Why AI Avatars Are Outselling Human Sales Staff
As AI-powered tools grow more sophisticated, concerns about job security among workers have been rising.
However, certain professions still appear to be safe, like sales, where the human touch – charisma and conversational skills – remains essential.
The sales domain, nonetheless, might be experiencing a transformative phase.
In China, AI-powered avatars are increasingly being leveraged for product sales over livestreams, as reported by WIRED.
Notably, these virtual entities are beginning to surpass their human counterparts in performance.
A case in point is Japanese electronics firm Brother, which has adopted virtual salespeople in China – where livestreams serve as a popular and effective vehicle for product sales.
Within just two hours of deployment, Brother’s AI avatar secured US$2,500 in printer sales, representing a 30% enhancement over traditional livestream sales.
These avatars are crafted by Shanghai’s marketing agency PLTFRM and have been unleashed across significant ecommerce platforms like Taobao and Pinduoduo, where they promote an array of products – from office devices to typical consumer goods.
“Every morning, we check the data to see how much our AI host sold while we were asleep,” affirms Brother in a press announcement.
“It’s now part of our daily routine.”
How AI enables round-the-clock selling
PLTFRM’s virtual salespeople are engineered using a fusion of Baidu’s AI video models and DeepSeek’s Large Language Models (LLMs), which enables them to produce real-time dialogue and address customer interactions during livestreams.
In contrast to prior versions, which utilised pre-recorded responses, these updated AI avatars can process and respond to live feedback instantly.
Alexandre Ouairy, Co-Founder of PLTFRM, elaborates that in companies deploying this technology, these AI-driven sales entities are now regularly outpacing human salespeople.
A distinct benefit of AI is its needlessness for rest, allowing these virtual salespeople to operate unceasingly, uninterrupted by fatigue or personal breaks.
This capability presents a substantial advantage in China’s expansive livestream ecommerce sector.
How AI is illuminating human flaws
Traditional livestream selling suffers from the inherent constraints of human presence, which AI alternatives effectively mitigate.
“You can only do a livestream as a real person for three or four hours. After that, you lose your voice, you get tired,” Alexandre says.
Sales performance data confirms this, showing decreased effectiveness as human presenters succumb to fatigue during prolonged sessions.
“When we look at the sales, the sales are better for the first few minutes or the first hour with a real person, but then it goes down because that person gets tired,” he continues.
“The virtual human is very standardised in terms of attitude.”
Is this the future of ecommerce?
China’s livestream commerce industry has reached enormous scale, with projections indicating over one-third of all ecommerce sales taking place during live broadcasts in 2024.
Research indicates that half of Chinese consumers have made purchases while engaged with livestreams.
Baidu capitalises on this burgeoning trend with an attention-grabbing showcase featuring an AI rendition of influencer Luo Yonghao.
This six-hour event attracted 13 million viewers and generated US$7.7m in gross merchandise value.
What lies in store for human salespeople?
The advancement towards AI-driven sales channels marks a critical transformation in China’s ecommerce marketing approach.
Brands are shifting focus from influencer collaborations to direct AI-led sales processes, possibly lessening the reliance on human content creators.
Alexandre characterises the technology as a supplement to existing influencer marketing strategies, describing AI avatars as functioning: “as a sales representative, the same way you’d have a salesperson in a physical store,” he says.
Yet, the cost-effectiveness of continuously active AI sales staff suggests a likely broader displacement of human roles, hinting at a summer of ongoing change for the workforce.
