On Monday, Chinese streaming platform iQIYI unveiled its AI Artist Library initiative with considerable fanfare, claiming that more than 100 artists had already been onboarded.
The company said the program will use authorized multimodal data to build digital avatars of performers and position the library as a scalable, compliant solution for AI-assisted film and TV production.
The rollout, however, quickly ran into trouble.
Shortly after the announcement, Chinese actor Zhang Ruoyun’s studio issued a statement denying any involvement, saying it had never signed any AI-related authorization and that legal action was underway.
Similar denials then came from parties associated with well-known Chinese actors Wang Churan, Li Yitong, and Yu Hewei, which triggered a wave of online scrutiny and cast doubt on the accuracy of iQIYI’s claims.
Facing mounting backlash, iQIYI moved to clarify its positioning. The company framed the artist library not as a finalized roster of contracted AI performers, but as a matchmaking infrastructure for AIGC creators.
In this model, inclusion signals a potential willingness to explore AI-driven projects, while any actual participation—along with format, scope, and compensation—would still require case-by-case negotiation, similar to traditional production workflows.
That distinction, however, has done little to fully address concerns. Critics argue that marketing language such as “signed” and “onboarded” blurred the line between exploratory interest and formal authorization, creating room for misinterpretation.
Legal observers have also flagged structural risks in the model: even with consent, the reuse of an actor’s likeness and performance data in AI systems raises complex questions around ownership, control, and long-term rights management.
Beyond the immediate PR fallout, the episode shows a broader tension facing the entertainment industry. As generative AI tools move from experimentation to production, platforms such as iQIYI are racing to build the infrastructure for digital performers.
But without clear standards around consent, compensation, and governance, such efforts risk colliding with the very talent ecosystem they depend on.
In that sense, the controversy is less an isolated misstep than an early signal: scaling AI in creative industries will require not just technical capability, but also new contractual frameworks and a much tighter alignment between platform narratives and artist expectations.
