---
title: "Unique Friends | Zhou Xiangu of URSA Studio: Before Becoming an AI Creator, Ask What You Are Actually Creating"
author: "Unique Research"
sourcePublication: "Unique Research Substack"
originalPublishedAt: "2025-11-15T04:01:23+00:00"
canonical: "https://ffcap.cn/en/research/src-20251115-03html"
source: "https://uniqueresearch.substack.com/p/src-20251115-03html"
language: "en"
---

# Unique Friends | Zhou Xiangu of URSA Studio: Before Becoming an AI Creator, Ask What You Are Actually Creating

_Original · Unique Research · 2025-11-15_

Editorial note: This complete English edition preserves the historical article and all ten interview questions. Career, client, tool-performance and productivity claims reflect the source and Zhou Xiangu’s account, rather than independently verified current results. Tiantian Lixianji transliterates the commercial’s Chinese title 天天历险记; no official English title is asserted.

Historical source-poster note: The accompanying Unique Bloom poster identifies URSA Studio’s Zhou Xiangu as a director, producer and AIGC super creator, and as a specially invited guest at the 2025 AI Creators Summit and CHINA AI 100 & AI CREATORS 100 annual selection. It lists November 21, 2025, at the Metropark International Hotel in Beijing (维景国际大酒店). Its slogan is “The lens remains unchanged; the visual world is reborn.” This is historical event information, not a current invitation; the registration QR code is not reproduced.

To many people, AIGC is still a novel, even slightly unfamiliar technology. To Zhou Xiangu, it is simply one more pen in her hand.

She is a visual artist, a creative, and a storyteller first—and only then what people call an AI creator.

The work that truly made people remember her name was the animated commercial “Tiantian Lixianji.”

After watching it, many people reached out to her and said the storyboards flowed exceptionally well and the visual progression felt natural—not like something made by AI. The interesting part is that when the film was created, she and her team had only just begun working with AIGC and were far from proficient with its many models and parameters.

What she did was, in fact, deeply traditional. She followed the conventional film, television, and advertising process: conceive the story, break down the structure, design the pacing, draw the storyboards, and work through the shots one by one. AI was treated simply as a production tool that could lighten the workload, not as some novel species of moving image.

Many people deliberately chase an “AI style”; she barely concerned herself with that at all. The unintended result was a work that viewers described as having very little “AI flavor.”

The logic is simple: when the starting point is not “I want to make an AI film” but “I want to tell a complete story,” the technology naturally recedes backstage.

In the Age of Super Individuals, Learn First How to Assemble the Right Team

Today, she operates as a “super individual.”

There is no large company and no fixed staff of dozens. Depending on a project’s needs, she joins forces freely with other super individuals: today, the team may consist of a screenwriter, a director, and a compositing specialist; tomorrow, it may be her alongside two independent AIGC designers.

She deliberately preserves this flexibility because she has a keen sense of the AI era’s pace. An industry iteration that once took years now happens in months or even weeks. Technology changes quickly, and stylistic trends change just as fast. An organization that remains large and cumbersome will struggle to keep up.

For her, the advantages of being a super individual have two dimensions.

First, it keeps her nimble. When a new tool appears, she can test it immediately on a small scale without being distracted by big-company concerns such as team training, process redesign, and performance reviews.

Second, it gives her formidable peers. The people she collaborates with are often super individuals themselves—each has a distinct specialty and is accountable for earning their own living, so every collaboration also becomes a direct exchange of technical expertise.

As she puts it, in the AI era, you do not necessarily have to form a company; you can instead be an individual commander who knows how to marshal the right forces.

AI Is Not Here to Take Control, but to Fill the Gaps

In advertising, film, and television, a one-person One Man Band has never been the norm. Creative development, copywriting, directing, production, post-production—every link depends on the others, and every link can fall short.

Her position on AI is clear: it has not “liberated” anyone; it helps her fill roles that previously had to be covered by whoever was available.

In her daily workflow, she uses Gemini and Claude to help clarify logic and structure. She does not hand them a topic and ask the model to write everything for her. Instead, she treats them as diligent editorial and planning partners, asking them to check whether the story flows, whether the pacing sags, and whether the characters contradict themselves.

At the asset-generation stage, she relies more heavily on Midjourney and Kling. Midjourney is highly effective for exploring styles and visual atmospheres, while Kling consistently produces a look closer to conventional film and television. That aligns closely with her own aesthetic preference: work that feels like genuine cinema rather than a flashy technology demo.

If you had to assign roles to these tools, you could think of them this way:

Gemini / Claude are like the screenwriting partner and script editor sitting across the table;

Midjourney and Kling are more like an on-call virtual cinematographer and art director.

They are all intelligent, but the storyteller and the person who decides the language of the camera is still always her.

For the First Time, “Lower Costs and Greater Efficiency” Is More Than an Empty Phrase

In the workplace discourse that so many people mock, “lowering costs and increasing efficiency” has almost become a punchline. Everyone understands the implication: you can cut costs or improve efficiency, but rarely both—let alone while preserving the quality of the work.

In her account, however, that paradox is beginning to loosen for the first time.

In the past, she could handle at most one or two of her three business lines—film and television, advertising, and training—at the same time. Time and energy were limited, and collaboration had its boundaries. Once AI tools matured, however, many stages shifted from requiring someone’s constant supervision to having tools provide the baseline, leaving people to make only the critical decisions.

The result is that work that once took an entire team several weeks to refine can now be completed with fewer people in less time, while the creator still retains control over the details. Former clients have returned to work with her specifically because of AIGC, precisely because they see this. They want efficiency and affordability, but they also want creativity and storytelling—and she can bridge those two demands.

For her, the real leverage AI provides is not merely a numerical claim of 10-fold efficiency. It is the possibility that three objectives that once constrained one another—speed, quality, and affordability—can coexist in the same solution for the first time.

If You Want to Become an AI Creator, Do Not Begin with the Wrong Label

For people who also want to enter AI creation, build AI-focused media, or even create a one-person company, her first piece of advice is not to learn a particular tool. It is to understand yourself first.

She does not agree with treating “AI creator” as an independent artistic category, as though knowing how to use a few models automatically confers a particular identity.

In her view, an AI creator is simply a person who uses AI tools to create. Whether the label sounds prestigious is beside the point. There is only one core question: what, exactly, are you creating?

That is why she repeatedly emphasizes:

First, examine your strengths and weaknesses clearly. Are you better at story, imagery, pacing, and character, or at structure, logic, and operations?

Then ask where AI tools can extend your strengths further and help support your weaker areas.

If someone devotes all their energy to studying models, parameters, and every new tool, but never turns any of it into work, projects, or a career path, AI may remain an endlessly fascinating new toy rather than leverage capable of changing their life.

She occupies her current position not because she commands some vast arsenal of “black technology,” but because her attention has always remained on the work itself: Is the story clear? Is the character convincing? Is this shot unnecessary? The tools exist only to serve those questions.

When Technology Leaves the Stage, the Story Remains

If Zhou Xiangu’s path could be summarized in one sentence, it would probably be this:

Become a solid storyteller first, then gradually grow a shell of AI expertise around that foundation.

In her, we see a sequence well worth learning from:

It is not, “I use many AI tools, therefore I am at the frontier.” It is, “I have a relatively mature way of expressing myself, therefore I know where AI belongs.”

As more and more people put AI at center stage, she is quietly doing something else: moving the technology from lead actor to backstage crew, so that audiences forget to ask whether something was made with AI and remember only that it was a good story.

Perhaps this is the question most worth considering for individuals in the age of the individual.

Now that you finally have so many powerful tools, what do you truly want to leave behind: a set of techniques for using a particular model, or a work you would still be proud of when you look back several years from now?

Selected Interview Q&A

Q1: If you were to introduce yourself with three labels, what would they be? What kind of AI creation are you primarily working on now?

Zhou Xiangu: I am a visual artist, a creative, and a storyteller. I now focus primarily on narrative AI content, using AI to create commercials, short films, and other works with plots and a deliberate visual language.

Q2: What do you see as the most visible trend in narrative AI content today?

Zhou Xiangu: The biggest trend is that AI-generated content is looking increasingly like traditionally shot film and television. In the past, many things could only be made with live performers and large crews. Now, after several rounds of model iteration, AI can come remarkably close.

Q3: Which work was your “breakout” in the AIGC community, and why did people remember it?

Zhou Xiangu: People began to know me through an animated commercial called “Tiantian Lixianji.” Many viewers told me the storyboards flowed smoothly and it did not have a strong “AI flavor.” At the time, we were actually very new to AIGC. We approached the creative work and shot design entirely through the methods of traditional film, television, and advertising. We simply treated AI as a convenient production tool rather than deliberately pursuing an “AI style.”

Q4: Do you now work as a conventional company team, or more as a “super individual”?

Zhou Xiangu: I currently operate as a super individual. Depending on the project, I form temporary teams with other friends who are also super individuals. Technology and styles iterate too quickly in the AI era: what once changed every few years now produces something new every few months or weeks. Lightweight, flexible combinations are better suited to this pace.

Q5: What advantages does this “super individual + temporary squad” model offer you?

Zhou Xiangu: First, it keeps me nimble. If I want to try a new tool or style, I do not need to worry too much about organizational overhead. Second, my collaborators are other super individuals. Everyone brings a distinct strength, so collaboration itself becomes an exchange of techniques and a process of mutual learning; we all grow very quickly.

Q6: What role does AI play in your workflow? What has it actually “freed” you from?

Zhou Xiangu: For me, AI is the ideal partner. Film, television, and advertising have never been a One Man Band. In the past, you would inevitably encounter situations where the available people were not quite right for the job. AI tools now help fill those gaps.

Rather than saying AI has liberated me, I would say it has given me more agency: it expands my creative space and amplifies my productivity.

Q7: Which AI tools do you commonly use, and roughly how do you divide the work among them?

Zhou Xiangu: At the ideation stage, I use Gemini and Claude. They help me clarify the logic and organize the structure. They are more like editorial and planning partners; they do not replace the creative work entirely.

At the asset-generation stage, I use Midjourney and Kling most often. My aesthetic leans toward conventional film and television, and Kling has consistently delivered a stable “cinematic feel,” which matters a great deal to me.

Q8: As a super individual, how do you currently monetize your work? How does the commercial loop work?

Zhou Xiangu: For now, it primarily comes from content production. With the arrival of the AI era, many former clients have come back to me because of AIGC. AI allows me to handle film and television, advertising, and training at the same time—something that was nearly impossible under my previous constraints of time and resources.

Q9: What is AI’s greatest “leverage effect” for you?

Zhou Xiangu: In the past, “lowering costs and increasing efficiency” felt almost like a false proposition. People’s capacity is finite, and it is difficult to achieve speed, quality, and affordability all at once.

For me, AI has brought that possibility close to reality for the first time: while preserving creative quality, it can reduce costs and improve efficiency, rather than forcing us to choose only two of the three.

Q10: If someone wants to become an AI creator, build AI-focused media, or even start a one-person company, what should they prepare first?

Zhou Xiangu: Do not rush to label yourself an “AI creator,” and do not immediately plunge into every model and parameter.

I suggest first working out your own strengths and weaknesses: do you make your living through story, imagery, and pacing, or through structure and operations? AI is only a tool. We are simply “practitioners who create with AI”; the work itself always remains at the center.

If you become overly absorbed in technical details without genuinely applying them to your career path, AI can easily become a “new toy you are forever trying” rather than leverage that changes the ceiling of your career.

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Original publication: https://uniqueresearch.substack.com/p/src-20251115-03html
On-site reading page: https://ffcap.cn/en/research/src-20251115-03html