AI large-scale model entrepreneurship, quietly eyeing the "millet economy" that young people love the most

Author: Lian Ran

Putting on Barbie's makeup, changing clothes, styling, or talking to Barbie as her best friend, may also envision a perfect story for her, such as finding her a boyfriend and letting them go on vacation or a wedding together...... It should be something that many girls do when they are young. Although Barbie can't respond, its existence itself is already a kind of comfort and companionship.

Now, with the maturity of technology, AI can give "life" to toys like Barbie, so that they can not only talk to the user, but also make personalized responses according to the user's needs and mood.

Barbie is no longer a silent toy, but a "partner" capable of establishing a real emotional connection. Interactions that once existed in fantasy are moving towards reality step by step.

This trend is not only reflected in traditional toys, but also extended to the field of two-dimensional culture, forming a new consumer market.

In Shanghai's Nanjing Road business district, millet shops with excessive two-dimensional concentrations are crowded with post-00s who choose cotton dolls and figurines - this is one of the epitomes of the "millet economy" at the end of 2024.

With the popularization of ACG culture, millet (ACG peripheral products) has become an important carrier for fans to express their emotions. However, although these peripheral products are endowed with emotional value, they are "paper people who can't speak" after all, lacking interactivity, and it is even more difficult to meet users' needs for deep emotional companionship.

What users really need is not only a character that can be collected, but a "friend" who can interact, communicate, and even accompany them.

ACG + AI, intelligent valley farming also came into being.

AI Yanggu: Let emotions flow

The so-called "millet" is actually a general term for two-dimensional cultural derivatives, covering a variety of products such as figures, badges, posters, cards, pendants, stands, dolls, etc. The name is derived from the transliteration of the English word "goods", which has evolved into a social currency among young people due to the fact that these products are not only affordable, but also have a wide range of consumer groups.

There are many forms of products in the traditional millet market: lightweight badges and acrylic pendants are mainly portable, while heavyweight cotton dolls and figurines emphasize ornamentality, but they are all "silent partners" and can only export emotions in one direction.

The essence of the millet economy is the emotional economy, but the current interaction stays in one-sided output, and users are more eager for two-way emotional flow.

But the user's emotional dependence on the two-dimensional character is actually much stronger than what appears on the surface. Many users will take the millet out with them, whether it is eating, shopping or traveling, they will take photos with the millet and interact.

According to Guo Yijie, the founder of Neurobo, behind this demand is a strong signal that traditional millet products are in urgent need of technological upgrading. Neurobo is committed to accurately grasping this part of the two-dimensional users - based on their deep emotional bond with the character, using Smart Valley to help the virtual character and real life deeply integrated.

Neurobo is a Shanghai-based startup that has received investment from MiraclePlus, founded by Dr. Lu Qi, former president of Baidu and vice president of Microsoft. The core members of the team come from Tsinghua University and the University of Tsukuba at home and abroad, and are committed to combining LLM and real-world scene data, so that ACG users can turn "millet" into a physical emotional partner that can be reached at any time.

Neurobo is building a "Yanggu" platform with context-aware interaction as the core, which refers to the process of allowing virtual characters to gradually understand and respond to users' emotions through continuous interaction.

Initially, Neurobo launched a tool to "pinch" smart grains, allowing users to design and edit interactions with their favorite virtual characters in different scenarios through the platform.

Users interact with Neurobo's smart millet |

At the same time, the team is also developing a hardware product related to the "smart baby bag". The ordinary "baby bag" is actually a bag used to carry and protect the doll, but the "baby bag" made by Neurobo is different, relying on its built-in various sensors, microphones, speakers and other hardware devices, as well as its self-developed situational awareness interaction system, allowing users to deeply interact with the character in the physical world, including the "doll" to perceive the user's actions and emotions, and adjust the character's behavioral response according to this information.

Users can feel the emotional response of the character through the interaction with the "baby bag", just like communicating with a real friend.

For example, in the product test, when a user goes out with Neurobo's "baby bag", the "baby bag" identifies that there is a user's favorite hot pot restaurant nearby, and will ask the user if they want to eat it.

The "baby bag" under development is not the final form, and the team is still iteratively developing and testing|Image source: Neurobo

With the accumulation of real-world scene data, Neurobo can allow millet to gradually "understand" the user's behavior, emotions and social habits, so as to achieve real deep companionship. Neurobo's innovative attempt to solve the problem of virtual characters being separated from the real world and making these characters more emotionally connected through technology.

The core concept of Neurobo is to deeply interact with the real world through two-dimensional characters, so that these virtual characters have the ability to accompany them like real partners.

Whether it is the interactive creation process of "pinching" the grain or the deep interaction achieved through hardware, Neurobo is trying to break through the boundaries of traditional two-dimensional products, and strive to make virtual characters truly a part of life, providing users with a more personalized and emotional companionship experience.

New opportunities for AI + hardware

In 2024, the AI hardware track has become an arena for tech giants and innovative players.

In the field of glasses, Meta, Rokid, Baidu, Shanji Technology, etc. have launched new products or announced progress, using AI to give glasses a new vitality; In the field of headphones, ByteDance launched OlaFriend, hiding a "soul mate" in the headphones.

At CES 2025, an "emotional technology revolution" broke out: Yukai Engineering's cat-eared robot Mirumi cures loneliness with coquettishness, Nékojita FuFu's bionic pet can sense the owner's mood swings, and Romy's companion robot designed for silver-haired people redefines the "filial piety economy" with AI.

Behind all this is the multi-modal interaction innovation set off by large-scale model technology. The combination of AI and hardware is no longer just the icing on the cake, but has become a rigid need to truly improve the experience and open up new markets, and therefore, AI+ hardware is regarded as one of the main opportunities for AI implementation in 2025.

According to industry estimates, the global AI hardware market size will be $53.71 billion in 2024 and is expected to reach $473.53 billion by 2033, of which companion products are running at an average annual growth rate of 25%. The door to the tens of billions of emotional economy market is opening.

On the one hand, the demand for emotional companionship is only increasing, and AI technology is at the right time to provide a new solution to meet this need. By endowing toys and other products with intelligent interaction capabilities, they become people's emotional sustenance objects and fill the emotional gap.

On the other hand, ACG Culture has a huge fan base around the world, and its virtual characters and story content have high emotional value and commercial potential.

The clever combination of AI and two-dimensional can not only create a more immersive and interactive experience, but also further improve user satisfaction and stickiness through personalized customization, so that fans and virtual characters can be more connected.

At present, large model applications are mainly concentrated online — for example, according to Sensor Tower, the emotional companion app Character AI reached 22 million monthly active users in 2024 and has been downloaded nearly 19 million times.

However, the industry has been keenly aware that the combination of large models and hardware will release greater potential - another data is that it is understood that in 2024, the AI+ toy field will complete about 500-10 million shipments, and it is expected that this year's shipment target will be more than 50 million units (including partners), with rapid growth and broad market prospects.

With the continuous expansion of market demand, AI+ toys are expected to become a key opportunity for the implementation of large model technology, but it also faces corresponding challenges.

First of all, the complexity of the technology and the difficulty of implementing the hardware are not a small test. From the AI model to the combination of hardware devices, every link requires meticulous technical research and development and continuous optimization to ensure a smooth user experience.

To enable multimodal interaction on relatively small hardware, it is necessary to find a balance between computing power and power consumption. For example, the cotton doll has limited internal space, so it may be necessary to design a custom chip for the sensor, and the model needs to be further lightweighted.

In addition, the accuracy of contextual awareness directly determines the user experience. For users to truly feel emotionally interacting with virtual characters, the system needs to accurately understand and respond to the user's behavior and needs.

Appealing to a wider user base and getting them to accept and engage with this avatar-based interaction model is also a challenge for companies like Neurobo. Although there are many audiences for ACG culture, it still takes patience and more innovation to guide these users to transform from traditional collections to interactions.

With the advancement of technology, especially the development of AI, it has provided new possibilities for the consumption pattern of "millet" culture. AI can help users create content and products that meet their preferences with highly personalized needs, customize characters and interaction patterns, and further strengthen inner emotional resonance and spiritual satisfaction while meeting personalized needs.

In the future, AI+ toys may accommodate a huge commercial space full of emotional value and personalized experience.