Written by | Wu Xianzhi

Edited by | Wang Pan

In the nascent stages of any productivity revolution, a shortage of production means is inevitable.

During the early Iron Age, iron products transitioned from symbols of status to widespread commodities. Similarly, in the early Steam Age, with the expansion of the British overseas market, steam engines remained luxury items for an extended period.

AIGC, a novel paradigm in content productivity, is no exception.

Many AI image and video content creators have long grappled with challenges such as tool complexity, high entry barriers, and monetization difficulties. Consequently, the image and video market is dominated by a handful of practitioners, resulting in a severe content supply shortage and untapped market potential.

On August 29, Baidu held its inaugural AIGC Future Creation League Awards Ceremony in Beijing. At the event, Baidu APP officially launched the "AI Xinghe Plan," which integrates high-quality resources to explore and nurture AIGC creators by providing traffic support, honor incentives, and commercial cooperation opportunities.

Leveraging Baidu's robust distribution capabilities, mature content ecosystem, and continuously improved AI infrastructure, coupled with the promotion of the AIGC competition, Baidu APP is emerging as the most creator-friendly platform for AIGC content creation and distribution.

Content Production Finds a New "Water Source"

As we enter 2025, the AIGC market has undergone significant transformations.

The cost of large models has declined, significantly lowering the barriers to using AI tools and increasing their popularity. Simultaneously, niche scenarios like smart assistants and AI-generated images and videos for productivity are maturing rapidly, with their penetration rates continuing to soar.

However, the domestic AIGC market is still constrained by various factors, resulting in isolated breakthroughs. For instance, producing AI animations often requires manual adjustments due to the lack of systematic integration of character movements, voiceovers, and shot compositions.

These issues typically plague content creators, and current products mostly remain at the tool level, failing to address the root problems. They need to be deeply embedded in the actual creation process, offering comprehensive content production capabilities. This requires usability to better understand users and efficiency through systematic capabilities.

Since a single tool cannot resolve productivity issues, content production platforms, in a prime position, must step up to solve the problem. In fact, over the past few years, major companies like Baidu have already accumulated experience at the tool level.

As early as 2023, when large models were surging, Baidu APP pioneered the AI Creation Six-Piece Set, encompassing AI notes for capturing inspiration in real-time to AI video production in minutes, completing the AI infrastructure from scratch.

A year later, with the advancement of multimodality, Baidu APP introduced a series of tools, such as the AI Publisher, integrating special effects, one-click video production, blind box gameplay, etc., to enhance creation efficiency and improve the creator experience. After undergoing AI transformation, creation tools have become more user-friendly and versatile.

Wang Jinghui, the manager of the outstanding creator @Zhuoer on Baijiahao, shared that previously, producing content related to historical figures involved compiling movie clips, with a production cycle exceeding a week. The result was barely satisfactory. Using the Baijiahao creation tool, the longest production cycle is now no more than a day, and with optimization, it ensures authentic restoration of historical details in clothing, background, and movements.

From Wang Jinghui's experience, we observe a preference among creators for native tools within content platforms.

Driven by these needs, this year's Dujia creation tool has achieved platform capability integration, enabling collaboration among AI Story, AI Screenplay, and AI Animation.

Another significant change brought by Dujia is that the creation process is no longer a linear one that goes against human nature. Instead, it allows seamless switching between script planning, content production, and post-production optimization, making creation more flexible.

At the tool level, Dujia integrates text, image, and video generation tools, covering almost all content production links by incorporating highlight editing, digital humans, voice cloning, animation videos, and more.

In practical creation, Dujia has also streamlined operations. Thanks to the pre-installed automated workflow, creators can transform inspiration into a complete video with just a few clicks. The intelligent scheduling system allows creators to focus on expression without worrying about technical principles or adapting to tools.

Channeling Water into the Sea: A Diverse Ecosystem

When the source is abundant, it overflows. After overflow, directing it to valuable places becomes paramount.

For the content ecosystem, a diversion system akin to the Dujiangyan Irrigation System is essential to channel water from the source to the Chengdu Plain, where higher value can be generated.

Distributing content to those who genuinely need it is crucial for realizing its true value. This principle was vital for content platforms even before the AI era.

Therefore, as Baidu APP integrates a series of AIGC tools into Dujia to provide platform capabilities for content production, it must also address bottlenecks in content distribution and flow.

With its search and content ecosystem, Baidu inherently possesses broad and accurate distribution capabilities. However, Baidu aims for targeted irrigation rather than "flooding" everything. The "AI Xinghe Plan" launched by Baidu APP embodies this approach. While high-quality content emergence is contingent, no one denies that high-quality creators have a higher probability of producing such content than ordinary creators.

Thus, establishing a tiered growth system based on screening is more sustainable than blanket subsidies.

Under the AI Xinghe Plan, AI creators are classified into four tiers based on AI technical ability, content creation level, etc.: Xinghe Navigator, Xingjian Cruiser, Xingkong Explorer, and Interstellar Intern Creator. It also outlines a stepped growth path to support creators in terms of traffic and business.

For instance, top-tier Xinghe Navigators are matched with hundreds of millions of traffic, millions of hits, a maximum of 2000 yuan/week in Bai+ traffic vouchers, and significantly increased cash advertising revenue sharing, ranging from a minimum of 1.2 times to 3 times.

The launch of the "AI Xinghe Plan" reinforces Baidu APP's AI video creation community. Prior to this, Baidu APP had already established a three-dimensional creator ecosystem comprising super creators, excellent creators, and college students, achieving notable results.

For example, super creator @AI_Talk's work "The Homeless" has over 170,000 views. Excellent creator @Zhuoer, focusing on historical content, has multiple hit works with over 1 million views and gained 15,000 followers in a single month. College student representative @Xiaolin Short Film is created by senior student Fu Qilin, with works exceeding 100,000 views.

Caption: "Window of Peace" by @Xiaolin Short Film

Data reveals that through AIGC content creation and management, creators have seen varying degrees of growth in fan base, in-app distribution, income, and influence. To date, Baijiahao hosts over 100 super creators, over 2000 excellent creators, and thousands of college students.

Driven by both technology and distribution, many high-quality short story contents have emerged on Baidu APP this year.

@Zhuoer leverages historical content creation, especially with AIGC tools and rigorous historical research, to produce multiple highly popular works. Through his production, many historical figures and once boring and obscure historical records are presented in a visual and engaging manner.

Regarding this, Wang Jinghui stated, "I believe science fiction explores the unknown, while history rediscovers the known. AI excels in generating non-existent realities, reconstructing historical scenes from our memory and books, offering a wondrous sense of time travel and immersion."

The surge in sophisticated content production, such as short stories, has directly fueled the growth of Baidu APP's AIGC ecosystem, positioning it as a new driving force for content creation on short video platforms.

Prosperity Through Content "Water Conservation"

In environmental management, to ensure future generations have sufficient water resources, the concept of "water conservation" is crucial. Water conservation regulates water flow and the water cycle through precipitation interception, infiltration, storage, and evaporation.

Managing content is akin to managing water. It requires not only abundant sources and diversion to valuable places but also ensuring the sustainability of the entire water cycle.

For content production, the focus of water conservation is people.

Ultimately, high-quality content hinges on gathering creative individuals. For Baidu APP, this translates into a three-dimensional creator ecosystem comprising super creators, excellent creators, and college students.

The introduction of AIGC has facilitated a flywheel effect in this creator ecosystem, benefiting both demand and supply sides.

On the demand side, young people, with their strong curiosity about new things, have always been the primary content consumers of science fiction, animation, and sensory-rich themes. Additionally, in recent years, young people have shown a greater propensity to embrace and utilize new production tools.

AIGC has also brought another transformation. Production systems with platform capabilities like Dujia have lowered the barriers to AIGC content production, making content consumers also content producers. Wang Jinghui is a prime example. Initially interested in historical records and videos during his college days, he has now become a high-quality content producer with the support of AIGC.

Therefore, from this perspective, AIGC is a postcard from Baidu APP to young people, rediscovering Baidu APP through AIGC.