Turbo, the 6-hour livestream generated:
✅ 13M+ views
✅ ¥55M+ in GMV (~$7.6M)
✅ 97K+ characters of real-time product description

The avatars? Fully trained on Luo’s 5-year livestream history. They mimicked his voice, humor, expressions even improvised banter with the audience.

The latency between prompt and reaction?

Less than 2 seconds.

They handled 133 SKUs, responded to live comments, adjusted tone on the fly, and never missed a beat.

This wasn’t a slideshow with narration. This was performance. Commerce. At scale.

Why this matters:

This isn’t about “replacing influencers.” It’s about replacing limits.

No fatigue. No off days. No ceiling on language, time zone, or shelf space.

Baidu’s not slowing down. They’ve already launched:

• The Mengdie Plan – digitize top livestreamers

• The Fanxing Plan – deploy 100K+ avatars, with subsidies for SMEs

• A full avatar infrastructure: model training, brand tone input, compliance filters, and real-time learning loops

If you’re a brand not doing LIVES yet?

Don’t worry about AI avatars.

But start paying attention.

Because the rules of engagement are shifting from creator schedules to 24/7 sales feeds.

From “hire a face” to train one.

From influencer marketing to infinite shelf space.

Bottom line:
China’s livestream market ($946B) just gave us a glimpse of what’s next.
Not someday. Now.

Are you even in the game yet?

Ashley Wright
Founder and CEO of Social Tale