京东618：数字人直播商家增5倍 JoyInside设备接入增3倍

The 2026 JD 618 Grand Promotion is the industry’s first large-scale shopping festival that integrates AI across all scenarios and the entire industry chain. AI has been scaled to every core link of retail, delivering better, more convenient and personalized shopping experiences for consumers. Key takeaways are as follows:

1. AI digital human live streaming has achieved mass adoption. The GMV generated by this format doubled year-over-year, while order conversion rate rose by 77%. JD also launched immersive live streams featuring digital humans of popular IPs, which delivered stronger interactivity and drove significant gains in both traffic and sales.

2. AI has penetrated into offline smart hardware products, and many new devices embedded with JD’s AI capabilities have become bestsellers. The industry has moved beyond pure parameter competition, shifting focus to solving actual consumer pain points, with AI-powered toys, bathroom products, and eye-care lamps all posting strong market performance.

3. AI-powered personalized services are now available across the entire shopping journey. AI assistants connect the full process from pre-sales inquiries to after-sales support, and JD has rolled out interactive gamified activities. Today, AI personalized services have become a preferred option for many consumers when making shopping decisions.

The large-scale AI deployment during JD 618 unlocks clear industry trends and growth opportunities for brands. Key insights are as follows:

1. On brand marketing: Digital human live streaming has reshaped brands’ live commerce operations. JD’s JoyStreamer platform now serves more than 80,000 merchants. For brands that enabled digital human live streaming, GMV doubled year-over-year and conversion rose 77%. Brands can also create IP-integrated digital human live events, which can generate hundreds of millions of impressions and deliver substantial growth in both traffic and sales. AI-driven smart marketing also matches user needs more accurately, boosting marketing ROI.

2. On product R&D: Competition in the consumer hardware space has moved beyond traditional parameter-based competition, with scenario-based implementation and user problem-solving now becoming core competitive strengths. Brands do not need to develop AI capabilities in-house; they can quickly add smart interactive features via JD’s lightweight JoyInside AI empowerment model, making it much easier to build hit products.

3. On consumer trends: Consumers have fully embraced AI-assisted decision-making, and personalized AI services have shifted from a nice-to-have add-on to a preferred shopping option. AI integration is an inevitable strategic direction for brands.

The large-scale AI deployment during JD 618 opens multiple new growth opportunities for both online and offline sellers. Key takeaways are as follows:

1. On growth track opportunities: AI has penetrated the entire retail value chain, with digital human live streaming, AI smart marketing, and AI product empowerment all emerging as entirely new growth tracks. During this 618, the number of merchants launching digital human live streams grew 5x year-over-year, and the number of AI-enabled smart hardware products tripled, pointing to very broad growth potential in these segments.

2. On tangible business benefits: Enabling JD’s digital human live streaming drove a 100% GMV increase and 77% conversion lift for participating sellers. Launching AI-empowered products also improves the odds of building a bestseller: for example, JD-built AI toys posted a more than 150% month-over-month sales increase. AI smart marketing also matches consumers more accurately, effectively improving return on marketing spend.

3. On implementation paths: Sellers do not need to develop AI technology in-house. They can quickly deploy AI-powered features relying on JD’s existing AI platforms, drastically lowering the barrier to entry. With consumers already fully accepting AI services, early AI integration delivers first-mover growth advantages.

The AI deployment during JD 618 brings new product directions and business opportunities for manufacturing factories. Key takeaways are as follows:

1. On product design and development demand: Competition in the consumer hardware industry has moved beyond traditional parameter-based rivalry, as consumers now prioritize scenario functionality and ability to meet real needs. Factories need to adjust their R&D focus, shifting from competing on specs to building AI-powered scenario-specific features.

2. On business opportunities: Factories do not need to invest heavily to develop AI technology in-house. Leveraging JD’s lightweight JoyInside AI empowerment model, they can quickly add human-like smart interactive features to their products and build cross-category bestsellers. During this 618, multiple AI-powered new products hit top sales rankings, confirming AI products as an entirely new growth track.

3. On digital and e-commerce insights: Partnering with JD’s AI ecosystem gives factories fast access to mature technology, as well as access to the platform’s promotional traffic to incubate hit products. This helps factories accelerate the intelligent upgrade of their product lines and unlock new growth opportunities.

The large-scale AI deployment during JD 618 reveals new industry trends for retail AI services. Key insights are as follows:

1. On industry development trends: AI has completed its upgrade from an auxiliary tool to a core productivity driver for retail, with full penetration across online live marketing, offline smart hardware, and end-to-end user services. Large-scale industry adoption has arrived, and market demand is booming. The 5x year-over-year growth in the number of merchants adopting digital human live streaming is the most direct proof of this shift.

2. On core customer pain points: The vast majority of brands, merchants and factories lack the capacity to develop AI technology in-house. They need lightweight, quickly integrable, low-cost AI empowerment solutions that lower the barrier to AI adoption and let them capture the dividends of AI upgrading fast.

3. On reference solution directions: Service providers can follow JD’s model, launching modular, lightweight AI-enabled products that cover multiple scenarios including live streaming, marketing, product intelligence, and user services, to help clients roll out AI features quickly. Providers can also expand value-added services through IP operations to amplify their service value.

JD’s end-to-end AI deployment during the 618 promotion offers a lot of replicable experience for retail platforms of all types. Key insights are as follows:

1. On market demand: Merchants and brands are actively looking to adopt AI to cut costs, improve efficiency and build hit products, while end consumers have already fully accepted AI services and have clear demand for personalized AI-powered shopping. End-to-end AI empowerment for ecosystem partners has become an inevitable strategic direction for platforms.

2. On replicable best practices: Platforms can build out capabilities in four key areas in parallel: an open digital human live streaming platform, an AI integration ecosystem for smart hardware, an AI-powered user service toolset, and intelligent marketing. Platforms should prioritize lightweight integration solutions to lower the adoption barrier for merchants and brands, while combining IP operations and interactive activities to boost user engagement and retention.

3. On trend positioning: AI has already achieved large-scale commercial落地, so platforms need to accelerate end-to-end AI deployment to capture the dividends of technological upgrading. At the same time, players should focus on practical scenario implementation and real problem-solving, avoid overhyping pure technology concepts, align with the core direction of current industry competition, and mitigate the risks of concept-driven speculation.

The large-scale AI deployment during the 2026 JD 618 promotion reveals the latest developments in AI integration across the retail industry. Key research findings are as follows:

1. On new industry developments: AI now penetrates all core retail links including live commerce operations, smart hardware, user services, and omnichannel marketing, achieving large-scale commercial落地 and completing its value upgrade from "auxiliary tool" to "core productivity". This has completely restructured the matching logic of people, goods and场景 in retail.

2. On mature new business models: Platform-led lightweight AI empowerment is a proven commercial model. Instead of developing AI technology in-house, merchants and brands can quickly launch AI-powered features by leveraging the platform’s existing AI capabilities. This model covers all scenarios from online marketing and live streaming to offline product intelligence, and has already validated multiple successful hit product cases, confirming the model is commercially viable.

3. On new industry characteristics: On the consumer side, users have fully accepted AI-assisted decision-making, with personalized AI services becoming a preferred option for shopping decisions. On the supply side, hardware competition has moved beyond parameter rivalry, with scenario implementation capability now the core competitive advantage. These are all new industry characteristics brought by the AI transformation of retail.