How AI is Transforming Video Creation and Consumption at Scale

At the MEET 2021 Intelligent Future Conference, iQIYI Vice President Xie Danming highlighted the pivotal role of AI in reshaping the video industry, emphasizing that the convergence of technology and art can drive sector-wide upgrades.

AI‑Powered Content Creation

iQIYI has built an AI‑enhanced platform serving two main user groups: content creators and consumers. For creators, the company offers a material library that eliminates the need to source copyrighted footage from external sites.

The pandemic accelerated the importance of intelligent technologies in the industry.

AI‑based restoration can reduce 80% of manual work for tens of thousands of archival films.

A cloud recording system enables online production, while XR technologies (AR/MR) create virtual studios for filming.

AI improves ad‑placement efficiency, cutting budget losses.

Combining AI with art boosts overall industry development.

In variety shows, iQIYI deployed a large‑scale AI variety‑creation system called the "iCreate Media Asset System". Hundreds of cameras generate massive raw footage, which AI aligns and tags, achieving up to ten‑fold efficiency gains in material handling.

AI also automatically labels video segments—recognizing actors' lines, semantic content, and unwanted fragments—allowing editors to retrieve relevant clips quickly.

AI for Film Restoration and Voice Cloning

The company introduced ZoomAI, an AI suite that performs denoising, foreground enhancement, super‑resolution, and frame interpolation. Partnering with Xiamen University, iQIYI restores classic films such as "Little Soldier Zhang Ga", saving 80% of the workload before manual quality checks.

To address multilingual dubbing challenges, iQIYI built an AI voice‑conversion library. By converting a single actor's voice across languages, the system dramatically reduces the cost of producing localized versions, outperforming traditional TTS in emotional expressiveness.

AI in Anime Production

With a 400‑million‑strong Chinese anime fanbase, iQIYI applies AI style‑transfer to color line art, achieving 80% faster coloring. For new styles, creators can manually color key frames and let AI propagate the style to remaining frames.

Light‑anime (dynamic comics) are generated by AI‑driven facial recognition and lip‑sync, turning static comics into moving characters with near‑human quality.

AI‑Assisted UGC Creation

iQIYI analyzes the UGC creation pipeline—idea generation, material collection, background music selection, and editing—and injects AI at each stage to reduce effort. The "One‑Click Production" feature can analyze a star’s filmography and generate a short fan video in ten seconds.

The platform’s material library tags long‑form videos with person, action, and scene metadata, enabling creators to quickly locate assets and receive AI‑recommended background music. TTS and ASR further support voice‑over and subtitle generation.

AI‑Enhanced User Experience

For consumers, iQIYI employs AI‑driven search and recommendation algorithms to surface preferred content, and a Home AI voice‑interaction platform that recognizes voice commands across devices (phones, tablets, TVs, VR headsets, cars). The system also identifies user vocal timbre to suggest age‑appropriate videos.

Additional AI features include smart video queries (identifying actors, music, or lyric meanings), AR‑based celebrity recognition from posters, and AI‑generated personalized ad posters to improve click‑through rates.

AI in Advertising and Monetization

Advertising is treated as consumable content. By tagging long videos with detailed scene metadata, iQIYI enables precise ad targeting—e.g., inserting e‑commerce ads in shopping scenes or placing product placements using AI‑detected objects like tables or walls.

AI also powers native ad formats, real‑time ad insertion during live sports events, and dynamic poster generation tailored to user characteristics.

Conclusion

Through a comprehensive suite of AI technologies—from intelligent material retrieval and film restoration to voice conversion, XR production, and targeted advertising—iQIYI demonstrates how AI can simultaneously empower creators, delight consumers, and accelerate the video industry's digital evolution.