iQIYI launches Nadou Pro platform with controversial AI celebrity talent pool

The launch marks a transition from AI as a distribution filter to AI as a core content engine, potentially commoditizing short-form dramas and mid-tier serials. By offering a 20% revenue-share bonus to AI creators, iQIYI is aggressively incentivizing a shift away from expensive, traditional production models to protect margins in a fragmented market. This ecosystem pivot tests the limits of digital rights management and audience acceptance of 'digital humans' in professional long-form narratives. Keep a close eye on the Cyberspace Administration of China's 'Administrative Measures for Digital Virtual Human Information Services,' which entered the public commentary phase in April 2026 to address likeness theft.

The controversy at the iQIYI World Conference 2026 reflects a broader industry-wide push into automated production environments. Per PRNewswire (April 2026), iQIYI’s Nadou Pro integrates nearly 70 specialized AI agents—including scriptwriters, art directors, and editors—to maintain visual and narrative consistency. This industrial-grade suite is designed to prevent the 'uncanny valley' effects common in amateur short-form AI video. To draw creators, the platform combines proprietary multimodal models with third-party tools like SeeDance and Kling, positioning itself as a centralized hub for professional AIGC development.

Simultaneously, competitors are scaling their own production suites to capture the enterprise workflow layer. Per Alibaba Cloud (May 2025), the company launched VACE, an all-in-one AI video studio capable of editing and animating clips from a single prompt, while Tencent’s Hunyuan Image 2.0 has been integrated into its advertising platforms to automate marketing creative. Alibaba has since moved to consolidate its disparate AI products—QoderWork, Wukong, and MuleRun—into a unified productivity platform to compete with Tencent’s WorkBuddy, according to Ecomcrew (July 2026).

Regulatory pressure is mounting alongside these technical advances. Per Sixth Tone (April 2026), the Cyberspace Administration of China released draft regulations specific to digital virtual humans following a surge in 'AI face stealing' cases. These rules require explicit, retractable consent for likeness usage and prohibit the scraping of existing film data for unauthorized model training. This regulatory backdrop forced iQIYI to clarify that its 'AI talent pool' is a negotiation list rather than a blanket license, a crucial distinction as the industry moves toward a夏季 or autumn release for the first AI-generated long-form blockbuster.