January at ObEN — PAI Hosts Amaze at China’s Network Spring Festival Gala
Ring in the Lunar New Year with PAI
We are starting off 2019 with a huge bang as we feature our Personal AI on China Central Television (CCTV) Network Spring Festival Gala, which aired on January 28th as part of the network’s programming for Lunar New Year.
CCTV is China’s largest broadcast network, with 50 channels providing content worldwide. The annual Network Spring Festival Gala serves to kick-off the network’s Lunar New Year celebrations and is watched by millions worldwide. This year, ObEN is honored to create the first ever AI hosts of the event — creating Personal AI (PAI) Twins for the four hosts Beining Sa (撒贝宁), Xun Zhu (朱迅), Bo Gao (高博), Yang Long (龙洋).
ObEN’s technology is particularly well-suited for the entertainment space, as celebrities and studios look for new ways to engage viewers and fans in more personalized and unique experiences. CCTV highlighted the versatility of ObEN’s technology in an accompanying WeChat mini-app for the Gala. Viewers who download the app can use any of the four PAI hosts to send personalized New Year’s greetings to friends and family. The celebrity PAI will then deliver a video greeting to the recipient wishing them a happy and prosperous New Year.
Given the rapid growth of the AI sector in China, and the country’s focus on developing and nurturing advanced AI technology, CCTV sought to reflect the importance of AI in this year’s Gala. ObEN’s PAI was an ideal way to demonstrate how AI and humans are sharing the stage in the world’s most populous nation. We are very proud to continue our growth and expansion across Asia, and look forward to more exciting partnerships in the new year.
New Year, New Name
Recently, we officially unveiled our Chinese name 偶邦 — roughly translating to “Celebrity Crew” — a nod to the many celebrity PAIs we have added to our family. The new name is to celebrate a recent string of high-profile projects in China, including our December collaboration with idol group SNH48 to release the world’s first human and PAI song and music video Now and Forever. In November of 2018, we also competed toe-to-toe with Microsoft’s Xiao Ice AI on the popular Chinese show My Future, gaining widespread recognition for our PAI of famous actress Dai Chunrong, featured on the show. In addition, back in spring 2018 we debuted the world’s first PAI concierge at Shanghai’s K11 Art Mall, where the PAI of K11 Founder and Chairman Adrian Cheng became the world’s first PAI virtual art concierge.
How do you like our Chinese name? And given our success in Japan and Korea, any suggestions for Japanese and Korean names for ObEN? We would love to hear your thoughts on our social channels, so stop by and say hello.
Wishing everyone a healthy, prosperous, and wonderful Lunar New Year!
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