By NUPIAO |
Edited by NUPIAO | Liu Fangyuan
Back in May, a single news story swept through the short drama community. Two fully AI-generated vertical series, The Hidden Destiny of Tomb Robbing and Food Tower, were selected for the Cannes International Film Festival’s screening unit. It marked the first-ever honor for China’s short drama industry at Cannes, hailed by many as a true “milestone moment” for AI-driven storytelling.
Just one month later, during the first weekend of June, The Hidden Destiny officially launched on the Hongguo Short Drama platform. From initial planning to final cut, Jellyfish Intelligence and their production team poured over a million yuan into this “super-head” project, spending three months to bring it to life. While that sounds like a huge investment compared to typical short dramas, producing a work of this caliber and visual effect using traditional methods would have cost ten times more.
Zhou Zhipeng, the producer, is absolutely buzzing with excitement. After more than two years of exploring AI short dramas, the company’s long-held strategy of focusing on “premium quality” is finally getting its real-world test.
You can see the frequency of AI short dramas on major rankings shooting up before your eyes. According to data released by the China Audio-Video Digital Association, about 128,000 micro-dramas launched across the industry in Q1 2026, and a staggering 122,000 of those were AI-generated—accounting for over 95% of the total.
As new faces flood the scene, countless “factories” churning out human-acted short dramas are feeling the heat of anxiety.
In the dead of night last May, the boss of a top-tier Zhengzhou short drama company was still in a meeting at 4 AM, brainstorming with his team on how to pivot. Outside of Zhengzhou, heavy hitters like Maiya Media and Jiuzhou Culture are also diving headfirst into AI production. In fact, Jiuzhou Culture’s AI division has already ballooned to include over 4,000 employees.
On June 23rd, the latest version of the Doubao video generation model, Seedance 2.5, was officially released. Currently in the final stages of closed beta, it’s set to go live to the public in early July.
On the day of the launch, a model agent at the event noted that AI comic dramas are exploding in popularity. They’ve already signed a 10 million RMB annual contract with Volcano Engine due to massive market demand. However, the industry consensus is clear: Hongguo’s review process is getting tighter every day. You can’t just pump out volume anymore; you need premium quality or you simply won’t survive.
In this wave of an “AI Revolution,” every short drama company is re-evaluating where the real red envelopes and opportunities lie.
AI vs. The “Short Drama Factory”
At 47 years old, Ah Gui became a short drama actor last year. He thought he’d be doing this job for quite a while longer.
In October 2025, Ah Gui signed up for an open casting call. Originally working in delivery logistics, he saw a whole new world of possibilities right there on stage. After passing through multiple rounds of selection, Ah Gui—who loved performing and had some natural talent—started playing villains and bodyguards. He even signed a contract with Rizhen Yueyi, a top Zhengzhou short drama studio. He launched his own Douyin account and started hitting the sets every single day.
But within just six months, the “scene” lost its shine.
Dazhi Film Base is a regular spot for Ah Gui. This sprawling 10,000-square-meter filming location, renovated from an intangible cultural heritage town, opened last March. At its peak, a dozen or more production crews were filming here daily.
Staff at the base told us that when human-acted short dramas were booming, the hospital set could accommodate three different crews simultaneously. The parking lot was jammed with production vehicles, sometimes blocking villagers from getting home. By 2025, Zhengzhou alone had built and put into operation over a dozen short drama bases.
But after the Spring Festival, Dazhi Film Base sat largely empty. One sunny afternoon in June, we visited and found only three or four crews still shooting. Many meticulously designed sets stood unused. Staff explained they are now trying to pivot toward tourism to break even, inviting tourists to experience filming short dramas themselves.
Chen Ou, founder of Joyoung (Jumei), also invested in a short drama base in Zhengzhou specifically for vertical screen content. Back in September 2025, NUPIAO visited and counted at least eight or nine crews filming daily. But when we returned in early June, most scenes were idle, with only one or two crews actually shooting.
In their place, posters from AI companies promoting training programs for film industry talent were plastered everywhere.
DataEye Institute reports show that in April this year, Douyin’s native app added 44,200 new AI dramas and comic dramas in a single month—more than 13 times the number of new human-shot micro-dramas. In recent weeks, AI short dramas have dominated Hongguo’s top 10 charts. On June 21st, AI titles made up 6 of the top 10; by June 24th, they accounted for half the list.
A viewer who started watching AI short dramas this year told us that AI offers a level of thrill that human shows often can’t match, with plots and visuals that can be wildly imaginative. He now splits his viewing time roughly 50/50 between AI and human-acted dramas.
Despite this growing popularity, the impact of AI is undeniable. A massive wave of从业者 who relied on human filming are being forced to accelerate their transformations.
Xiao Meng, a prop master at Tianqiao Short Drama, once feared she was about to lose her job. Last month, the studio wrapped its final human-shot short drama. This top-tier Zhengzhou enterprise is gradually pivoting its business, slowing down human production, and shifting to this new track. During its boom period, the company could churn out 100 human-shot shorts per month.
“Moving to AI creation isn’t a decision we can make unilaterally,” Zhou Yuqing, VP at Tianqiao Short Drama, told us. “It requires weighing market conditions, industry policies, technological advances, and user demands all together.” Under the combined pressure of AI tech and shifting platform policies, the industry’s风向 has clearly changed.
Starting in Q4 2025, Hongguo began adjusting its guarantee policies for producers, moving from “universal guarantees” to allocating resources based on project quality and market performance. Since February 2026, the rapid evolution of AI has significantly shortened production cycles and slashed costs, disrupting the original cost structure and return expectations of human-shot short dramas.
Tianqiao’s management quickly locked in their transition plan. After the Spring Festival, while some human-shot projects were still waiting to be filmed, directors and frontline staff received invitations to discuss their interest in the new direction.
Xiao Meng decided to embrace the change. She spent a full day watching tutorials, followed by two days of internal training. Like other “from-the-ground-up” employees, she learned how to use AI tools and how to describe her desired scenes to the algorithms.
Xiao Meng used to spend her days running around on set. Building 3, located in the same park as the office building, housed a filming base specially built by Tianqiao. Now, the gates are locked. After pausing human shoots, Tianqiao has entered a state of “All-AI,” committing fully to the transformation.
Technology Rewrites the Rules
Tianqiao’s shift isn’t an isolated case; it’s a storm facing the entire industry. We learned that even top-tier premium brands like “Ting Hua Dao” are exploring AI dramas, let alone mid-level companies that used to win on volume alone.
In the past six months, the rapid advancement of video generation technology has been the bedrock of the AI short drama explosion. Especially since ByteDance released the Seedance 2.0 model in February this year, AI video generation capabilities reached a whole new tier.
Taking The Hidden Destiny as an example: by December last year, the Jellyfish Intelligence team felt the results were “pretty good.” But after Seedance 2.0 dropped, the production team iterated on many settings, improving visual quality month after month.
In traditional workflows, creating 3D animation at this level cost a whopping 180,000 yuan per minute, totaling tens of millions or even hundreds of millions. With AI, sci-fi works like this can be produced for just a few hundred thousand to a million yuan.
In fact, unless you’re making an award-winning masterpiece requiring extreme detail, AI short drama costs can go even lower. Chen Ke Studio didn’t start their Potential Treasure Basin project until February this year. Now approaching its fifth season, it’s become one of Hongguo’s hit AI dramas.
Chen Ke told us that one season of Potential Treasure Basin takes about 18-20 days to produce. Season 2 cost around 100,000 yuan, while Season 4, packed with exciting fight scenes, neared 200,000 yuan. Even so, that’s a fraction of the cost of popular human-shot shorts.
NUPIAO understands that Chen Ke Studio previously had nothing to do with short dramas, focusing mainly on design and content operations. Seeing the fresh opportunities AI brought, countless small teams and individuals like Chen Ke have flooded into the short drama industry.
As more people “hand-craft” AI dramas, third-party Agent platforms are emerging. For instance, Jellyfish Intelligence has its own creation platform, “Touchscreen AI,” allowing external teams to handle IP selection, adaptation, production, and distribution entirely with AI assistance.
Geng Mengyang, Co-CEO of Henan Congtou Culture, told us they noticed a huge demand for AI video production among clients, so they developed “Smart Shadow Cube,” an AI content platform focused on short comic dramas and ad materials. In just one and a half months since launch, nearly 10,000 users registered. Geng noted that compared to traditional shooting, production costs and timelines for short dramas and ads have dropped by about 90%.
For “traditional” studios like Tianqiao, the changes post-full AI transition are even more obvious. Zhou Yuqing shared that previously, producing an S-class short drama required over a million yuan and a team of dozens or even a hundred people. Today, the cost and workflow are completely different.
Take scriptwriting: a writer used to limit themselves to ten scenes to control costs. Now, those restrictions are gone. Once the script is ready, instead of manually splitting scenes and characters, you just hand the draft to AI, which instantly generates scenes, characters, and shots. Then, a “card drawer” simply selects and verifies them.
For example, in the AI short drama Tianqiao produced in May, the company achieved a two-thirds reduction in cycle time and an 80% drop in costs.
Such efficiency gains are “revolutionary” in any industry. But the question remains: when everyone wields the AI weapon, what is left to compete on?
Competition Returns to the Essence
Last year, before AI became this ubiquitous, multiple short drama makers expressed the same worry to NUPIAO: the user base is limited, but new producers keep flocking in. How many will actually make money?
Six months later, mature AI tools have driven short drama output to astronomical heights. Standing out is harder than ever. DataEye-ADX data shows that by April 2026, about 44,000 new AI/comic dramas were added in a single month. Out of these, only 267 surpassed 100 million views—a mere 0.6%.
The short drama industry now covers 718 million users, with Hongguo alone boasting over 300 million. Short dramas rose to fame by stimulating emotions intensely and grew rapidly through a game of efficiency built on manpower. AI has pushed this efficiency to new heights, but efficiency alone doesn’t create blockbusters.
Many short drama companies rode the windfall wave by taking on massive content orders to win on volume, but increasingly, people realize that mechanism is failing.
Wang Yiming, who entered the AI short drama space in March this year, feels the costs rising again. Initially, computing power cost less than 100 yuan per minute. Now, to create a visually polished short drama, that cost has jumped to 300-500 yuan per minute.
Nanjing-based top studio Eight Point Light also quickly sensed the dilemma. Manager Wei Chengchao told us industry quotes have shrunk to one-tenth of their former value. Meanwhile, costs are rising, squeezing profit margins further.
He also pointed out that IP homogenization in AI short dramas is severe. They frequently receive scripts with identical plots, just swapping names. Take the “Deep Sea Fishing” theme; the market sees dozens of similar shorts monthly.
User sentiment mirrors this. One viewer relaxing with short dramas in their spare time told us that AI shorts feel incredibly repetitive; generated characters lack unique traits and look too standardized.
A survey launched by Peninsula Morning Post and Dalian University of Foreign Languages’ New Communication Baichuan Team in May revealed stark realities: 58.26% of respondents cited identical scripts and clichés; 53.91% noted stiff expressions and robotic movements; 41.3% found voiceovers rigid and emotionless; and 41.84% identified the lack of emotional resonance compared to human actors as the biggest drawback.
NUPIAO learned that Hongguo, the largest platform, has taken notice of the low-quality AI glut. Starting in April, they launched a massive cleanup, removing over 10,000 low-quality AI dramas characterized by vulgarity, poor visuals, illogical plots, and extreme emotional manipulation.
Le Li, Editor-in-Chief of Hongguo Short Drama, stated: “AI brings new opportunities, lowering barriers and expanding genres, but it comes with significant challenges. Hongguo aims to guide creators away from ‘racing speed and quantity’ toward ‘competing on quality and creativity.”
Multiple interviewees told NUPIAO that Hongguo’s review standards are tightening step by step. Late May saw what insiders called the “strictest review ever.” Additionally, starting in May, Hongguo reduced guaranteed support and revenue-sharing ratios for AI dramas mimicking human actors.
Looking ahead, Eight Point Light plans to expand overseas. This is a realization many have made upon entering the AI short drama space: domestic profit margins are shrinking, but global platforms still crave massive content supply.
Zhou Zhipeng believes the window for profiting purely on capacity is closing fast; high-quality production is definitely the future trend.
Who can make premium short dramas? Amidst the wave of “AI replacing short drama practitioners,” several industry figures told NUPIAO that writers and directors who truly understand content are the hardest to replace. Geng Mengyang noted that when hiring for AI roles, they prioritize cinematic aesthetics far more than software proficiency.
“Aesthetic sense” is hard to quantify, but in the short drama context, one practitioner explained: different directors frame scenes differently. Hit directors know exactly when to zoom in. With AI, skills that were once “good enough” in this industry are easily replaced, forcing many directors and writers to elevate their game.
Chen Ke Studio also put immense effort into content arrangement. Chen Ke told us that adapting long novels into engaging AI comic dramas requires ditching old “satisfaction formula” frameworks. Audiences want to see character growth and ensemble charm in a slower pace, alongside the thrill of magical battles. The team’s biggest challenge lies in adapting and compressing the plot, plus imagining the fight sequences.
This contrasts sharply with the chaotic early days of short dramas. Years ago, teams with zero experience could crank out simple shorts and get decent views via ads. Today, creating a hit requires a team that embraces AI while retaining deep experience in both short drama and traditional filmmaking.
Zhou Zhipeng summed it up: “There’s almost no technical barrier to making AI short dramas today. What matters now is understanding the content.”
When platform bonuses fade and everyone uses the same tools, competition returns to the core question: Does the storyteller have the power to make the audience click on the next episode?
(Names of interviewees such as Xiao Meng have been changed at their request.)
