Tencent Cloud, a subsidiary of Chinese multinational conglomerate Tencent, has launched a new service called the “digital human production platform,” which is essentially a Deepfakes-as-a-Service (DFaaS) offering.

The platform allows users to create high-definition digital humans using just three minutes of live-action video and 100 spoken sentences, along with a fee of $145. The digital characters can be customized in terms of background and tone, and they are available in both half bodies and full bodies. The platform is also available in both Chinese and English.

The service is designed to avoid the flat intonation and single speech rhythm that plagues traditional acoustic models by using an in-house small-sample timbre customization technology that relies on deep learning acoustic models and neural network vocoders.

Tencent Cloud’s general manager, Chen Lei, has expressed the company’s hope to build an automated “AI+ Digital Intelligent Human Factory” by relying on a self-service one-stop platform for production, sales, and service. The planned digital human factory will rely on the Tencent Cloud TI platform, which offers more than ten AI algorithms.

Tencent offers five styles for its digital humans: 3D realistic, 3D semi-realistic, 3D cartoon, 2D real person, and 2D cartoon. Customized Q&As can be created for the digital human, turning them into a type of deepfaked chatbot. Tencent seems keenest on using these creations to host live-streamed infomercials – a popular form of e-commerce in China.

According to local media reports, Tencent can create doctors, lawyers, and other professionals using its DFaaS platform. AI-created images are becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish from real images. Examples include recent AI-created images of former US President Donald Trump being arrested and the Pope wearing a designer white puffer jacket.

While realistic AI image generators are readily available, creating believable AI video has proven harder to achieve. At $145 per video, Tencent has made synthetic spokespeople far more accessible. However, as expected, Beijing has already stepped in to regulate deepfake tech. In January, the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) began requiring “deep synthesis service providers” to ensure their AI algorithms are not being misused for illegal activities such as fraud, scams, and fake information.

The CAC has also mandated that services that provide functions such as intelligent dialogue, synthesized human voice, human face generation, and immersive realistic scenes that generate or significantly change information content must be marked prominently to avoid public confusion or misidentification.

Tencent Cloud announces Deepfakes-as-a-Service for $145

Mirriad and Tencent to further scale in-content advertising in the fast-growing Chinese market