China’s Kling emerges as a serious rival to Google Veo and OpenAI Sora

Artificial intelligence video generation has moved quickly from an experimental novelty to a practical tool used by professional creators, marketers and media companies. In this increasingly competitive space, Kling, a platform developed by Chinese short-video company Kuaishou, has established itself among the leading global players, alongside Google’s Veo and OpenAI’s Sora.

Launched in June 2024, Kling has become a significant new growth engine for Kuaishou, which has long trailed ByteDance, the owner of TikTok, in China’s short-video market. Within months of its debut, Kling attracted around 12 million monthly active users and generated annual recurring revenue of about US$240 million. The pace of adoption reflects broader shifts in how generative AI is being used, with AI-created clips now commonplace across social media feeds.

Scenes such as animated animals, science-fiction spectacles and AI-generated digital presenters have become familiar to online audiences, even as concerns grow about low-quality “AI slop”. Against this backdrop, Kling’s rapid rise has prompted questions about why it has resonated so strongly with creators, even as many similar tools struggle to stand out. Its success suggests that the platform has tapped into more than novelty, aligning its technology with practical creative needs.

Strong revenue growth and investor attention

Kling’s commercial performance has reinforced its growing reputation. Company disclosures and market sources show that the platform generated more than US$20 million in revenue in December alone, helping to lift its full-year revenue to roughly US$140 million. That figure was more than double the US$60 million revenue target that Kuaishou had set internally at the start of 2025.

Momentum has continued into the new year. In January, Kling’s average daily revenue rose by about 30 per cent compared with the previous month, underlining the platform’s accelerating monetisation. This performance has had a noticeable impact on investor sentiment towards Kuaishou, whose shares had previously lagged behind those of other Chinese technology firms.

Over the past month, Kuaishou’s Hong Kong-listed shares climbed 23.3 per cent, closing at HK$78.60 on Monday. Analysts have linked much of this renewed optimism to Kling’s prospects, viewing the video generator as a clear signal that Kuaishou can compete in the generative AI era. The company has reinforced that message by placing Kling at the centre of its long-term strategy.

In April 2025, Kuaishou created a stand-alone business unit dedicated to Kling, signalling its intention to scale the platform independently. Executives have repeatedly highlighted Kling’s user growth and revenue contribution during earnings calls over the past year, framing it as a flagship AI product rather than a side project.

Technology, creators and global competition

Financial institutions have also taken note. In a January research note, JPMorgan Chase highlighted Kling’s monetisation potential, forecasting revenue of 1.7 billion yuan (US$244 million) in 2026. The bank described Kuaishou as one of the “most undervalued AI stocks globally”, citing Kling as a key reason for that assessment.

According to Kuaishou, Kling’s breakout success rests on a combination of advanced AI models, intuitive interactive design and close engagement with the creator community. Zeng Yushen, head of operations for Kling, said these factors allowed the platform to move quickly from experimentation to real-world use.

“An obvious signal last year from the industry was the embrace of AI,” Zeng said in an interview earlier this month at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. “Meanwhile, real-world use cases have been quickly expanding.” His comments reflect a broader industry trend, as creators increasingly seek tools that save time and reduce production costs without sacrificing quality.

Throughout last year, Kling introduced seven major upgrades to its core models. One of the most notable was Kling O1, which the company describes as the industry’s first unified multimodal video model. It allows users to combine images, video, subjects and text within a single prompt, while also enabling real-time editing during post-production. Another update, Kling 2.6, focused on significantly improving audio generation, an area that has often lagged behind visual quality in AI video tools.

As performance benchmarks for video-generation models continue to evolve, Kling has consistently ranked among the top tier globally. Its growing parity with Google’s Veo and OpenAI’s Sora highlights how competition in generative AI is no longer dominated solely by US companies. Instead, it is becoming a truly global race, with Chinese firms such as Kuaishou playing an increasingly prominent role.