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Paper short abstract

The paper reflects on the audiovisual domestication of Doubao AI in everyday life. Ethnographic research finds various sensory interaction ways and mutually constructed intelligent affective atmospheres. I argue that we should co-design the trans-spatial atmosphere for a potential post-work society.

Paper long abstract

This paper discusses the domestication of AI through audiovisual approaches in everyday life. It explores the emergence of “Intelligent Affective Atmospheres”, dynamic environments sensed and imagined across the real and virtual worlds towards a potential post-work society. Drawing on digital ethnography and sensory autoethnography, I examined the audio/video call and sound clone functions of Doubao, China’s most popular AI application with over 100 million daily active users as of 2026.

Drawing on Ingold’s “Making”, I argue that the domestication of Doubao is a mutual co-fabrication of work-life worlds. My two-year use experience and analysis of viral social media videos reveal the rapid evolution and users’ highly creative practices. The audiovisual interaction occurs in diverse contexts, including job interviews, language training, consultation, companionship, object identification, clothes matching and entertainment. Notably, the 5-second sound clone makes designed sonic experience accessible and malleable for everyone. Doubao acts as a digital-material presence that reshapes the sensory texture of daily life. Through these practices, AI is transformed from a tool into a partner for exploring the prospective lifestyles.

As an intelligent technology embedded in personal devices, Doubao “shakes” both online and offline spaces. Based on the theory of affective atmosphere, I analyze the trans-spatial atmosphere influenced by the interplay between online collective resonance (social media trends) and offline private usage. The sharing of sensory experience creates a loop between digital interfaces and human beings.

My research calls for anthropologists to co-design these intelligent atmospheres to help navigate future work-life configurations in an automated world.