Xiaohongshu does not want to mass-produce "AI Super Creators"
In 2026, the most popular buzzword in the AI content industry has changed from "AIGC" to "AI Super-Creation".
The so-called AI Super-Creator refers to a super creator who can leverage multiple generative tools, independently complete planning, screenwriting, visual design, video generation and post-production, and form a stable and distinct work style. Content projects that previously required the collaboration of dozens of people can now be finished by one individual or a small team of 3 to 5 people. This has led to fierce competition among MCN institutions for AI creators: agencies including Maiya Media, Fengqun Culture, OST Media, and Shike Culture have successively set up dedicated AI content teams, incubated account matrices, and signed top-tier creators.
However, while platforms such as Douyin and Bilibili are competing for creators head-on through AI creation contests, cash bonuses, computing power support and exclusive traffic, Xiaohongshu has taken a noticeably different path.
Up to now, Xiaohongshu has not packaged "AI" as a separate content category that needs to be pursued at all costs. On one hand, it includes high-quality AI works into its support system for medium-long videos, short films and new-generation creators; on the other hand, it has carried out large-scale governance on AI hosting, fake personas and low-quality notes generated in batches.
This means that Xiaohongshu does not oppose AI creation, but it tries to establish a stricter standard: AI can help creators complete shooting, special effects and production, but it cannot replace the creator themselves.
For MCN institutions, this also means one thing: to create AI content on Xiaohongshu, the creators who are truly worthy of support are not "accounts that can produce content in batches", but those who still retain their unique aesthetic standards, perspectives, emotions and personalities even after AI tools are stripped away.
A Dual-track System of "Encouraging Creation, Restricting Stand-ins"
In March 2026, Xiaohongshu launched the first "RED New-Generation Creation Contest", investing 10 billion event traffic and 5 million yuan of creation funds for creators across the platform. The 50 final selected creators can each get a special fund of 100,000 yuan, as well as 12 consecutive months of traffic boost.
It is worth noting that this is not an AI-specific competition. Entries must be medium-long videos of more than 2 minutes or long articles of more than 1,000 words, and the selection criteria include sincere creation, clear perspectives, vivid personality, strong resonance and breakthrough innovation. AI works can enter tracks such as "short film", but the premise is still original content rather than technical demonstration. Relevant event information shows that Xiaohongshu explicitly opposes the use of AI to produce homogeneous content in batches, while accepting AI works with narrative, aesthetic and content value to participate in the competition.
In May, Xiaohongshu expanded the scope of support from the contest to the medium-long video ecosystem. The platform announced the establishment of an annual creation fund of tens of millions of yuan, with a maximum support of 1 million yuan for a single project; for new-generation creators with few fans but great potential, the platform will provide one-on-one dedicated operation support, with support equivalent to an "annual salary of 1 million yuan" at most. At the same time, it launched a video incentive plan with a total traffic of 50 billion, and creators can get up to 80,000 traffic coupons per month.
More importantly, the algorithm has been adjusted. Xiaohongshu began to optimize distribution for different video types, increase the weight of indicators such as collection, follow and watch duration, and extend the recommendation cycle of high-quality medium-long videos to 90 days. Platform data shows that the exposure proportion of high-quality medium-long videos has increased 5 times within half a year, and the play volume of medium-long videos has increased by more than 30% year on year. This set of policies is not specially formulated for AI, but it is very suitable for AI image creators who need longer time to build a worldview and tell a complete story. According to the report of Yicai, nearly 100 million users on Xiaohongshu watch medium-long videos every day.
However, on the other side of content support, Xiaohongshu has maintained a rare tough attitude on the platform towards "using AI to operate accounts instead of real people".
As of May 2026, Xiaohongshu has disposed of a total of 180,000 notes suspected of AI fraud, and governed more than 1.2 million AI-hosted accounts. According to the report of Science and Technology Daily on the platform's governance proposition, the core standard for Xiaohongshu to judge AI works is not "whether AI is used", but "whether authenticity and original value are retained".
Therefore, Xiaohongshu's support logic can be summarized in one sentence: the platform is willing to give traffic to AI creators, but not to AI assembly lines.
From "Sihua" to "Huojing City",
What Xiaohongshu Needs Is Not Technical Showoff
This policy orientation is screening out AI content with distinct "Xiaohongshu temperament".
Top AI works on Douyin usually rely on strong conflict, intense emotion and sci-fi spectacle to achieve explosive growth; Bilibili is more likely to form a culture of technical stream, funny tricks and community co-creation; the AI content that stands out on Xiaohongshu generally has stronger visual aesthetic, female expression, emotional experience and personal style.
A representative case is "Sihua".
Sihua used to be a graphic designer, who is good at using AI-assisted programming to combine lines, grids, particles and light and shadow into dynamic visual poems, matched with a piece of original text or literary excerpt. Her videos are sometimes only more than ten seconds long, without complex plots and rarely showing off model parameters, but they have formed a stable and distinct personal aesthetic. As of the first half of 2026, her fans on Xiaohongshu have exceeded 500,000. The mid-year observation of NewRank regards her as the representative of the popular AI gameplay on Xiaohongshu: AI is not the theme of the work, but a new visual language.
"Xiaoming MINJA" used AI images to produce *When I Use AI Documentary to Restore the Day Tokyo Got Out of Control*, building a non-existent urban disaster scene with a cold, hazy retro tone, and the single work has received more than 100,000 likes on Xiaohongshu. Its appeal does not lie in "whether the picture looks real", but in the fact that the creator has built a perceptible Oriental Dreamcore atmosphere.
"Stephen Huojing" went further. He used low-pixel pictures, millennium filters and old-style urban imagery to fictitiously create a complete "Huojing City" with full settings. Compared with a large number of AI spectacles that users forget immediately after watching, "Huojing City" has begun to have continuously updatable spaces, characters and worldviews. The creator himself also believes that Xiaohongshu users do not regard technical capability as the primary standard for AI content, but care more about whether there are interesting stories, perspectives and discussions behind the technology.
The female user structure of Xiaohongshu also gives more clear feedback to AI videos with female themes. The AI short drama *Soul Swapped With Someone I Hate* created by "Spongecake" tells the story of a girl who is often ridiculed accidentally swaps souls with a popular girl on campus. The work does not pursue grand war or monster spectacles, but discusses female growth and self-identity through light comedy, and has received more than 100,000 likes on the platform.
"Shanyin", an AI creator who graduated from the Department of Dramatic Literature of Shanghai Theatre Academy, represents another path. He designed the setting of "office workers need to switch multiple personalities every day" in *A Ming's Day*, using Minnan dialect, black humor and AI visuals to express workplace anxiety. Behind the technical shell of the work are real life experience, literary expression and regional culture. Shanyin once said that most of his commercial orders come from Xiaohongshu, because Xiaohongshu makes it easier for brands in need to directly see his stylized works. Relevant industry observations believe that Xiaohongshu is forming a high-value, stylized commercial path for AI creators.
There are also opportunities for knowledge content. "Natural Health Way" once designed blood vessels, gallbladders, teeth and bones into different AI elves, and used anthropomorphic animations to explain diet and health knowledge. A 23-second video received more than 54,000 likes and 32,000 collections, and the number of fans of the account grew from more than 3,000 to 22,000 within two weeks. This case exactly corresponds to the direction explicitly encouraged by Xiaohongshu officials: not to use AI to repeat a piece of knowledge, but to convert complex information into intuitive and memorable content.
These cases all illustrate that Xiaohongshu does not lack AI content, but the platform is compressing the living space of "pure technical showoff". The works that truly achieve growth usually meet a formula: real people provide observation, emotion and aesthetic, and AI is responsible for realizing the pictures that could not be shot in the past.
"Batch Account Creation" Does Not Work on Xiaohongshu
Facing the dividend of AI content, MCN institutions have begun to speed up their entry into the market.
Maiya Media set up an AI creation team of more than 20 people during the 2026 Spring Festival, adopting the internal combination of "screenwriter + editor", where the screenwriter is responsible for topic selection, creativity and narrative, and the editor is responsible for calling models, generating materials and completing post-production. About 90% of the main creators of its self-incubated accounts come from the original screenwriter system of the agency.
In addition to self-incubation, Maiya Media has also signed creators such as "Yang Hanhan AIGC" and "The Fantastic Idea of Party A". At present, about 60% of its AI accounts come from internal incubation and 40% from external signing. The AI matrix of Fengqun Culture has reached about 60 accounts, and it plans to expand to 100; agencies including OST Media, Shike Culture and Shanghai Yaoyun are also building AI matrices of different scales.
Initially, MCN institutions valued the production efficiency brought by AI. With the help of models, one screenwriter can theoretically have an actor, art, photography, special effects and post-production team at the same time. However, actual operation soon proved that AI can only reduce production costs, not the difficulty of content competition.
Maiya Media once tested trending topic accounts, classic IP accounts and female content accounts, but trending topic accounts usually have traffic but no commercial orders, classic IP accounts have difficulty in solving copyright problems, and templated female content is prone to public opinion and traffic risks. Finally, drama, Vlog and virtual variety shows have become the directions where it is relatively easy to establish user relationships.
This is exactly where Xiaohongshu can influence the support logic of MCN institutions.
In the past, the core capability of MCN was to find replicable templates: the same set of topics, scripts and business models can be reused on dozens of accounts. But what Xiaohongshu is cracking down on is exactly the batch replication that AI is best at. The more mature the template, the faster the generation speed, and the larger the account matrix, the more likely it is to be identified as homogeneous production or AI hosting.
Therefore, AI support for Xiaohongshu needs to shift from "account incubation"