IQiyi, a Chinese video streaming company, is focusing on the ageing population in the nation while leverageing AI technologies to support content creation.
TakeAway Points:
- Gong Yu, the founder of IQiyi, cited projections that indicate that by 2033, almost 25% of China’s population will be old.
- In order to increase the productivity of content creation, IQiyi is also utilising AI techniques.
- iQiyi executives did not disclose whether they had comparable technology at scale during the presentations on Tuesday morning, although they did show a snippet from OpenAI’s Sora text-to-video commercial video.
IQiyi’s to Leverage AI For Content Creation
Enhancing the product offering for senior consumers is one of iQiyi’s short-term objectives, Gong Yu, CEO and founder, stated on Tuesday at the company’s annual conference.
“It seems simple but it’s not, because in the past 10, 20 years, the motto has been to serve young people and not be traditional,” Yu said.
The Need For AI Support
He mentioned the decline in usage among those in their 40s and beyond who find it more difficult to read small print due to the acceleration of visual impairment caused by greater screen use. Additionally, Gong cited projections that indicate that by 2033, roughly 25% of China’s population will be deemed elderly, a percentage that will increase to 33% by 2053.
As lifespans rise and fewer individuals have children, China is ageing quickly. Even though Beijing has worked to relax limitations on households having only one child over the past ten years, the number of births has decreased.
According to Gong, when there are fewer children, each child gains significance. He predicted that iQiyi’s kid-friendly material would get better.
In order to increase the productivity of content creation, IQiyi is also utilising artificial intelligence technologies.
At the conference on Tuesday, Liu Wenfeng, the chief technology officer of iQiyi, spoke about “embracing AI.” He demonstrated the company’s tools for rapidly emulating a multi-camera picture in a virtual setting and talked about the possibilities for reusing or commercialising the virtually made objects, which ranged from houses to clothing.
Liu added that iQiyi’s AI algorithms can identify which portions of current dramas pique viewers’ attention or bore them, greatly cutting down on the time spent sifting through novels to find stories worthy of production.
Rather, Liu focused on how generative AI makes it possible for more individuals to be creators, and that in that case, exceptional creativity and great aesthetics would be the rarest qualities.
Confidentiality prevents IQiyi from disclosing more information about its AI capabilities to the general public, but creators who work with the company can find out more, according to founder Gong.
IQiyi to Explore other Market
As expansion in China slows down, he added that going forward, the company will also try to take advantage of chances in other markets.
For the first time since going public in the United States in 2018, IQiyi revealed in late February that it turned a profit in 2023. Since then, the corporation has reported losses of at least $1 billion annually, almost every year.
On May 16, the business is scheduled to report its quarterly results.
IQiyi Potential Business with OpenAI Sora
In an exclusive interview with CNBC in late February, Wang Jun, the CFO of iQiyi, stated that he is “enthusiastic” about possible new business opportunities brought about by the release of OpenAI‘s text-to-video tool Sora.
He stated that while iQiyi is not collaborating with Sora, it is internally studying the text-to-video area and that these capabilities can help it tell tales more imaginatively.
According to iQiyi, a record-breaking 65% of its major drama releases in 2023 were made up of original content.
The company says that, as of right now, it has over 50 internal studios that generate over 200 shows annually.
According to Wang, the rise in in-house production is indicative of a larger shift that has occurred in China’s film business over the past five years. Previously, most material was created by outside parties, which led to bidding wars for shows that drove up production costs.
Other well-known Chinese video services that offer longer-form material are Bilibili, Tencent Video, and Youku, which is owned by Alibaba.
