The total number of views across the entire network is nearly 5 billion, a single bracelet has generated sales of millions of yuan, did the AI CP reach its peak immediately after its debut?

Who could have imagined that the most active "business operators" on this year's Qixi Festival are none other than AI CPs.

Look closely, Duan Yan, hailed by netizens as the "No.1 AI Boyfriend", is leading his AI colleagues to dance the "cute boy waist-twisting dance" just to grab the attention of his girlfriend Rong Jiqiao:

This video has received over 790,000 likes and more than 370,000 reposts on Douyin, making it the most popular video ever posted by the male lead Duan Yan and the female lead Rong Jiqiao.

The two got to know each other after playing the male and female leads in the AI manhua drama *Deeply in Love With You for the Rest of My Life*. On the CP account "Duan Yan and Rong Jiqiao (Official Account)", the two update daily snippets of their happy life as a young couple.

*Deeply in Love With You for the Rest of My Life* is a female-oriented romance AI short drama, produced by Buming Culture. Judging from the data, it has achieved outstanding performance on both Douyin and Hongguo platforms.

On the Hongguo platform, the drama has been broadcast for 5 seasons, with nearly 5 billion views across the whole network, a peak popularity of 88.68 million on Hongguo, and a total of over 14.9 million collections.

On Douyin, the views of content related to the topic #DuanYan have exceeded 1.3 billion, and the views of the CP co-starring topic #DuanYanRongJiqiao have reached 180 million.

Apart from official content showing the sweet moments of the couple, there are also many netizens creating fan-made works for free out of their love for the CP.

You can even catch behind-the-scenes clips of these two AI actors on Douyin, and a blurry 10-second video can get 130,000 likes within 5 days.

The New Rank editorial team has noticed that AI CP accounts, operated by short drama producers and dedicated to recording off-screen snippets of the male and female leads in AI idol dramas, are rising in batches on Douyin.

It is worth mentioning that these AI CPs have quickly embarked on the path of commercial monetization.

Recently, a pink four-leaf clover bracelet named "Duan Yan's Same Style" has sold over 10,000 units on Douyin alone. Calculated at the unit price of 129 yuan, the sales revenue of this bracelet under a single product link has exceeded 1 million yuan.

The male and female leads starring in the AI manhua drama *Extra! The Reborn Big Shot Has Dropped His Vest* are interlocking their fingers and visiting the office building together.

As the "AI Recommendation Officer" for the 7-minute Sweet milk tea brand, they also distributed "the first cup of milk tea in autumn" to the staff present.

On their CP account "Dongfang Yan and Su Xian'er" with more than 100,000 followers, the two were also invited to shoot for a fashion magazine.

At present, the electronic version of *Travellens Chinese Edition* has been launched on Qixi Festival. In the fashion photos, the glasses worn by the two were also reposted and claimed by a fashion eyewear brand.

So how did these AI CPs build up their accounts? How will their emergence affect the content production and commercialization logic of AI short dramas?

Thriving by showing presence during short drama update breaks, AI CPs show off their creativity in various ways

The short drama industry has welcomed the best at drama promotion — AI idol dramas.

Take "No.1 AI Boyfriend" Duan Yan, who has 1.3 billion topic views on Douyin and 5 billion short drama views, as an example.

According to statistics, Buming Culture, the short drama company that Duan Yan belongs to, has opened a CP account for each of its AI idol dramas. These accounts often make collaborative videos, mention each other on their homepages, and introduce their identity relationships.

For the drama *Deeply in Love With You for the Rest of My Life* alone, 6 official accounts of the production team are promoting it simultaneously on Douyin, including 1 plot account, 3 character accounts, 1 CP combination account for the male and female leads, and 1 official drama promotion account.

A short drama generated by AI that lets virtual people fall in love has managed to create a thriving ecosystem. Among these "family accounts", the CP account has the highest efficiency in attracting followers.

The launch timing of this type of CP account is very deliberate, focusing on making the most of every gap. It updates frequently during the update breaks of seasonal AI short dramas, posting snippets of the male lead giving gifts and proposing to the female lead, and the two stepping into the wedding hall.

The account also interacts with the audience in the tone of the male lead, calling on audiences across the network to create fan-made content.

The New Rank editorial team speculates that one of the most intuitive reasons for the drama to open a CP account is that the love line between the male and female leads in the original novel is very bumpy, and the end of each season of the short drama stops at the point where the young couple is facing life-and-death separation.

The emergence of these snippets can continuously refresh the presence of the male and female leads on the one hand, and will not spoil the plot of the next season on the other hand.

Letting the AI CP live the happy life that the audience loves to see in the parallel universe of another account has become the most stable choice.

After Duan Yan became popular, many AI idol drama producers followed suit to open AI CP accounts and post love snippets of the male and female leads on them.

According to incomplete statistics, at least 12 short dramas on the Douyin platform alone have opened CP accounts for their AI male and female leads.

The various creative contents produced by AI CPs are rich in variety. The most basic operation is to let the AI male and female leads participate in the shooting and promotion processes of short dramas, such as the opening ceremony, wrap-up party, and new drama press conference.

A more advanced gameplay is to extend the character settings of the short drama CP to derivative creations such as variety shows and Vlogs.

"AIGC-Great Ambiguous Period" is the first creator to put forward the banner of "CP that will never collapse".

This account has incubated 4 AI actors, who form 4 CPs. Multiple elements such as romance, talent show, idol cultivation, and childhood sweethearts are superimposed on these 4 people, broadening the content boundary of AI CPs.

Therefore, the most popular videos on this account are not AI short dramas, but serialized variety shows starring these CPs, such as "Jeju Island Romance Show" and "When Childhood Friend Becomes an Idol".

For production companies that have multiple AI short dramas, popular CPs often co-create content with other AI colleagues, thus opening up an era where "one star rises, and colleagues are waiting to become popular".

From the perspective of the ownership of these CP accounts, except for "AIGC-Great Ambiguous Period" which states in its profile that it is an independent creator, all other accounts are opened by short drama production companies.

At present, the main companies that open CP accounts for AI idol dramas are "Buming Culture" and "Winter Star Interactive", each of which has 3-4 CP accounts and dozens of personal accounts for AI artists.

Therefore, it can be seen that these CPs not only show their own sweet moments, but also link up with other AI couples in the same company.

As the "top stream" of the company, Duan Yan not only has to dance the "cute boy waist-twisting dance" as the mainstay of the company, but also makes guest appearances in videos of other AI colleagues, shooting themed videos with the meme "You may not know me, but you must know my colleague".

Duan Yan's whole family has come to support him.

This gameplay makes AI CPs no longer limited to a single drama, but forms an internally linked AI artist universe.

Why can AI CPs seize the market share of real-person CPs?

In fact, the popularity of AI CP accounts is the result of the combined effect of user demand, company operation and user demand.

From the perspective of user habits, shipping CPs has long been a mature emotional consumption track.

Compared with real-person CPs, AI CPs have two most intuitive advantages.

The first is their high appearance level. AI can restore the "most beautiful" and "most handsome" human modeling to the greatest extent.

Recently, the Internet has spread the opening photos of "top streamers in short drama circle" Wang Xiaoyi and Chen Si playing the real-person version of Rong Jiqiao and Duan Yan.

Although this real-person short drama was filed for record earlier than the manhua drama of the same IP, many netizens questioned after comparing the two: "The costumes and settings don't match the luxurious descriptions in the novel at all", "I watch AI dramas just because I'm a sucker for good looks".

Secondly, AI CPs have stronger emotional stability.

Although the emotions between real actors are more real and fun to ship, they are relatively risky and have a short binding cycle. Every real-person CP cannot escape the fate of breaking up.

AI CPs just fill this gap. The couple can be strongly bound, cooperate many times both on and off screen, never break up, and keep producing sweet content.