AI short dramas: The new craze pursued by capital
On Douyin, the 68 - episode AI live - action short drama "The Schemes of the Empress Dowager and the Little Princess" has accumulated 210 million views. "Xing'anling Mysteries", the first paid AI short drama in China, exceeded 10 million views in less than 21 hours after its launch. As of October 17th, its cumulative views reached 56.133 million, with a revenue of over 300,000 yuan on Douyin's native platform and an increase of over 100,000 followers for the account. Overseas, "After Divorce" topped the weekly short - drama chart, with a cumulative popularity value of over 5 million, becoming the world's first AI short drama to make it onto the best - selling short - drama box - office list.
The impressive data of these AI short dramas are continuously refreshing the industry's understanding of their dissemination power.
Image source: Official platform
Behind these hit achievements, the efficiency revolution on the production side is also remarkable. A "cliff - like improvement" has become a prominent feature. Take the fully AI - produced micro - short drama "The White Fox" as an example. A team of only four people used ChatGPT to quickly iterate the script and then created audio - visual content through tools such as AI drawing and intelligent editing. They not only compressed the production cycle from three months in the traditional mode to two weeks but also reduced the production cost per minute from tens of thousands of yuan to the level of ten thousand yuan, highlighting both efficiency and cost advantages.
Driven by interests, capital is accelerating its entry into the market.
From Bona Film Group taking the lead in launching China's first AIGC science - fiction short drama "Sanxingdui: Future Revelation" to Huayi Brothers clearly announcing the preparation of seven AI short dramas, and then to Kunlun Tech achieving a monthly turnover of 10 million US dollars through its short - drama platform, currently more than 10 A - share listed companies have bet on the AI short - drama track from multiple dimensions such as technology research and development, content creation, and platform operation.
From a technological experiment product to a commercial blue ocean that capital is vying to bet on, the explosive development of AI short dramas is clearly visible. However, technical bottlenecks, content homogeneity, and copyright disputes still persist. Can this rapid - advancing AI content revolution truly complete the closed - loop from "traffic monetization" to "long - term value"?
01. More than 10 listed companies enter the market
At the end of 2023, Bona Film Group was the first to sense the industry opportunity and established the AIGMS production center that integrates AIGC and the film industrial production system, becoming an early enterprise to explore the intelligentization of film and television content. In July 2024, Bona Film Group and Douyin jointly produced China's first AIGC science - fiction short drama "Sanxingdui: Future Revelation". Kuaishou also immediately released "The Wonders of Mountains and Seas: Cutting Through Waves". AI short dramas entered the mainstream vision for the first time in the form of a "technology + content" integration.
Image source: Bona Film Group
This year, the increased efforts of platforms have further enhanced the attractiveness of the track. Jimeng AI and Douyin launched the "AIGC Short - Drama Joint Recruitment Program", while Kuaishou launched the "Xingmang Short Dramas × Keling AI Large Model 'AI Imagination Theater'". Both platforms offered tens of millions of yuan in cash incentives and billions of traffic support, which not only lowered the creative threshold but also provided a clear path for content monetization.
On October 16th, the AI short - drama generation platform under Baidu Search officially started its public beta and launched a 100 - million - yuan creative fund, tens of billions of traffic support, and long - term IP monetization methods to support creators.
This model of "platforms providing the stage and capital performing on it" has directly promoted the capital market to accelerate its entry. Currently, including Bona Film Group, more than 10 A - share listed companies have entered from dimensions such as technology research and development, content creation, and IP operation, pushing AI short dramas from scattered experimental projects to the stage of large - scale production.
Among them, technology companies represented by Kunlun Tech took the lead in building technological barriers. Its AI short - drama creation platform SkyReels has completed multiple rounds of upgrades, supporting the generation of 30 - second long - videos, the construction of multi - subject scenarios, and seamless connection between the first and last frames, providing efficient creative tools for the industry. Its short - drama platform DramaWave covers global users through a "paid + free" model. As of the first quarter of 2025, its monthly turnover reached 10 million US dollars, achieving a closed - loop of "technology research and development - content distribution - commercial monetization".
Zhangyue Technology and Guomai Culture, which focus on content output efficiency, are making efforts from two dimensions: "high - frequency output" and "long - term operation". Zhangyue Technology has clearly stated that it will launch about three AI short dramas per month in the future to quickly complete the entire process of AI short - drama production and commercialization. Guomai Culture has completed the production of 240 episodes of AI short dramas since its layout, with the total views across the network exceeding 70 million times. Its latest AI comic drama "The Quest for the Supreme" is planned to be launched before the National Day this year, forming a stable rhythm of "continuous output + node - based explosions".
Yinli Media focuses on the synergy of "technology + content". Relying on AI video generation technology, it is exploring AI micro - short dramas and AI animations simultaneously, trying to find a differential advantage in content form. Bona Film Group also adopts this approach. In addition to its previous layout in content production, it recently launched the "Bona One - Click AI Short - Drama Generation Platform", deeply integrating AI technology with film and television professional capabilities, which can directly transform text inspiration into complete short - drama videos.
As a traditional film and television giant, Huayi Brothers has made a strong breakthrough on the content side with its IP reserves and industrial experience. Wang Zhonglei, the vice - chairman and CEO of Huayi Brothers, once publicly revealed that Huayi Brothers is about to launch the first fully AI - produced film list in the domestic film and television industry. Currently, it has reserved seven AI short dramas and one AI movie, and several projects have been completed and will be launched one after another.
More listed companies choose "multi - track synergy" to explore cross - border value. Huanrui Century revealed in an investor interaction that it has continuously deepened its layout and increased resource investment in emerging tracks such as AI short dramas and AI comic dramas. Kingnet Network built an overseas social media matrix around its self - owned IP "Sui Shi Ling" and promoted the IP through AI short dramas, achieving the dual goals of "content going global + IP monetization". In 2024, Chinese Online used AI technology to produce nearly a hundred comics and dynamic comics, with a cumulative view count of over 3 billion times. It also plans to launch a self - developed AI toolchain covering "script creation - character setting - picture rendering" to further complete the full - link layout.
Some other enterprises choose "dislocated competition" based on their core advantages. Although Yunwen Group has not launched a pure AI short drama yet, its executive director and CEO clearly stated that it will promote the synergy between AI and IP as a copyright holder, aiming to "reshape the ecosystem from creation to consumption". Although Mango TV is still in the early stage of exploration in the field of AI short dramas, its "Shan Hai Research Institute" and "Mango Large Model" have been registered with the Cyberspace Administration of China. The full - process AI production has been applied in fields such as micro - short dramas and variety shows, gradually accumulating experience through "application - layer exploration".
02. AI reshapes the production process: Dual transformation of efficiency and creativity
The core driving force for capital to bet on AI short dramas comes from the systematic transformation of the production process by AI and the significant breakthrough in cost reduction and efficiency improvement.
Looking back at the production process of traditional film and television works, whether it is a long - length masterpiece or a short and concise short drama, it usually goes through multiple links such as planning, scriptwriting, casting, setting up scenes, shooting, and post - production. This process is not only time - consuming and labor - intensive but also costly. However, the intervention of AI technology has completely changed this situation.
On the creative side, large language models such as ChatGPT have shown strong capabilities. It can quickly generate a first - draft script based on keywords and intelligently optimize the pain points and highlights of the plot. Take Enlight Media as an example. The company used an AI intelligent system to conduct batch evaluations and diagnoses on thousands of backlogged scripts, greatly reducing the script incubation cycle in the traditional mode.
On the production side, AI text - to - image and image - to - video technologies have shown their prowess, effectively replacing high - cost real - scene construction and animation modeling, and avoiding the high cost and high risk of on - site shooting. While improving the production efficiency of short dramas, it also reduces the cost of scenes and labor. Currently, AI technology has been widely used in scene pre - rehearsal, special - effect sequence preparation, and production planning. This means that the "advanced special effects" that once required team collaboration can now be easily achieved by one person with the help of AI.
This full - process intelligent transformation, like the case of "The White Fox" mentioned above, has brought a leap - forward improvement in efficiency. It not only lowers the industry threshold but also allows creators to invest more resources in content refinement, thereby improving the quality of works.
Image source: Screenshot of "The White Fox"
As tools such as Sora2 continue to lower the technical threshold, the production process of AI short dramas will be further simplified. With just one sentence, Sora2 can generate short videos. It has significantly improved in terms of picture quality, duration, synchronization, and coherence, and can generate short videos up to 10 seconds long with nearly 4K details. In addition, Sora2 has achieved basic synchronization between voice and lip - movement and also supports the generation of conversations in multiple languages. Against this technological background, the technical barriers of AI short dramas are constantly being lowered, and the imagination of creators can be better realized.
In addition to the improvement in efficiency, the continuous expansion of diversified business models has also provided strong support for the growth of the market space of AI short dramas. Currently, AI short dramas have explored various profit - making paths. In addition to watching short dramas by swiping ads and paid on - demand viewing, in brand promotion, AI can generate targeted ads and integrate them into short dramas, realizing multi - form promotion of soft and hard ads and expanding the revenue - increasing space of short dramas.
03. Hidden worries behind the boom
Despite its rapid development, AI short dramas still face many challenges.
First, in terms of content, no phenomenon - level works have emerged in AI short dramas, and most works rely on platform support. Some creators overly pursue gorgeous pictures and smooth actions but neglect story coherence and character building, resulting in works becoming "a pile of slides". For example, some AI micro - short dramas create visual impacts through the accumulation of special effects, but the plot logic is chaotic, and it is difficult for audiences to resonate.
Meanwhile, the AI short - drama market is facing a serious problem of content homogeneity. A large number of works are concentrated in fantasy, science - fiction and other fields that are easy for AI to generate, leading to the rapid formation of audience aesthetic fatigue. What is even more worrying is that the tendency to overly rely on technology while neglecting the essence of content is becoming more and more obvious.
Second, in terms of technology. Although AI can quickly generate special - effect scenes and optimize picture effects, it has insufficient ability in emotional expression and character building. Human humor, fear, and cultural background are closely related, and the emotions simulated by AI through algorithms often lack depth. For example, an actor of the caliber of an Oscar - winner can convey the character's psychology through subtle facial expressions, while the performances generated by AI still seem stiff. In addition, technical shortcomings often lead to problems with the consistency between characters and scenes.
Commercially, the overall profitability of AI short dramas has not been fully verified. Although individual works have achieved impressive view data, most works still rely on platform subsidies and traffic support and lack an independent profit - making model. More importantly, AI short dramas generally have the problem of insufficient IP attributes, making it difficult to form a long - lasting brand influence, resulting in a continuously low user retention rate. The short - term creative tendency has exacerbated this situation. Many production companies sacrifice the quality of works for quick profits, which not only damages the user experience but also hinders the establishment of a healthy business model.
More seriously, copyright and ethical issues occur frequently. Some production crews use AI to generate scripts with one click, replace the faces of celebrities, and even sell "customized intimate scenes", seriously infringing on the rights of others. The "Interim Measures for the Administration of Generative Artificial Intelligence Services" in 2023 clearly stipulates that AI - generated content shall not infringe on the portrait rights and reputation rights of others, but violations still occur frequently.
In general, the explosion of AI short dramas is the result of the combined action of technology, capital, and market demand. However, its long - term development needs to cross the three thresholds of content, technology, and commercialization. In the future, only by finding the best balance between technological innovation, content quality, and commercial value can this AI - led content revolution truly achieve the leap from "traffic monetization" to "long - term value".
This article is from the WeChat official account "DoNews" (ID: ilovedonews), author: Cheng Shushu, editor: Li Xinma. It is published by 36Kr with authorization.