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.

© The Japan Times