The Process and Mechanism for Cultivating the Business Ecosystem of Virtual Digital Human: A Longitudinal Case Study Based on Luo Tianyi

Wang Wanqiu, Zhao Danyang, Hei Zijun, Tang Zhongjun

Foreign Economics & Management Vol. 47, Issue 11, pp. 117 - 136,153 (2025)  DOI:10.16538/j.cnki.fem.20250704.302

Summary

The rapid iteration of digital technologies and the declining costs of application have enabled virtual digital human to profoundly transform interaction modalities, service paradigms, and content formats across multiple industries. These entities demonstrate substantial value in enhancing efficiency, optimizing user experience, innovating business models, and expanding operational boundaries. Consequently, the cultivation of dynamic and sustainable virtual digital human has emerged as an important concern of enterprises at this stage.Therefore, this paper takes virtual digital human Luo Tianyi as the research object, takes symbolic interaction, value co-creation, and business ecosystem as the theoretical basis, and analyzes and reveals the path and mechanism of virtual digital human cultivation based on the in-depth exploration of the cultivation process of Luo Tianyi’s business ecosystem. The study finds that: First, from the perspective of business ecology, the cultivation path of virtual digital human is a three-stage evolutionary process from the construction and interactive relationship shaping of digital human, to the gathering and co-creation of audience groups, to the expansion of multi-subject relationships, and finally to the formation of a symbiotic business ecosystem of value co-creation and sharing. This discovery lays a theoretical foundation for the construction and cultivation of the virtual digital human business ecosystem. Second, the hierarchical evolution mechanism of “symbolic interaction – value co-creation – ecological symbiosis” promotes the construction and cultivation of the commercial ecosystem of virtual digital human, provides a practical path for the cultivation of virtual digital human and other virtual images, and also expands relevant theories in virtual reality scenarios.

Keywords

virtual digital human; business ecosystem; symbolic interaction; value co-creation; symbiotic relationship