iQiyi says AI will create most of its content within five years

iQiyi Launches AI Filmmaking Toolkit Nadou Pro, Aims for AI-Generated Majority of Content Within Five Years

iQiyi, the Chinese streaming platform often called China’s Netflix, unveiled its Nadou Pro AI toolkit on Monday at the company’s annual content showcase in Beijing, announcing what CEO Gong Yu described as the most sweeping corporate overhaul in the company’s 16-year history.gizmodo

Gong said in an interview that iQiyi expects artificial intelligence to create the bulk of its films and television shows within five years, and that the company plans to transform its video app and website into a social media hub centered on AI-generated content.yahoo

A Full-Pipeline AI Suite

Nadou Pro, which iQiyi first introduced in a pre-commercial release on March 30, is designed to handle nearly every step of the filmmaking process — from scriptwriting and storyboarding to final video rendering. The toolkit integrates iQiyi’s proprietary QiZhi multimodal models with third-party AI systems from Alibaba, ByteDance, and Kuaishou Technology for its domestic version, and Google Veo 3.1 for an international edition.antaranews

One featured capability is “blockbuster prompts,” which translate abstract creative ideas into production-ready cinematic direction, according to the company’s press release. The suite also includes an intellectual property library that gives creators access to iQiyi’s virtual assets and signed talent.prnewswire

16 AI Titles and a Revenue-Sharing Boost

To demonstrate the technology, iQiyi is releasing an initial slate of 16 AI-generated films spanning science fiction and anime, with plans to launch a commercially viable AI-generated movie as early as this summer. The company is also offering AI content creators an additional 20 percent share of advertising and subscription revenue to attract more producers to the platform.yahoo

Gong said investment in professionally produced content would continue but that a portion of resources would shift toward strengthening AI capabilities.yahoo

Battling a Revenue Decline

The AI pivot comes as the Baidu-backed company contends with persistent pressure from short-video rivals such as ByteDance’s Douyin and Bilibili. iQiyi’s full-year 2025 revenue fell 7 percent to 27.3 billion yuan, and net profit plunged 81 percent, according to Caixin. Morningstar analysts have noted that strict content regulations and fragmented user attention in China increasingly favor user-generated content platforms over those built around professionally produced shows.caixinglobal

Whether audiences will pay for AI-generated long-form content remains an open question. As Gizmodo noted, while AI-generated short clips have found an audience on social media feeds, that popularity “does not necessarily mean the AI output is or will be good enough for viewers to pay streaming subscriptions or purchase movie tickets”.gizmodo