Report: AI reshapes marketing ecosystem, short videos become new growth engine

Three core driving forces — AI technology penetration, short video cross-industry integration, and online-offline collaboration — are reshaping the underlying logic of brand marketing, according to the 2025 Internet Advertising Marketing Trends Report in China, jointly released by the Interactive Marketing Lab in Zhongguancun, Miaozhen Academy of Marketing Science, and the School of Journalism and Communication at Beijing Normal University.

In 2025, the Chinese internet advertising market saw steady growth of 11.5 percent, reaching a scale of 725.7 billion yuan ($103.66 billion), marking the industry's transition from "traffic expansion" to a new phase of "deep value creation," according to the report.

Digital intelligence marketing breaks through the critical point: From 'being found' to 'being recommended by AI'

The report highlights that AI is fundamentally reshaping the consumer decision-making path. As users increasingly rely on AI assistants to filter information, the marketing battlefield has shifted from "keyword rankings" to the "AI trust system."

Content production is undergoing a revolution. AI-driven "super dynamic ecosystems" have increased creative output by more than 10 times.

Turning point in AI track: From model competition to real-world implementation

In 2025, the AI industry shifted from "training competition" to "inference optimization," with multi-modal deep reasoning and adaptive learning becoming the mainstream technologies. The embodied AI sector has seen investments exceeding 40 billion yuan, with large models integrating vision, language, and motion driving AI from the digital world into physical interactions.

Agentic AI is further disrupting traditional service models. A simple user request like "Plan my business trip to Shanghai" can trigger a fully automated process including flight comparison and hotel booking. By 2028, it is expected that 15 percent of marketing decisions will be autonomously made by AI.

In this context, computing power infrastructure has become the core of competition. 

Short video + ecosystem: From entertainment tool to commercial infrastructure

Short video platforms have evolved into "comprehensive digital communities," where users can fulfill diverse needs such as entertainment, shopping, and learning within a single app.

Knowledge content has emerged as a new highlight in the field of internet marketing. Douyin (TikTok) now has over 250 million knowledge-interested users, while the share of general knowledge video views on Bilibili has reached 44 percent. Short videos are transforming from mere entertainment tools to essential infrastructure for knowledge dissemination.

Deep market reshaping: Interest e-commerce and the search revolution

E-commerce advertising continues to lead the market with a 38.55 percent share, with interest-based e-commerce growing by 18.9 percent year-on-year, becoming the main growth engine. Douyin (TikTok) leads in advertising revenue, surpassing Alibaba by 32.7 billion yuan, thanks to its "content seeding—instant conversion" ecosystem. Xiaohongshu (Little Red Book), with its "community + search" model, has achieved a 23.2 percent growth rate, with its high-spending user base becoming a core asset that brands are eager to target.

AI-powered search is reshaping traffic entry points. Traditional search engine ad revenue remains flat, while the "in-platform + AI search" category has surged by 107.4 percent.

2026 outlook: Agentic AI and full-scene integration opening a new cycle

The report predicts that the market size is will exceed 900 billion yuan next year, driven by the dual engines of "Agentic AI" and "Full-Scene Integration." Companies that can build AI trust assets and accumulate user lifetime value will gain a competitive advantage in the era of smart marketing.