In 2025, breakthrough progress in open-source large models, represented by DeepSeek, marked a new stage of deepened application for generative artificial intelligence, leading to profound changes in the social communication ecology. This year, the academic community conducted systematic and in-depth research centering on the new communication ecology and the new conditions of human existence in the era of artificial intelligence. Based on criteria such as the frontier nature of topics, the novelty of theoretical perspectives, and the depth of research, this paper identifies six major themes from new media and intelligent communication research papers published in core journals in 2025. These themes include: the transformation and reconstruction of human-machine relationships, human-machine affective practices, the transformation of knowledge production driven by generative AI, DeepSeek open source and new horizons in international communication research, “visibility” research in the platform context, and new media as “infrastructure.” Through the review and synthesis of these themes, this paper aims to provide references and insights for relevant researchers.