iQIYI's Gong Yu Attends TV Drama Production Industry Conference: AI Triggers Disruptive Transformation, Film and Television Industry Enters Spring

On March 13th, the Second China TV Drama Production Industry Conference opened in Shenzhen. Gong Yu, Executive Vice President of the China TV Drama Production Industry Association, founder and CEO of iQIYI, attended the event and delivered a speech themed “Spring of the Film and Television Industry.” He stated that AI technological innovation is bringing unprecedented changes and opportunities to the film and television industry, promoting the platform’s transition toward decentralization, focusing on high-IP-value flagship content production, and building creator and user communities to enhance the platform’s public service capabilities. Gong Yu emphasized that although AI technology profoundly changes content creation, IP remains the industry’s greatest asset, and creativity and art are always the essence of film and television production. Among the development opportunities brought by AI technology, dedicated individuals will achieve “great wealth,” and the industry will usher in a new spring of development.

AI technological innovation is fundamentally changing long-standing industry pain points such as high costs and long production cycles, greatly enriching the supply of film and television content and bringing transformation to the industry. Gong Yu believes that the deep application of AI will inevitably drive the industry to reproduce the “One-One-Two Law”: reducing the cost of content production by an order of magnitude, increasing the number of creators by at least one order of magnitude, and the number of works by at least two orders of magnitude, leading to disruptive changes in the industry landscape. In response to this change, he pointed out that film and television platforms will shift toward decentralized social media, focus on high-IP-value flagship content production, and build creator and user communities. By optimizing content production and operation models, they will better serve creators and audiences.

Gong Yu further explained how film and television platforms can enhance public service capabilities across the entire industry chain of content production, operation, distribution, and monetization. First, by providing intelligent production tools and creator operation platforms to facilitate more convenient professional content creation and management; second, by assisting creators with IP acquisition, offering funding support and script evaluation services; third, by providing “hard” services such as video viewing and “soft” services like promotion and marketing to help creators reach broader audiences; and fourth, by enabling fairer and more reasonable revenue sharing through diverse monetization methods such as memberships, advertising, and merchandise.

Taking iQIYI as an example, the AI intelligent platform “NaDouPro” combines the world-leading foundational models with iQIYI’s extensive experience in professional content production, optimizing the entire production process from script evaluation to final output. Currently, NaDouPro supports internal teams and key partners across various professional content fields such as movies, dramas, and animation, and will soon be publicly available. The iQIYI Creator Operation Platform “iQIYIhao” provides creators with a more convenient support system, optimizing the entire content operation and revenue settlement process.

Under the new platform ecosystem, the ways platforms collaborate with creators and producers will also change. Creators will have more content brands and copyrights, better control over private traffic, and more direct interaction with users. Their revenue models will gradually shift from traditional B2B to consumer-driven B2C models. Meanwhile, the cooperation mode between producers and platforms will transition from traditional platform-produced content to a pure revenue-sharing model, with the latter becoming the dominant form in the future, and platform-produced content gradually decreasing.

Currently, AI technology is rapidly disrupting categories such as online feature films, Chinese dramas, short dramas, and animation, entering a stage of rapid implementation. However, theatrical films, flagship dramas, and variety shows remain the core content hubs and main carriers of IP in the industry, and will be the final high ground for AI technology to conquer. Gong Yu summarized that while film and television platforms seize opportunities, they should also return to the essence of content, adhering to creativity and art. iQIYI welcomes more outstanding creators to join, collaborate in co-creation, and jointly embrace a new spring for the industry!