Chinese 'Virtual Human' Salespeople Are Outperforming Their Real Human Counterparts

The salesperson hawking Brother printers on Taobao works hard--like, really hard. At any time of the day, even when there's no audience on the Chinese ecommerce platform, the same woman wearing a white shirt and black skirt is always livestreaming, boasting about the various features of different office printers. She has a phone in one hand and often checks it as if to read a sales script or monitor the viewer comments coming in. "My friends, I've gotta plug this game-changing office tool that can double your workplace efficiency, " the salesperson said during one recent broadcast, trying to achieve the delicate balance between friendliness and precision that has come to define the billion-dollar livestream ecommerce industry in China. Occasionally, she greeted the invisible audience.