Now is the best time for MCNs to develop AI-related businesses.
There is a widespread consensus that no matter you excel at content creation, traffic operation or commercialization, you can redo your area of expertise in a more efficient and lower-cost way in the AI era. At present, as the commercial value of a batch of AI accounts has been verified, a time window that needs to be seized urgently has opened.
For MCN institutions, AI is undoubtedly the biggest market increment at the moment. Whether it is signing mature accounts or hatching content internally, more and more MCNs have been investing resources and energy in the AI content track since February.
At present, MCN institutions including Maiya Media, Fengqun Culture, OST Media, Shike Culture, and Shanghai Yaoyun have all entered the track, with dozens of AI accounts under their operation.
Fengqun Culture told *36Kr Decade* that the company has listed AI as a key direction since the beginning of this year, and has now built an AI account matrix of more than 60, covering tracks such as drama, animation, derivative creation, special effects, and virtual artists, with the goal of exceeding 100 AI-related accounts by the end of the year.
AI presents a clear trend of high-quality output, differentiation and stable production in the content dimension, and shows growing public influence. Over the past two months, a large number of hit AI works with millions of likes have emerged on Douyin, all of which have created objectively available signing nodes for MCNs.
The more direct appeal comes from the commercial potential demonstrated by AI accounts, as top AI accounts have been recognized by the market. According to reports, the single advertisement quotation of Maiya's account @Old Dream Gramophone reaches 400,000 yuan; the leading role @Fang Taozi in the AI short drama *The Laid-off Girl* was previously exposed to have a 60-second advertisement quotation of 258,000 yuan.
Lower creation cost and higher production capacity also mean a more economical and low-risk choice. For MCNs, the "de-influencerization" of AI content also brings stronger account operation stability.
For a long time, MCNs have been changing flexibly with platform policies and market popularity. AI is not the first content track they bet on, but the particularity of AI lies in that as a fundamental productivity transformation, AI cannot be understood as a single track, but comprehensively penetrates the entire short video ecosystem. It is the direction of current traffic flow, and also a pre-emptive layout for future creators and content ecology.
No matter what background and past accumulation they have, almost all MCN institutions are trying to re-find and establish their own ecological niche in the AI era. The path is not unique, but the consensus is to redo the short video industry in the AI era.
1
High-quality Content Opens the Entry Point for MCNs
In the current short video market, the ecological niche of AI content is undergoing significant changes.
The platform's demand for AI content has exploded in two dimensions: on the one hand, there is a strong desire and encouragement for "production capacity", and on the other hand, the requirements for "content quality" are getting higher and higher.
In the early stage, the relatively rough AI short and medium videos with UGC as the main creation source have completed the transition to systematization and high-quality output. In terms of overall quantity and top hit works, the importance of AI content in the ecology of various PUGC platforms continues to rise. AI content is the new increment with the largest volume, the fastest growth rate and the fastest high-quality transformation process in the short video market in the past year.
This has torn open an entry point for professional institutions like MCNs to enter the AI field.
On the one hand, top high-quality hit works have opened the influence of AI content in the public circle, reversed the public's stereotype of shoddy AI content, and the public has accepted AI content and even begun to form stable consumption habits.
In May, the AI short film *Zombie Cleaner* by @Mx-Shell caused a sensation as soon as it went online with its grand worldview and complete narrative. Different from many previously praised AI creative works, *Zombie Cleaner* was not only widely discussed in the creator circle, but also spread extremely widely among ordinary audiences, and triggered discussions among overseas film and television practitioners.
Screenshot of the work *Zombie Cleaner*
The works of @Director Li Rang opened another possibility of high-quality content on Douyin. His works mainly focus on themes of history, family and country, and human feelings. Compared with previous AI creative works that focus more on film narrative, @Director Li Rang is proficient in the narrative logic of short videos and has strong emotional appeal. Since April, he has produced multiple hit videos with millions of likes per video. This style, which is more in line with the short video traffic ecology and also meets the high-quality requirements, has many derivatives on Douyin. For example, recently, a number of new accounts have emerged on Douyin, combining traditional culture, using AI to remake cultural classics and fables such as *Song of the Pipa Player* and *The Neighbor Who Ridicules Beauty*, and sharing modern life experience.
On the other hand, this batch of AI content creators currently active on platforms such as Douyin have gradually demonstrated mature content production capabilities, showing stability in both content update frequency and quality, and have begun to present differentiated and recognizable content styles. This is the premise for accounts to accumulate long-term fans, and also the basic demand for MCN signing.
At the same time, platform traffic tilt also directly affects the business choices of MCNs. In the past six months, AI-related support plans of various platforms, such as Douyin's "AI Creation Wave Plan", Bilibili's "AI Creation Competition" and "AI Idol Debut Season", which aim to tap high-quality creators and encourage high-quality content, have become more and more frequent. An MCN that used to focus on secondary creation tracks such as beauty style interpretation and locomotive supercar popularization told *36Kr Decade* that the traffic and subsidies available in the original track are decreasing, they are facing the situation of having to transform, and have now established a 20-person AI team.
2
Commercial Orders Are the Most Direct Signal
The most direct factor prompting MCNs to actively enter the market is still the clear value demonstrated by AI content in commercialization.
The top AI creators that *36Kr Decade* has contacted before have shown strong profitability. After becoming popular with the two videos *Farewell 1* and *Farewell 2* in early April, the commercial orders of @Director Li Rang were quickly scheduled to the end of June.
Many recent AI videos with 100k+ or even 1 million+ likes of Maiya's top AI account @Old Dream Gramophone are commercial cooperation, covering brand partners such as JD, Cadillac, Changan Automobile, Yili, and Haier; millions of likes mean that the video views have reached the tens of millions level. Previous media reports said that the single advertisement quotation of @Old Dream Gramophone reached 400,000 yuan, and Maiya's AI account matrix has received more than 100 commercial orders, with a total revenue of millions of yuan.
In April, MCN Shell Video, which once created top accounts such as @He Xiangu Fu, was renamed Shell Technology, transformed into an AIGC content application company, and launched the AI creator MCN brand "Generator" in August. Different from most MCNs driven by traffic and content, Shell's core resources are on the client side, and it is the signals from brand clients that prompt it to transform to AI. Its idea is also different from traditional MCNs: instead of hatching traffic first and then looking for commercial orders, it reversely matches or hatches AI content and creators with matching types through clear commercial demands.
AI digital artists also have very strong user stickiness, as well as the ability to endorse and bring goods as virtual stars. The heroine @Fang Taozi in the AI short drama *The Laid-off Girl* gained 400,000 fans in 30 days after her debut, and the 60-second advertisement quotation is 258,000 yuan, far exceeding most real influencers. Virtual artists such as @Yuri and @AI Talk Show Host Qiaoqiaozi have also accumulated hundreds of thousands of fans on short video platforms.
Whether it is taking commercial orders, or doing live streaming and e-commerce based on artist operation, the two most core monetization methods of MCNs are constantly being implemented in the AI track, even exceeding the efficiency of real influencers. Shell Technology believes that the available scale and extremely low cost of AI can hedge the uncertainty of hit works. "Traditional marketing spends hundreds of thousands or millions of yuan to put in a single top influencer, which needs to bear extremely high risks; now with AI, you can make 10 or 100 works with the same cost, and its hit rate is definitely higher than that of single content delivery."
Although the commercialization of current AI content, especially AI digital artists, objectively has certain risks. For example, the contact lens advertisement of @Fang Taozi was questioned by netizens for suspected false propaganda: "How can an AI actor without eyes know whether the contact lens is comfortable or not", which even touched the red line in the *Advertising Law* that "medical devices shall not be recommended by spokespersons". The leading actors of the popular AI drama @Duan Yan and @Bai Zhou have also been involved in voice and portrait infringement disputes respectively, and real bloggers have spoken out to safeguard their rights.
But this is more of a copyright compliance problem faced by the AI digital human industry in the early stage of development. As long as advertisers and consumers recognize the core value of AI content, the problem can be solved through authorization and standardized operations in terms of portrait and voice, which cannot conceal the advantages of AI in commercial efficiency.
3
There Is More Than One Path, But Time Is Tight
Although their starting points and rhythms are different, the underlying methodology for MCNs to enter the AI field can also be summarized in one sentence: starting from AI, based on their own advantages, redo the entire industry. At present, MCNs that are accelerating their progress in the AI field can almost see the shadow of past experience in their business ideas.
Maiya Media first started with web novel traffic delivery, and then accumulated content capabilities relying on short dramas and comic dramas. Therefore, in the AI era, it hatched the drama account @Old Dream Gramophone, focusing on warm content, and its representative work *Breakfast Grandma* has now received more than 18 million likes. The AI content creation platform Jump Vision developed internally by Maiya is the tool basis of @Old Dream Gramophone, and the built-in skills come from the production experience of past hit dramas.
Fengqun Culture is good at discovering and signing young creative talents with distinct personal styles and imaginative ideas. It has hatched vertical influencers such as @Tao Baibai and @Wang Qiye. Therefore, at present, the top AI creators it signs in the AI field, such as @Life Longer Than Dream and @Mike Jun, are mostly IPs with science fiction and fantasy styles.
Fengqun Culture believes that technology is not the core decisive condition; the work *All Things Grow* signed by AI creator @Life Longer Than Dream "has accumulated nearly 100 million views on Douyin, relying on a complete worldview and aesthetic, and AI is just a tool to realize its imagination". Therefore, the signing idea is to find people with real creativity, "the ability to tell a good story and hit an emotion will not depreciate; these people are even more valuable in the AI era."
Screenshot of the work *All Things Grow*
OST Media previously had significant advantages in the field of entertainment anchors and group live broadcasts, and hatched @Dao Xiaodao, an influencer in the beauty face-changing track with tens of millions of fans on Douyin. Therefore, when entering the AI track, its incubated AI account @Bai Zhou and Egg also has a strong idol artist feature, and the ultimate goal is to achieve fan operation.
Screenshot of @Bai Zhou and Egg's work
Shell Technology holds customer resources and believes that the incubation logic should be reconstructed. Under the "production based on sales" model, the AI creators selected and signed by MCN will have clear commercial orders as soon as they enter the system, which can realize a high-certainty commercial closed loop of "making money right after debut".
More and more MCNs want to seize this rare window of opportunity, which not only comes from the tilt of traffic and commercial orders, but also because, different from the emergence of any new track before, AI penetrates the entire content ecology from the bottom.
"AI makes content more creative and attractive, which cannot be achieved by original text and video editing", a person in charge of MCN told us. In addition to technology and creativity, AI also connects with a younger generation of creative forces and unknown future content forms.
In the AI era, it is very likely that a new national content community will be born, which will be a brand new space for MCNs. But from another perspective, if you give up AI, it not only means losing the current popular track, but also means giving up many possibilities in the future.
This possibility brings hope to MCNs, but also brings anxiety and pressure. For those MCNs that have not yet found a way, rushing to sign outstanding AI creators has become the most direct and effective method at present, and it has also become a concrete manifestation of industry urgency.
In March, a video of Douyin account @Talk Show Host Qiaoqiaozi became popular, with more than 270,000 likes. While being noticed by a large number of fans, her background private messages also received olive branches for signing from more than ten MCNs.