WMDoll, one of China's biggest sex doll makers, expects to record a 30% jump in sales this year, as the company's adoption of open-source generative artificial intelligence (AI) models helped improve the user experience of its products.
Feedback received by WMDoll has been generally good after integrating large language models (LLMs) - the technology underpinning generative AI services like ChatGPT - into its new anthropomorphic sex toys, according to founder and chief executive Liu Jiangxia.
"It makes the dolls more responsive and interactive, which offers users a better experience," Liu said in a recent interview with the South China Morning Post.
WMDoll - based in Zhongshan, a city in southern Guangdong province - embeds the company's latest MetaBox series with an AI module, which is connected to cloud computing services hosted on data centres across various markets where the LLMs process the information from each toy.
According to the company, it has adopted several open-source LLMs, including Meta Platforms' Llama AI models, which can be fine-tuned and deployed anywhere.
The next-generation sex dolls - which are still supported by a metal skeleton and have either a silicone or thermoplastic elastomer exterior - reflect this industry's open-minded approach to innovation to improve customer satisfaction. By comparison, traditional sex dolls are limited to simple responses and lack the expressive capabilities needed to engage with a human.
Open source gives public access to a program's source code, allowing third-party software developers to modify or share its design, fix broken links or scale up its capabilities. Open-source technologies have been a huge contributor to China's tech industry over the past few decades.
Soon after OpenAI released ChatGPT in November 2022 and sparked a wave of AI-related investments around the world, WMDoll started to explore how the technology could revolutionise the sex toy industry, according to founder Liu.
After a year's development, the company in 2024 sent more than 100 prototypes of its LLM-powered MetaBox series to customers in North America and Europe, its major markets.
Like previous versions, the new series of sex dolls not only replicate humans' physical features like soft skin and genitals, they can also let out different sounds when touched. With AI integration, the latest sex dolls are more intelligent - offering about eight different "personalities" to choose from - and can continue a conversation started a few days earlier with a user.
The LLM-powered dolls are expected to cost from US$100 to US$200 more than existing versions, which are currently sold between US$1,500 and US$2,000. Customers will also be charged for token usage on a monthly basis after the first year of connectivity, according to Liu. A token is a fundamental unit of data that is processed by generative AI algorithms.
To address privacy concerns, WMDoll added a function that enables users to delete archived data with just one click on the AI-powered dolls. "All data is stored locally in the country [where the dolls are used] and we don't have access to them," Liu said.
She said the company was still weighing the adoption of DeepSeek's AI models because these are not supported in countries like Italy.
Hangzhou-based DeepSeek has triggered a wave of AI deployments across China's hi-tech manufacturing sector - including personal computers, robots and electric vehicles - after the company emerged as the country's newest symbol of overcoming US sanctions.
WMDoll, according to Liu, is one of the first players in China's sex toy industry and has always focused on innovation, which gives the company confidence in the AI adoption race. Compared with foreign brands, she said WMDoll has the "advantage in raw material costs and labour costs, which are both relatively low".
In the southern tech hub of Shenzhen, sex doll maker Starpery Technology last year started training its own LLM for updated products - available in male and female forms - to gain new capabilities. Its dolls are powered by AI models and equipped with sensors to enhance the user experience by focusing on emotional connection rather than just basic conversational abilities.
Founded in 2010 as a mannequin manufacturer, WMDoll did not pivot to adult toys until two years later after receiving an order from a sex shop. By 2016, the company started to make its sex dolls conversational by connecting to databases of Baidu and iFlyTek. The dolls' responses, however, were limited and unnatural, according to Liu.
Its products are marketed as WMDoll, AngelKiss, Galatea, JKDoll and Jinsandoll overseas. About 90% of its sales are outside mainland China, with shipments to the United States making up half of the company's export volume.
Liu said the recent tariff increase imposed by the Trump administration has affected its business. "In some cases, we just asked for the 10% extra tax from local distributors; in other cases, each side paid for an additional 5%," she said.
WMDoll is currently working on a wearable device that would enable a non-AI toy to access its LLMs. It is also teaming up with Shenzhen-based start-up Mind with Heart Robotics to build dolls with lifelike facial expressions such as blinking and smiling. There are also plans for developing body movements.
This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the leading news media reporting on China and Asia.