Chinese video streaming platform iQIYI is executing an aggressive operational and technological overhaul, combining automated production pipelines with a bifurcated content model to reverse consecutive quarters of revenue contraction and accelerate international expansion. The platform has formalized this transition with a key leadership appointment, naming former Baidu AI Cloud executive Ying Tian as Chief Financial Officer, effective immediately. Tian succeeds Ying Zeng, who steps down as Interim CFO to resume her previous responsibilities as Senior Vice President of Finance.
Tian arrives at iQIYI with a background in corporate finance and technological commercialization, having served as CFO and head of finance for Baidu AI Cloud Group between 2023 and 2026, as well as leading finance for Baidu Intelligent Driving Group. His resume also includes extensive executive tenure across Huawei Technologies’ enterprise, regional, and Latin American divisions. Welcoming the appointment, Dr. Yu Gong, Director and Chief Executive Officer of iQIYI, emphasized the financial and operational discipline required for the platform’s current restructuring. ‘We are pleased to have Mr. Ying Tian join our management team. He brings a solid track record in driving business performance and operational excellence’, Gong stated. ‘We look forward to working with him and are confident that his expertise will contribute to iQIYI’s next phase of growth’.
The financial leadership change comes as iQIYI’s overseas programming strategy begins to yield measurable audience gains. During the first half of 2026, total viewership across iQIYI’s international service surged 130 % compared to the same period in 2025. This performance has been anchored by a coordinated ‘long + short’ programming strategy, which pairs high-budget, premium Chinese dramas with rapid-turnaround vertical microdramas. Market data reveals distinct geographic consumption patterns: audiences in Southeast Asia remain focused on premium Chinese series supported by localized dubbing and subtitling, while viewers in East Asia have driven demand for fast-paced microdramas. In the Middle East and Latin America, localized long-form episodic drama continues to command the highest engagement.
The platform has increasingly relied on in-house intellectual property to capture these international markets. In the first half of 2026, all top ten titles on iQIYI International’s Chinese drama rankings were self-produced, spanning historical epics and contemporary coming-of-age narratives, with Pursuit of Jade securing the top position across all categories. The platform also registered multi-year audience retention, with previous hits such as Fated Hearts, The Best Thing, and Speed and Love returning to the top rankings. On the short-form side, where narrative themes of female empowerment and social mobility dominate viewer engagement, the female-centric series Midnight Temptation emerged as the platform’s most-watched microdrama worldwide.
To address persistent margin pressure and lower structural costs across its catalog, iQIYI has adopted what CEO Yu Gong describes as an ‘all-in’ approach to generative artificial intelligence in physical production. The streamer recently unveiled the trailer for Immortals Over Mortal Love, billed as its first full-length, multi-season hybrid AI drama. Combining synthetic environments and algorithmic filmmaking with live-action performances by human actors, the three-season production is scheduled to debut its first 16-episode installment in the fourth quarter of 2026. The series will employ a concurrent review and broadcast model, allowing showrunners to modify plotlines and visual assets mid-season based on incoming audience metrics.
The entire series was mounted using NadouPro, iQIYI’s studio-grade generative AI infrastructure commercially deployed earlier this year. The system aggregates approximately 30 foundational models, pairing the company’s proprietary QiZhi multimodal engine with third-party tools such as Kling 4K, Vidu, Hailuo, and SeeDance 2.0. Gong stated that the company is ‘pioneering commercial long-form video content that seamlessly integrates live-action and generative AI’, noting that NadouPro has expanded into a commercial creator ecosystem that houses over 1,600 digital assets, 150 voice banks, and 6,600 registered IP properties.
This deep integration of machine-generated content marks a distinct departure from Western streaming platforms, which have largely restricted generative tools to post-production, visual effects, or script analysis. iQIYI’s broader release pipeline already includes its first fully AI-rendered feature film, Mystic Tale: Qi Tan, alongside 16 automated short-form series. As competing domestic players such as Hunan TV and Mango TV also launch full-length algorithmic productions—including a human-free, 30-episode adaptation of Journey to the West—iQIYI is banking on Tian’s financial oversight and its hybrid AI architecture to establish a lower-cost, scalable production model capable of sustaining international growth.
