An action recognition method and apparatus related to artificial intelligence and include extracting a spatial feature of a to-be-processed picture, determining a virtual optical flow feature of the to-be-processed picture based on the spatial feature and X spatial features and X optical flow features in a preset feature library, where the X spatial features and the X optical flow features include a one-to-one correspondence, determining a first type of confidence of the to-be-processed picture in different action categories based on similarities between the virtual optical flow feature and Y optical flow features, where each of the Y optical flow features in the preset feature library corresponds to one action category, X and Y are both integers greater than 1, and determining an action category of the to-be-processed picture based on the first type of confidence.