87-Second AI Ad with Joey Wong's Digital Double Sparks Marketing Debate

For marketers, the AI-generated trailer of Joey Wong represents a paradigm shift in brand ambassador strategies—allowing brands to resurrect beloved celebrities without the constraints of live talent. As NetEase harnesses AI to replicate Wong's youthful star power for a game anniversary, the move opens new revenue streams for retired performers and raises critical questions about authenticity, artistry, and consumer trust in AI-driven advertising.

The decision by retired Taiwanese actress Joey Wong to license her youthful likeness for an AI-generated game trailer marks a significant milestone in the commercialization of digital doubles. Released on July 16, 2026, the 87-second trailer titled 'Qianying' was produced entirely using artificial intelligence by Chinese gaming giant NetEase for its Tianxia online game series. Wong, 59, who retired from acting in 2004 and is best known for her iconic role in 'A Chinese Ghost Story,' authorized the digital reconstruction of her younger screen image. The production leveraged NetEase's DM Monet tool in conjunction with generative AI from Volcano Engine — the technology platform behind ByteDance's Doubao large language model — demonstrating how cloud-based AI services are converging with entertainment IP. Just weeks earlier, Wong was named a brand ambassador for the game's 18th anniversary, positioning her digital double as a strategic asset for ongoing marketing.

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From a technological standpoint, the collaboration between NetEase's DM Monet and ByteDance's Volcano Engine signals a maturing ecosystem where enterprise-grade AI tools are accessible for creative production.

The same week, Hong Kong actor Lawrence Ng, 62, announced he had licensed the likeness of his 20-year-old self for an AI film, receiving what he called 'considerable' remuneration without needing to participate in production. His contract explicitly restricts use of the digital double to that single project, underscoring emerging contractual norms in AI-driven celebrity engagements. These two high-profile cases from the Chinese-language entertainment market illustrate a broader trend: aging stars monetizing their younger personas through AI-generated content, while brands and studios gain cost-effective access to beloved personas without physical constraints.

The implications ripple across multiple industries. For the entertainment sector, AI doubles challenge the traditional definition of an actor's legacy, offering a post-retirement revenue stream but raising questions about artistic control and legacy dilution. Fans of Wong have debated whether the AI re-creation can ever capture the artistry that made her famous, highlighting a potential backlash if the technology is perceived as gimmicky or disrespectful. For the advertising and marketing world, brand ambassadors who are digitally immortalized can appear in campaigns indefinitely, reshaping endorsement economics. However, the legal framework remains nascent: questions around perpetual likeness rights, moral rights, and consumer protection from misleading AI-generated content are unresolved.

From a technological standpoint, the collaboration between NetEase's DM Monet and ByteDance's Volcano Engine signals a maturing ecosystem where enterprise-grade AI tools are accessible for creative production. The 87-second trailer, while brief, required deep integration of generative adversarial networks and possibly large language models to produce a coherent narrative without a single frame of live-action footage. As AI generation becomes more photorealistic, the lines between authentic archival footage and AI reconstruction will blur, demanding new disclosure standards—a concern already raised by regulators in multiple jurisdictions.