Kwai: A Story of Innovation Within an Online Content Community

China's second largest video sharing platform, Kwai, does not consider itself to be a commercial company, but rather a network of people who share common interests and social needs. On Kwai, all content is distributed equally, using AI-driven interest discovery. Heterogeneous groups can quickly find like-minded people to form diverse communities. Kwai tries not to define the community; it simply designs the rules and lets communities emerge and evolve. Kwai has therefore been eager to develop new products based on user interests and needs. Kwaishop and Kwai poverty alleviation projects are two examples. Behind this prosperity, however, a huge operating loss of RMB4.8 billion in the 3rd quarter of 2021 exposed significant problems for Kwai. The company's change of leadership in October 2021 also revealed some drawbacks of its dual core-leadership model. The challenges facing Kwai stem not only from the crisis of its internal management, but also from competition imposed by rivals such as Bytedance and from the fast technological revolution affecting this type of platform.