Keling kann Seedance nicht erreichen
Since the beginning of this year, more than 20,000 employees of Kuaishou have been most interested in Keling.
This is not only because it has become Kuaishou's AI business with the greatest development potential, but also because after the news of the planned spin - off listing in May, the valuation of Keling once reached more than two - thirds of its parent company Kuaishou.
Keling has almost become the hope of the whole community. In the past, apart from the offensive videos published through hacker attacks, Kuaishou was rarely the subject of intense discussions.
However, the time of the planned spin - off listing is also the most unpleasant moment for Keling. Last year, Keling entered Hollywood. The proportion of foreign sales was over 70%, and the annual sales exceeded one billion yuan. It was once the only Chinese video model that could directly compete with Runway.
Just when Keling was planning even greater achievements, Seedance 2.0 emerged and changed the game situation. The global video production field has entered a situation with one dominant and multiple strong players for the first time.
This is also a breakdown of the changing competitive logic of the entire AI - video industry. Keling must face a sharp question: If it is no longer the "best video model", what can it win with?
01
The first setback of Keling
No one expected that Keling would face such fierce competition this year. Often, both its users and video production agent platforms, after using multiple video models, have unanimously settled on the Seedance 2.0 model.
Last year, Keling had many positive aspects. At that time, there had not yet developed an overwhelming oligopoly situation in the field of video production models. Abroad, Keling AI was the most prominent Chinese model that could compete with Runway.
For Jim, a director who works on AI short films in Los Angeles, Keling showed good performance last year. In addition to the models like Jimeng and Runway already in his toolbox, "Keling could still offer surprises in the areas of scenes, movements, especially fight scenes."
This is partly due to the strategic assessment of Gai Kun, the deputy general manager of Kuaishou and the leader of the Keling AI department. He believes that it is difficult to accurately describe a person's appearance in words, to ensure the consistency of a character in multiple scenes, and to describe complex micro - expressions, movements and camera work.
Subsequently, Kling O1 integrated the functions of generation, reference and editing into a unified multimodal framework. Keling AI has also gradually developed capabilities such as native 4K output, generation from reference images and audio - video integration. In the Spring Report 2025 of the world - famous platform Poe for the integration and application of large models, several video models of Keling reached a usage share of about 30%, which was ahead of Runway and Google's Veo 2.
In April 2025, the world - famous AI benchmarking organization Artificial Analysis released a ranking list. Kling 1.6 Pro ranked first in the field of video production with 1000 points in the Arena ELO benchmark evaluation. In October, Keling AI made its debut at the MIPCOM in Cannes. Thanks to its sharp prediction of technology, Keling entered Hollywood.
In that year, Keling's sales increased continuously in the four quarters: 150 million yuan, 250 million yuan, 300 million yuan and 340 million yuan, a total of about 1.04 billion yuan. About 70% of the sales came from abroad.
But this year, Seedance 2.0 has become the new favorite of director Jim. "Problems such as the consistency of characters, the transition between multiple scenes and the matching of mouth movements and dialogue, which used to take a lot of time for post - processing, are solved in one go by Seedance 2.0." Jim said.
Liu Jiaming, a foreign entrepreneur in the field of AI video agency, feels this particularly strongly. On the homepage of his founded platform CrePal.ai, there must be a banner advertisement for Seedance. This is not because the platform wants it, but because the users demand it.
In the ranking list of model calls on the platform in the past six months, Seedance 2.0 took the first place with a clear lead, followed by Google's Veo 3.1 in the second place. Liu Jiaming said that users mainly use Veo 3.1 because of its low price. "Users who make films with low requirements use Veo to save costs. As soon as they strive for quality, they use Seedance."
Abroad, Seedance 2.0 has also gained the upper hand due to its absolute model advantages.
In China, Seedance 2.0 has also captured most of the market for AI short films. According to a report from 36Kr, several people close to Volcengine revealed that the monthly sales of Seedance 2.0 exceed one billion yuan. The short - film magazine "Xinwaner" estimated that the daily sales of Seedance 2.0 is about 40 million yuan (equivalent to about 1.2 billion yuan per month), while the daily sales of its competitor Keling is only 7 million yuan.
At the same time, the valuation of Keling in the financing process is constantly being corrected by the market, although it is already on the way to a spin - off listing. From the initial 2 billion US dollars to 1.8 billion US dollars and finally to the recently published 1.5 billion US dollars. A potential problem faces Keling: Why couldn't Keling, which was in the lead before, develop a Seedance 2.0?
Whether it is about the temporary lag in model capabilities or the repeated correction of the valuation in financing, Keling cannot avoid the same question: If the advantage is eroded by the technological gap, what is the truly irreplaceable competitive advantage of the once "leading" Keling?
02
Two different paths of Keling and Seedance
Although Keling has not shown overwhelming dominance in professional basic models this year, it has actually found its own path in the foreign market.
In Liu Jiaming's view, the models last year each had their own advantages, but none had achieved a sudden superiority in productivity. Most were still C - side entertainment businesses. Most Chinese teams, including Keling, have won new customers for their AI video agencies through short videos. Through some successful video samples and viral spread, new users were won, especially mobile users.
The most prominent example is that in December 2025, Keling released version 2.6 and added the "Motion Control" function. Users can create AI videos within one minute based on their own photos and original motion videos.
During the following Chinese New Year holidays, Keling was often found on the trending lists of Instagram and TikTok. Keling AI introduced several template - based functions such as dynamic photos, AI + pet magic videos, comic short films, festival greeting videos and travel memory videos. The "Dancing Pet" video even became a popular trending word on TikTok in North America and even in Korea and Japan.
As a result, the number of mobile users and the sales of Keling increased rapidly.
According to data from Sensor Tower, the average daily sales of Keling AI's mobile platform in January 2026 increased by 102% compared with December 2025, and the sales in the Korean market increased by 13 times. The number of paying users of the Keling AI app increased by about 350% compared with December of last year. Keling AI ranked first among all graphic and design apps on the download lists in Korea, Singapore and other countries; it ranked second on the revenue list in the United States.
In the market of global AI image and video production apps in the first quarter of this year, PixAI, Keling Kling and Runway occupied most of the market. Keling was even ahead of Jimeng, which is supported by Seedance 2.0.
This means that Keling even has a greater advantage than Jimeng in the foreign mobile market. However, the proportion of mobile sales in Keling AI's revenue list is still small and has not played a dominant role.
Keling's storytelling concept is more targeted at professional customers. A person close to Keling told us that the foreign users of Keling are mainly professional users, while mobile users are more likely to be private authors who do not have much influence.
At the earnings conference for the first quarter of 2026, Keling AI achieved sales of over 650 million yuan, which is a three - fold increase compared with the previous year. Cheng Yixiao explained that the strong growth of Keling AI's sales is driven by the double driving forces of API call revenues from B - side corporate customers and subscription revenues from P - side paying members, and both the number of users and the average monthly payment amount have increased significantly. These two types of customers are the professional customers that Keling really wants to win.
Although the sales of professional customers also grow rapidly, J.P. Morgan also said that it does not grow as fast as mobile sales. In addition, the influence of Seedance on Keling's professional customers only really became clear in the second quarter. So far, no corresponding revenue data has been published.
Whether Keling accepts it or not, there is currently little doubt in the choice of professional customers. The overwhelming dominance of Seedance 2.0 has made it an indispensable tool for professional authors. Keling has become more of an alternative.
The advantages of Keling and Seedance are clearly different. For users, it is possible that they will open Keling first when they want to make a fun video. When they need complex camera scenes, they will think of Seedance first.
Behind the users' priority are two different paths. Web users are more likely to be professional authors. They are willing to wait longer for production and learn to set complex parameters. They need advertising films, short films, film and TV materials or commercial content.
A Chinese provider of AI short films complains about the high prices of Seedance 2.0. Due to the low market price, the profit has almost dropped to zero, and he feels almost like a worker for Seedance. But he also admitted that for some complex camera scenes, in order to achieve a good result, he has to use Seedance even if the price is higher.
Mobile users are different. This market is mainly targeted at private authors, and the payment demand of small and medium - sized enterprises is limited. They are not very sensitive to the technical parameters of AI models and want to learn quickly and create content that meets the current trends.
They need an AI tool to create an AI hug video in one minute, transform a graduation photo into a dynamic video or make a pet dance the latest popular dance. In this case, the AI tool should provide a large template library so that users can simply copy.
This path is not that of Seedance. ByteDance already has Jimeng, CapCut and Jianying to meet this demand. The task of Seedance is to focus on the professional direction and maximize productivity.
But obviously, Keling does not have such a choice. To gain an advantageous market position, it must pave the way for both professional users and the consumer market. At least for now, it seems that Keling is in the lead in the foreign consumer market outside of Seedance.
03
Keling doesn't have to become Seedance
For Keling, it still takes some time to reach the model capabilities of Seedance. But Keling doesn't necessarily have to become Seedance.
The foreign market is complex. Although Seedance 2.0 is very popular in foreign models, it has not reached the situation like in China where the winner takes all.
On the one hand, the business models of foreign content creators are more diverse. The revenues mainly come from YouTube advertising shares, brand sponsorships, etc. There is no such concentrated business situation as the "AI short films" in China. Therefore, the demand for "maximally improving video production quality" is not so urgent.
On the other hand, many professional directors have developed a mature workflow for AI videos. They tend to achieve a similar production result to Seedance 2.0 based on more cost - effective models through continuous optimization of prompts, adjustment of camera design and even combination with post - processing projects.
In the consumer market, the AI - video market is undergoing a new change, and the demand of mass users is exploding.
According to data from Sensor Tower, the sales of global AI image and video production apps in the first half of this year reached 150 million US dollars, and the downloads reached 170 million times. There is still a double - digit growth trend. And there are more and more participants in the market.
At the same time, the proportion of mobile sales in the AI image and video applications with the highest revenues is also increasing. The mobile AI - video products, which are mainly based on template development and provide users with an entertaining experience, have proven the market needs.
The AI - video production apps also increase the display advertising on mobile devices, which raises the advertising costs. A foreign advertising channel told us... (The text seems incomplete here)