iQIYI announced over 400 new titles and plans at its 2025 World Conference in Beijing, which took place on 23 April 2025. The announcements highlight the company’s focus on a “long + short” content strategy, ways to profit from IP, and technological innovation, shaping the future of online entertainment.
“2025 is a turning point for the industry,” said Yu GONG, Founder and CEO of iQIYI. “As user attention spans shrink and content creation accelerates, we are adapting by prioritizing high-quality storytelling, expanding mini-drama formats as a new growth engine beyond traditional long-form. Our focus remains audience-centric, delivering premium content that balances commercial success with artistic value.”
Advancing “long + short” content slate at scale
iQIYI is undergoing a two-year transformation to expand long- and short-form content. The newly announced lineup for 2025-2026 features over 400 titles, including drama series, mini-dramas, variety shows, films, documentaries, animation, and sports.
Xiaohui WANG, the Chief Content Officer of iQIYI, announced that in 2025, the platform will start a new phase called the “long + short” content transformation cycle. This aims to blend large-scale productions with high-quality storytelling to meet changing viewer needs and habits.
For long-form content, iQIYI will focus on five main drama series: “Laugh On,” “Light On,” “Love On,” “Masterpiece,” and “Microcosm” Theaters. Each of these will offer serialized dramas in genres like comedy, crime, romance, literary adaptations, and experimental films, but with fewer episodes. At a recent conference, iQIYI shared plans to adapt crime novelist Zi Jinchen’s new trilogy as part of the “Light On Theater,” along with titles like “A Life For A Life,” “Low IQ Crime,” and “Dead End.”
In films, iQIYI plans to increase its own productions and create a support system for filmmakers, from nurturing new talent to producing big-budget films, to stay competitive in the market.
For short-form content, iQIYI is expanding its mini-drama strategy, where episodes last 1-5 minutes. They are launching five initiatives, including the “Thousand Mini-Dramas Initiative” and “Hundred Hong Kong Mini-Dramas Initiative,” to enhance genre variety and artistic quality. They are also introducing a “Major Short-Drama Initiative” for short dramas (5-20 minutes/episode) to boost both the quantity and quality.
In the mini-variety segment, iQIYI is creating light, theme-based content in various areas, including adaptations, new formats, niche audiences, and trending topics, to cater to the diverse viewing habits of users.
To improve the commercial success of its content, iQIYI has updated its marketing approach to provide better solutions for different content types and to explore new brand partnerships.
Scaling IP monetization with e-commerce and theme parks
Alongside expanding its content, iQIYI is working on a new strategy to make money from its intellectual property (IP) through both online and offline channels. They have started a trial of a new e-commerce platform that uses its strong IP collection, along with livestreaming and short videos. This new shopping feature lets users interact with content while buying products in real-time, and is designed mainly for iQIYI’s paid subscribers. The goal is to build a solid business foundation in 2025 and encourage faster growth in 2026.
This comes after the announcement of two major iQIYI LAND theme parks in Yangzhou, Jiangsu province, and Kaifeng, Henan province. These parks aim to bring popular IPs to life in fun and engaging offline experiences using advanced technology.
Empowering diverse viewing and scalable creation with AI technologies
iQIYI is speeding up the use of AI to adapt to changing viewer habits and make content production more efficient.
The company launched iJump, a feature that allows users to skip between scenes based on their viewing preferences. “iJump gives control back to the viewer,” said Wenfeng LIU, President of Infrastructure and Intelligent Content Distribution Business Group (IIG) at iQIYI.
“By analyzing user habits and attention patterns, our AI learns to surface the most engaging story beats — whether that means a full-length episode, a 35-minute edit, or a 20-minute fast cut. This shift — from producer-driven delivery to user-driven selection — reshapes how we design content and products.”
iQIYI also has Taodou, its smart assistant, which gives personalized suggestions and makes it easy to access content using voice and text commands. Additionally, Taodou World uses advanced AI to let users chat in real-time with almost 1,000 virtual characters from iQIYI shows, increasing the impact of its brands and making the viewing experience more engaging.
On the production side, iQIYI’s Screenplay Workshop uses AI to help creators with analyzing plots, developing characters, and improving stories. The updated QClip production suite also boosts efficiency with cloud-based asset management and wireless monitoring on set.
All these technologies help improve workflows, enhance creativity, provide immersive viewing experiences, and strengthen iQIYI’s position as a leader in smart content production.