36Kr Exclusive | Zeng Ailing has joined Bilibili as the head of the AI video generation business, reporting to CEO Chen Rui.

By Wang Yuchan, Lan Jie

Edited by Qiao Qian

36Kr exclusively learned that Zeng Ailing has joined Bilibili (hereinafter referred to as "B Site") as the head of AI video generation business, reporting to CEO Chen Rui.

36Kr has reached out to Bilibili for confirmation on this matter, and the company has not yet given a response.

Zeng Ailing

Bilibili has previously publicly stated that its AI investment is mainly focused on video understanding, video recommendation, and assisted video creation. After joining the company, Zeng Ailing may participate in related businesses.

According to Zeng Ailing's personal profile, she worked on Tencent Hunyuan & AI Lab team and the International Digital Economy Academy (IDEA) for three years, leading the human-centric perception and generation research team. Later, she joined Anuttacon, an AI company under Cai Haoyu, the founder of miHoYo, responsible for developing a human-centric interactive multi-modal video generation system. These models enable AI agents to perceive, interact with, and generate real-time, long-duration videos.

Zeng Ailing received her doctorate degree from the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, and was once a visiting scholar at the Robotics Institute of Carnegie Mellon University.

Bilibili has long been looking for a stable leader for its AI business. Last September, Zhang Di, former vice president of Kuaishou and former head of the Technology Department of Kuaishou's Keling AI Division, joined Bilibili as the head of its technology line. However, only about two months later, Zhang Di left the company again and returned to Alibaba, serving as the head of the Future Life Lab of Taotian Group. Five months later, Zhang Di led his team to develop HappyHorse-1.0.

In 2024, Bilibili launched Index, a foundational large model whose capabilities are mainly applied in scenarios such as video content creation, understanding, and distribution. Based on Index, Bilibili has built role-playing models, speech generation models, anime video generation models and other products.

In addition, in terms of creation tools, Bilibili launched the AI video creation platform updream in March 2026. This tool is equipped with "long-term memory", "personalized skill library" and free canvas functions, focusing on professional-grade AI content pipelines.

Screenshot of updream interface

In terms of creation incentives, Bilibili has intensively launched AI-related creation competitions and activities. This January, Bilibili launched its first AI Creation Contest, and on the day the updream creation tool was released, it awarded the top UP creator a prize of up to 1 million RMB.

In June, Bilibili launched the "Build in Bilibili · AI Creation Open Tournament". Participants only need to use AI tools to create a runnable and interactive product, and continuously publish videos of the creation process on Bilibili to complete the registration. The competition does not set fixed tracks or themes, and both physical products and software applications are eligible for participation. The competition gives the judging right to users — all Bilibili users can participate in the creation and select the products they recognize through methods such as casting coins and sending bullet comments. The competition has a cash prize pool of over 1.3 million RMB, of which the champion takes 1 million RMB alone.

One month after the launch of the contest, the number of participating creators approached 5,000, and the average daily search volume of the keyword "vibe coding" on the platform increased by 6 times.

In July, Bilibili officially launched "Toy", a web content publishing platform. This platform supports one-click publishing of local creative webpages into interactive works that can be directly accessed and played on Bilibili. Whether UP creators develop independently, or use AI tools such as AI Agent and Vibe coding to quickly generate and iterate, they can precipitate their creativity on the platform and convert it into playable, testable, usable, and viewable content for users.

Screenshot of Toy interface

During the internal test from June to July, UP creators have uploaded more than 300 works on Toy, covering multiple categories such as games, interactive narratives, tools, tests, reports, and picture albums. At the same time, public data on the platform shows that the total number of user experiences of the platform has exceeded 8.5 million times.

Ongoing activities on the platform currently include the "AI All-Makers" co-hosted with the Astana International AI Film Festival, as well as the "UP Animation Theater Signing Incentive Program" that encourages creators to generate AI animation works with updream.

According to Bilibili's disclosure, in 2026, the search volume of keywords such as AI Agent and AI entrepreneurship on Bilibili increased by more than 500% year-on-year. Data for the second quarter of 2026 shows that more than 190 million users watch AI-related content on Bilibili every month.

In terms of improving advertising efficiency, Bilibili has introduced AI into its advertising distribution and recommendation system, providing advertisers with services such as AIGC advertising material generation, intelligent delivery and automatic advertising, as well as exploration of implanted intelligent advertising.

Public data from Bilibili shows that the consumption proportion of AIGC advertising materials exceeds 50%, and the click-through rate (CTR) has achieved double-digit growth compared with traditional materials. The consumption penetration rate of automatic advertising exceeds 85%, and the overall advertising distribution efficiency has been significantly improved.

At the Q1 earnings call this year, Chen Rui mentioned: "AI has not changed the underlying logic of Bilibili, but it amplifies its two major advantages." "AI is a historic opportunity that brings tenfold growth, and we will firmly seize it."