Even six months ago, artificial intelligence-generated videos still betrayed themselves, with extra fingers, jerky limbs and uncanny facial expressions. While some of that persists, for the most part, we¡¯ve entered an era where seeing is no longer believing.

It isn¡¯t just the quality that has changed. In China, AI video is doing something else that once looked unlikely: making money. While attention remains fixed on the race to build massive foundation models like DeepSeek¡¯s, the real contest is shifting to AI products that people will pay for and the search for a killer AI app. Early evidence from Kuaishou Technology suggests the winner may not be a chatbot at all, but a video tool.

Long the underdog to ByteDance¡¯s Douyin, Kuaishou has spent the past year recasting itself as an AI video contender with global ambitions. Its Kling AI platform currently has the top spot on the video ¡°quality¡± ranking from Artificial Analysis. And most significantly, it¡¯s gaining traction not just at home but in the more lucrative overseas markets.