Worldwide Olympic Partner Alibaba has unveiled a new “virtual influencer” to help engage fans during the Olympic Winter Games Beijing 2022.
Developed by the Alibaba DAMO Academy, Alibaba Group`s global research initiative, and based on cloud technology and artificial intelligence (AI), “Dong Dong” is an advanced digital persona with authentic humanlike features who can interact with fans about winter sport. During her dedicated livestreaming shows, Dong Dong can respond to questions using a natural human voice and display different emotions and gestures, while also helping to promote Olympic merchandise that can be bought in the official Olympic shop in China on Tmall. Her development is part of Alibaba`s efforts to digitally transform the Olympic Games, in collaboration with the International Olympic Committee (IOC).
“Our ambition is to use cloud technology to give the Olympic Winter Games a digital uplift and to deliver Olympic Winter Games experiences relating to cloud and ecommerce platform services to fans in a creative way,” said Xiaolong Li, Leader of Alibaba Virtual Human & Intelligent Customer Service. “Therefore, we created Dong Dong in the hope that cloud-based virtual influencers will improve the engagement of young digital natives in an exciting and natural way.”