iQIYI Unveils AI-Powered Intelligent Production System at 2025 China Radio and TV Excellence Forum

At the Ultra HD Sub-Forum of the 2025 China Radio and Television Excellence Conference, Zhu Liang, Vice President of iQIYI and Head of Intelligent Production, delivered a keynote speech on “Intelligent Production in the AI Era,” detailing how AI enhances efficiency, quality, and innovation across script development, scene design, and content distribution. Below is a summary of the key insights, with the full speech available at the end for further reading.

1. Building an Intelligent Production System: Creating a Reusable, Closed-Loop Workflow

The core objective of iQIYI’s intelligent production initiative is to establish an end-to-end workflow spanning “planning–production–promotion and operation,” building a stable, efficient, and reusable content production system. This system is powered by a combination of in-house R&D and external commercial large-scale models, while continuously refining itself through digital assets and methodologies accumulated during production—forming a “high-quality content production closed loop.”

2. AI-Powered Script Development: From Mass Content Extraction to Emotional Visualization

Addressing the challenges of content screening and pacing in traditional script development, iQIYI’s “Script Studio” AI tool introduces three key breakthroughs:

Efficient Content Extraction: Capable of condensing the core content of a million-word novel within 30 minutes, significantly reducing manual processing time.

Visualization of Emotional Rhythm: Tools such as “Male-Female Interaction Diagrams” and “Emotional Relationship Curves” intuitively display character dynamics—curves converge as emotions intensify and diverge as they cool, helping creators precisely control narrative pacing.

Multi-Dimensional Script Analysis: A structured evaluation report covering seven dimensions, including theme, characters, and narrative, accurately identifies script highlights and potential issues, providing actionable insights for human decision-making.

3. From Text to Visuals: AI-Driven Scene Design and Virtual Production Implementation

In visual production, AI technology enables efficient transformation from textual descriptions to scene imagery:

AI-Generated Scenes: Without requiring artists to be on set, the system automatically generates scene references closely aligned with the script. For example, the AI-generated illustration of “Zhang Fengxia’s Grocery Store” in My Altay closely matched the final scene in the series.

Virtual Production Infrastructure: iQIYI has built a 500+ square meter virtual production stage in Hengdian, equipped with a P1.9 LED wall supporting flawless 200fps high-speed shooting and a color gamut 1.2 times that of cinema screens. Combined with iQIYI’s self-developed “100-ton waterproof electric turntable,” it overcomes key limitations in water scene filming and set switching.

Implementation Outcomes: Based on the IQStage virtual production platform (integrating 20+ patents and software copyrights, recognized with a major Beijing Smart Broadcasting award), iQIYI has completed more than ten drama series, films, and theatrical releases since 2022, receiving acclaim from both creators and audiences.

4. Digital Asset Repository and AI Dubbing: Empowering IP Value and Global Distribution

Digital Asset Repository: Archiving digital resources such as scenes, characters, and props from film and television production forms the core data foundation for iQIYI’s IP large model. These assets can be reused in immersive experiences, game development, and other scenarios, continuously amplifying IP value.

AI Dubbing for Global Distribution: Through the collaboration of four AI agents—plot analysis, dialogue integration, translation, and proofreading—the system streamlines the dubbing and subtitling process for international content. It supports voice actors performing “multiple tones per person” and can also synthesize speech directly from dialogue. Related works have been well-received in overseas markets.

5. Industry-Wide Collaboration: iQIYI Launches Global AI Creation Initiatives

To accelerate the integration of AI technology and film creation, iQIYI has launched two global AI creative programs this year:

iQIYI AI Short Film Competition: Encouraging creators to explore innovative AI-driven narratives in short-form content.

Peter Pau · iQIYI AI Theater: Focusing on medium- and long-form content, using AI to expand the boundaries of cinematic expression and empower the next generation of creators.

For further details on the technical implementation and case studies of AI in intelligent film and television production, please refer to the full speech below.

[Full Speech] Zhu Liang, Vice President of iQIYI and Head of Intelligent Production: Intelligent Production in the AI Era

It is a great honor to be here today on behalf of iQIYI to share some of our explorations and innovations in integrating AI technology with intelligent production.

iQIYI is an internet video content production and distribution platform. The goal of Intelligent Production is to leverage systematic capabilities to connect the stages of planning, production, marketing, and operations, using smart products to build a more stable, reliable, efficient, and widely replicable production system for our content. From our technology foundation to product platforms, we utilize various tools to realize this vision.

Firstly, in the current landscape where large language models have become commonplace, we deeply adapt these models to our business scenarios, making AI a true productive force. We use both self-developed and external commercial large models as core drivers. In the novel and script stages, AI assists with intelligent analysis, creative support, intelligent evaluation, and production breakdown, leading to better outcomes in pre-production design, intelligent casting, production assistance, and virtual production, significantly empowering our filming and制作. Simultaneously, the digital assets and methodologies formed during the production process feed back into the system, optimizing novel creation, script analysis, and script revision, forming a high-quality closed loop for content production.

Currently, iQIYI’s “Script Workshop” product can提炼 the core content of a million-word novel within 30 minutes. As is well known, content production platforms like ours receive a vast number of creative proposals or development projects daily. Relying solely on humans to review this content makes fundamental efficiency gains difficult. By employing large language models, enhanced through prompt engineering and content-specific training, our teams can now make more comprehensive, rapid, and accurate assessments.

For instance, when evaluating romance-themed content, we utilize two key diagrams: a character interaction graph and an emotional relationship graph. The results of the script analysis are presented visually through data and charts, intuitively showing the interactions between the male and female leads. If their emotions grow closer, the two curves on the graph move towards each other, decreasing the distance; when the characters’ emotions drift apart, the curves separate. This quantitative approach helps evaluators quickly understand the project’s pacing and emotional intensity, assessing its fit for our development needs in this genre.

Our “Script Workshop” evaluation report provides a rapid assessment of long-form scripts across seven dimensions, including theme, characters, and narrative. This report highlights the script’s strengths and pinpoints potential problematic areas. This allows us to focus targeted human effort on sections of interest, supplemented by AI-generated insights, enabling us to reach a relatively accurate judgment of the project quickly.

Meanwhile, our “Imaging Workshop” has established a closed loop from script to design. In traditional workflows, before artists join the production, investors and creators found it difficult to visualize specific scenes based solely on the script. Now, with AI tools, we can generate near-photorealistic reference images during the script stage. For example, for Zhang Fengxia’s grocery store in My Altay, the key information extracted from the script generated an illustration highly similar to the final scene in the series.

Virtual production is another excellent example of iQIYI using digital and intelligent methods to help production teams achieve efficient filming and high-quality output. We have built a 500+ square meter virtual production stage in Hengdian featuring a high-quality P1.9 LED wall, supporting flawless 200fps high-speed shooting, with a color gamut 1.2 times that of cinema screens. It is equipped with iQIYI’s首创 hundred-ton waterproof, electronically controlled real-world turntable, overcoming key limitations of previous virtual production setups regarding water scene filming and rapid switching for shot/reverse-shot sequences. Beyond hardware, iQIYI’s IQStage virtual production technology platform, integrating over 20 patents and computer software copyrights, has received major awards from Beijing Smart Broadcasting.

Virtual production at iQIYI has long moved beyond the laboratory stage. Since starting commercial series production in 2022, we have completed more than ten series and films, including collaborations on external theatrical releases. These works have been broadcast with high quality on the iQIYI platform and have received praise from both creators and audiences for their quality.

We extensively use AI image generation, AI-generated models, and 3D Gaussian Splatting for rapid product scanning to create digital assets. This allows faster, more precise, and higher-quality results for use in virtual production, while also enabling reuse across other business lines.

iQIYI has established its own digital asset library. The digital assets accumulated during professional film and television production form a crucial cornerstone for iQIYI’s IP large model and lay the foundation for maximizing the value of our copyright assets. These digital assets can play a significant role in immersive experiences, game development, and future content generation.

Beyond production, AI also aids in content distribution and dissemination. The introduction of AI Agents has streamlined the dubbing and subtitling process for both content distributed overseas and imported foreign content, a system we internally call the “AI Dubbing Factory.” This factory utilizes agents for plot analysis, dialogue integration, translation, and proofreading, generating engaging dubbed content through both voice conversion and speech synthesis. For example, a single voice actor can portray multiple characters by transforming their voice into different timbres; or even synthesize speech directly from the text. Content dubbed using these methods has been well-received by users, and numerous overseas distribution projects already utilize this technology.

In AI content innovation, iQIYI is also at the forefront of the industry. This year, we were among the first to launch two global AI creation initiatives: the “iQIYI AI Short Film Competition” and the “Peter Pau · iQIYI AI Theater.” The former focuses on short films, while the latter emphasizes medium and long-form content, exploring how AI can enrich cinematic storytelling. Both formats benefit a new generation of creators, leveraging AI innovation to build high-quality future audiovisual content, fostering a more prosperous industry and driving iterative progress.