During this year’s Double 11 shopping spree, JD.com launched the “Zero-Frame Start” digital human mini-program, which attracted widespread attention from merchants and users. In particular, its “Everything Has a Soul” campaign opened up AI digital human technology to merchants and ordinary users, enabling “zero-threshold” creation for all and unleashing the convenience and popularization potential of digital human technology.
Digital humans have become one of the key future industrial directions fostered at the national level. This technology, once only a concept in science fiction, has now moved from sci-fi to reality and been widely applied in various fields such as e-commerce, finance, healthcare, culture and entertainment, education, and government services.
Policy Drive: Multi-Level and Systematic Support for Industrial Innovation and Development
In terms of policy support, governments at all levels, from the central to local, have actively introduced measures to promote the development of the digital human industry and provide strong support for technology implementation.
In August 2025, the State Council issued the Opinions on Further Implementing the “Artificial Intelligence +” Initiative, proposing to build a public security governance system covering multiple subjects such as natural persons, digital humans, and intelligent robots, strengthen the application of artificial intelligence in fields like work safety, disaster prevention and mitigation, and public security, and enhance national governance capabilities.
In July 2025, four ministries and commissions including the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the Ministry of Education jointly launched the 2025 Metaverse Typical Case Collection, placing “typical digital human cases in the metaverse” at the top of the recommended list. The application guidelines stated that units submitting cases must have full intellectual property rights to the virtual images involved in the cases or have obtained legal authorization from the right holders.
In June 2025, the General Office of the Shanghai Municipal People’s Government issued the Several Measures for Promoting the High-Quality Development of Shanghai’s Software and Information Service Industry, proposing to carry out forward-looking research in key technology fields such as digital humans, digital twins, virtual reality, perceptual interaction, and spatial computing.
The Beijing Action Plan for Promoting the Innovative Development of the Digital Human Industry (2022-2025) set a clear goal: by 2025, the scale of Beijing’s digital human industry will exceed 50 billion yuan, a technological system and industrial ecosystem with Internet 3.0 characteristics will be initially built, and Beijing will become a national innovation hub for digital humans.
Against this backdrop, Beijing’s digital human industry in 2025 is accelerating progress around three core directions: technology, application, and ecology. In the field of e-commerce live streaming, digital humans have served more than 500 well-known brands; in the cultural and entertainment sector, literary IPs have deeply integrated with metaverse technology, giving rise to new forms of immersive storytelling; in industrial manufacturing, digital humans are regarded as an important part of industrial intelligent agents, helping to promote the digital and intelligent transformation of the manufacturing industry.
Technology Competition: Tech Companies Layout Core Capabilities to Drive Cost Reduction and Efficiency Improvement
At the enterprise level, technology companies such as Baidu, Huawei Cloud, SenseTime, and JD.com have actively deployed resources to provide the industry with underlying technical support and solutions, promoting cost reduction and efficiency improvement in the industry.
On October 15, Baidu released the industry’s first open real-time interactive digital human agent, which possesses capabilities such as highly realistic images, low-latency interaction, open real-time dialogue, and emotion recognition, enabling it to provide services with higher professionalism and emotional warmth.
Huawei Cloud MetaStudio launched digital human generation services, supporting the creation of stylized digital humans, realistic digital humans, and 3D video production of real people. It also opens API interfaces to developers, facilitating the rapid creation of diversified digital human applications.
SenseTime’s “Ruying” image-based digital human technology can generate high-quality videos within minutes using only a single portrait photo, supporting multilingual broadcasting and emotional expression. This technology brings brand-new interactive experiences to industries such as education, cultural tourism, and marketing.
Market Outlook: Large-Scale Application Unlocks New Space in the Trillion-Yuan Market
Currently, the digital human market is experiencing explosive growth, with technology accelerating from proof-of-concept to large-scale implementation, becoming a key driver for promoting industrial digital transformation.
In the future, as technology continues to mature and application scenarios further expand, digital humans will play a key role in more segmented fields, further extending to areas with higher requirements for professionalism and security, such as healthcare, finance, and government services. With in-depth penetration into the trillion-yuan market, the digital human industry is expected to become an important vehicle for enterprises to improve quality and efficiency, as well as for optimizing government services.
