There are various startups around the world building virtual (avatar) artists at the moment, not to mention major labels – Sony Music and Universal Music both have projects bubbling.
Now a music streaming giant has joined them.
In its financial earnings call last week, Tencent Music showed off Lucy, its recently-launched virtual artist. “Our first hyper-real virtual pop idol,” as executive chairman Cussion Pang described her on the call with analysts.
“With a record-grade, automatically generated vocal print developed by TME Lyra Lab’s LyraSinger Engine, Lucy as a highly productive segment has created three chart-dominating original songs across different styles within just one month of her debut, and has already received the partnership interest for fashion shops or joint performances from a broad array of global brands, including Elk, Coca-Cola and KFC.”
Lucy joins a growing roster of TME’s virtual artists that also includes Xiaoqin, Shanbao and Anko.
In November 2022, TME also talked about its investment in AI music, announcing that it had released more than 1,000 songs with “AI synthetic voices”.
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