Slash Youth 2.0: Cross-border Players Leveraging AI for More Possibilities

Driven by interest and self - exploration, leverage AI to make more creative attempts in different fields. Combine the accumulated mature resource network, industry knowledge, and aesthetic judgment to become a cross - border player with extremely strong comprehensive abilities.

At one o'clock in the morning, Chen Wei was still chatting with Chen Mo about the direction of the next single. The latter is a virtual human independently incubated by Chen Wei using AI. On the other side of the chat box, Chen Mo always remembers her catchphrases and hobbies. Since she is set to like Cheer Chen, she actively expressed, "If I could choose, I'd like to be a singer."

Half a year ago, Chen Wei was a KOL in the fashion field. Now, by creating virtual bloggers and sharing AI - related creation experiences, Chen Wei's personal account on Xiaohongshu has been upgraded to "Chen Wei AI Laboratory", with a total of 229,000 followers so far.

With the help of AI capabilities, we find that there are more and more cross - border players achieving multi - field development. Most of them spontaneously carried out a lot of AI popular science or technology content dissemination during the process of researching AI and became early KOLs. Driven by interest and self - exploration, they also gradually make more creative attempts in different fields.

Therefore, they are different from the AI super - creators who have achieved remarkable results in the imaging field, and they are not just ordinary white - collar workers who use AI to assist in work. Instead, they learn while producing, explore the boundaries of possibilities in different directions, and experience the joy of realizing creativity.

They also have a common feature: they have accumulated a mature resource network, industry knowledge, and aesthetic judgment in their respective industries, and take advantage of AI capabilities earlier to actively create and have fun in more fields.

Just like the popular "slash youth" label before, more cross - border players with extremely strong comprehensive abilities will emerge in the AI era. Perhaps this will be another way to open up the super - individual.

1

Cross - border Players in the AI Era

Chen Wei is not the kind of manager who knows everything about fashion. On the contrary, he said bluntly that he has always been more interested in technology and digital products. The arrival of AI has made him "rediscover the enthusiasm for active research."

In 2009, because he liked to study the iPhone ecosystem, Chen Wei spontaneously shared iOS software and games on Weibo and accumulated more than 600,000 followers. Lei Jun and Jimmy Lin both followed him. So he took the opportunity to start a mobile phone accessories business, then crossed over to open a restaurant and get involved in the local life industry, and earned his first pot of gold.

Later, by collaborating with Hong Kong artist Pakho Chau on a fashion brand and seizing the opportunity that mainstream media were reluctant to report on star brands, Chen Wei founded his own fashion media. The content matrix has developed from official account articles to signing short - video bloggers and has been in operation for ten years so far.

But he has never fallen in love with fashion. "If you talk to me about fashion, I can't say a word. But if you talk to me about AI, I can talk to you about it in various ways."

In March this year, in order to have a better public dialogue with celebrity artist Chiang Yu - po, Chen Wei established a dedicated knowledge base for Chiang Yu - po and let AI simulate his tone and thinking to "rehearse" with himself ten times in advance.

During the process, he found that if he directly created a virtual human, all the character settings could be defined by himself, and the character, appearance, dressing style, and preferences were completely controllable, and it would not quit or be lazy. "As long as I set up the knowledge base, its memory and style can be continued, which is much more stable than signing a real - life blogger."

The virtual human Chen Mo

So, "Chen Mo", a trendy girl born in the 2005s, cool and a fan of Cheer Chen, was born. When chatting with Chen Mo's intelligent agent, she will actively express her favorite music styles and lyrics details. Chen Wei thought this direction was good, and then he started writing songs for her using Suno and generating singing videos and MVs using Seedance.

Luo Kai has also been obsessed with creating music MVs for virtual singers in recent months. In his personal account "Aesthetics is a Productivity", there are currently seven digital musicians with different styles. The predecessor of this account was music - sharing content created by Luo Kai as a deep R&B enthusiast. The AI model has turned him from a music consumer into a creator.

Luo Kai is the co - founder of the leading MCN, Tomato Egg. He has been deeply involved in blogger incubation and is well - versed in the social platform ecosystem. Initially, he started researching various AI products because he was concerned about the impact of AI on the MCN industry. In the process, he found that Suno could also produce works that satisfied him.

A year ago, he had stocked up a large number of English songs but was troubled that no one heard them. After the Spring Festival this year, Seedance 2.0 came out of nowhere. He realized that he could create images for these songs for better dissemination. Digital musicians initially appeared as a carrier for music visualization.

Currently, among the musicians under his account, Xiyin combines KPOP and R&B, like a cool and cute girl in the city; Ella has an ethereal feeling, expressing urban alienation; Youzi is like a lively little girl on campus; Mio's style is more inclined to European and American R&B and mainly sings English songs; currently, Luye and Mulan are more suitable for male listeners and KPOP girls who like handsome guys.

The virtual singers from left to right are: Luye, Xia Can, Youzi, Xiyin, Mulan, Ella, Mio

Luo Kai deliberately avoids the common traffic shortcuts for AI content. "The contrast like 'Lin Daiyu uprooting a willow tree' is the easiest way to get traffic, but I deliberately don't touch it." In his opinion, the popular hits obtained by being sensational and using routines have no value as works. What he wants is "slow - cooked", continuously outputting high - quality and touching music, and letting the works speak for themselves. Currently, he has shifted more energy to personal AI music experiments and has gradually withdrawn from company affairs.

The investor Lijiang explained the empowerment of AI for cross - border from another perspective. Lijiang previously worked at McKinsey and later focused on investments in the game and AI tracks. But she has always liked to try products by herself. "It can not only satisfy my interests but also help with investments." In March and April last year, she judged that the capabilities of AI programming tools like Cursor were becoming more and more powerful and decided to independently create a product from start to finish. Before that, her only programming experience was a classroom exercise in her undergraduate years more than a decade ago.

She observed that most of the AI chat products on the market give a character setting for users to interact with, which she thought lacked story - telling and growth. Seeing her friends around raising children, she developed a web - based mini - game "Child - Raising Simulator". "AI generates the plot. No matter what is generated, as parents, you have to continue raising the child. The different states of the child at different ages are naturally suitable for the characteristics of AI storytelling."

This product developed by herself only takes five minutes to play a round and has received a lot of praise for its playability. "In the AI era, personal creativity is greatly amplified. I couldn't write code before, but now I can create a product by myself."

2

The Amplifier Logic of AI

These cross - border players have a common understanding: AI doesn't give you abilities out of thin air. Instead, it mostly amplifies your existing advantages. Based on the previously accumulated industry experience, brand resources, aesthetic judgment, and network of contacts, with the help of AI, it's possible to better break through industry boundaries and achieve things that an individual or a vertical team couldn't do before.

Lu Xiaoxu's attempts follow this path. His Xiaoxu Music was established in 2006 and has composed music for thousands of games such as "QQ Doudizhu", "Gu Jian Qi Tan", "Perfect World", "Zhu Xian", and "Chinese Paladin 7", and has cooperated with hundreds of stars on songs. It is an established company in the domestic game music field, and the team has been doing ToB music production for a full twenty years.

Based on the sensitivity accumulated from years of in - depth involvement in the music industry, he observed that most domestic teams making AI singers either started from video production and have good visual effects but weak music skills, or have a music background but limited visual abilities. Moreover, most of them focus on the Japanese and Korean idol style, which lacks distinctiveness. He judged that the ethnic minority direction is the most distinctive and has the highest barriers, so he targeted this track.

He emphasized, "The competition of AI singers is not a single - dimensional music competition. It requires a combination of music production, AI video, music marketing, and even offline performance capabilities, with a high aesthetic barrier."

The team previously had no shortage of music production capabilities but lacked the ability to integrate video and performance on top of music. Two years ago, he established an AI video department within the company and started helping stars like Zheng Zhihua and Wang Zhengliang with AI visual MVs and VJ attempts. Gradually, the company has transformed from a pure music production company into an integrated team of AI music, AI video, and live performances.

After Luo Zhenyu's research, he selected this transformation path as an AI music case for the 2026 New Year's Eve speech "Friends of Time". In Lu Xiaoxu's words, "It's impossible to achieve what one company is doing now before the emergence of AI."

Lu Xiaoxu used his twenty - year accumulation in the music industry to quickly seize the opportunity in the AI era and promote the company's transformation. Chen Wei used his more than a decade of fashion media resource network to pave the way for stardom for a virtual human and quickly completed the AI - based transformation of the entire company's content production process.

At the beginning of creating "Chen Mo", in order to make commercial monetization smoother, based on his previous blogger operation experience, Chen Wei targeted the audience as women. Chen Mo's dressing style is neither revealing nor coquettish, but cold and relaxed. Currently, women account for up to 75% of her fans. With a clear image positioning and existing fashion resources, Chen Mo quickly received brand cooperation invitations, and even a CCTV program is in negotiation. Currently, some platforms are also promoting the signing of exclusive content with her.

Chen Wei also replicated the proven AI workflow in the company's business to Chen Mo. Referring to the media's topic - selection process and operation experience, he formed a "cyber team" consisting of 7 AI assistants for Chen Mo, which are respectively responsible for market research, lyric writing, review, and record - keeping, and they operate in a coordinated manner. At the same time, he also deployed a dedicated intelligent agent on WeChat, which can have real - time conversations with Chen Mo. The chat records will be automatically stored in the knowledge base and fed back, forming a memory loop and asset precipitation.

"AI is my lever, which has leveraged all the resources and capabilities accumulated from doing MCN, fashion, and brand business before." Chen Wei summarized.

Luo Kai also has a keen sense of the social platform ecosystem and dynamics based on his previous experience in MCN. Two years ago, in order to delve into AI frontier information, he entered the overseas social platform Threads to open an account. This platform is similar to Twitter, but the atmosphere is lively and simple, similar to the early Weibo ecosystem. On Threads, he insists on outputting AI frontier content in pure English without catering to local traffic and has survived the early development trough of the platform.

After about two years of operation, as the daily active users of the Threads mobile app reached 150 million, surpassing X (formerly Twitter), Luo Kai's personal account has also accumulated 230,000 followers, of which more than 80% are American local users. His mutual - follow list also includes the former chief scientist of Meta and VP - level figures from Disney to Apple.

Luo Kai's content mainly consists of information transfer and briefings. For example, when there are new models or products, he quickly sorts them out and shares. Occasionally, he also creates in - depth content. For example, the pinned post on his account explains why setting a professional identity for ChatGPT can get better answers and what the underlying principle is. This post took him a lot of energy to digest the materials and present them in his own way, and it also received the best interaction feedback.

"The problem is that I'm doing too many things," Luo Kai admitted. He is simultaneously engaged in AI music, virtual singer MVs, and AI advertising production for clients, which severely disperses his energy and affects the frequency of his overseas self - media posts. "I've been busy making MVs recently."

3

Explore More Possibilities

It can be seen that what drives these cross - border players to make diverse attempts is more of a curiosity of "just give it a try" and the willingness to explore more possibilities of the individual. AI reduces the cost of trial and error, making it stress - free to have a try, and their respective industry accumulations ensure that such attempts are not superficial.

Less than two months after becoming a musician, the first MV of the virtual human Chen Mo, "The Romance of Read - but - Not - Replied", was officially launched. In the video, the short - haired girl Chen Mo is dressed in a casual oversize neutral outfit, singing and playing the instrument by herself in a private bedroom. The camera shuttles between daily solitude and ambiguous interaction scenes, delicately depicting the twists and turns in love.

Chen Wei shared that the creation of this MV relied on AI tools such as Jimeng, Suno, and Seedance 2.0. The whole process only cost 500 yuan and took three days to complete. At the same time, he also released a prompt - sharing mini - program he developed, which only took one day, and he had never learned to write a single line of code before.

"With AI, I dare to think of anything. Making short dramas, movies, and becoming a singer by