加密贝姐

Post-95 couple “pounded out” an AI-produced hit webcomic drama, released 534 episodes across eight straight seasons. Views topped 4.1 billion—and more and more actors are facing unemployment and layoffs, because they’re simply never going to be hired with money. Back in the days of short dramas: everyone flocked to Zhengzhou’s “vertical-screen studio” to shoot real-person vertical phone dramas, burning money to assemble crews—working hard, producing a bunch of them—but hit content was purely a matter of luck. Out of ten, only two could actually survive. They even lost money to the point of doubting life.

They did experiment with AI comic dramas in the meantime. They managed to avoid the uncanny valley horror effect caused by AI faces, but the audience was too small, so it never caught fire—just a small circle cheering themselves on.

Then in March 2026, the ByteDance Seedance model made its appearance and basically smashed the industry gate wide open. Now, with just a regular person’s computer, you can tinker with AI to produce short, realistic dramas—achieving real production equality.

The biggest ace up AI short dramas’ sleeve: stacking sheer volume and gambling on luck. For urban-themed real-person shoots, it’s still “okay.” But for fantasy and sci-fi—where effects are expensive—traditional filming burns millions on special effects, while with just tens of thousands you can directly generate spells everywhere and grand fantasy worlds. The cost-effectiveness crushes the old approach.

In a single day, they can turn out 800–1000 minutes of footage, producing hundreds of episodes per month. They don’t rely on any one episode becoming a masterpiece; they cast a wide net with massive volume—there’s always going to be something that hits. A full AI short drama costs about 60,000–70,000 yuan to complete. The biggest expense is compute power, plus writing the scripts and post-editing.

By making money from revenue-splitting ads for free short dramas, there’s a player called “Soy Sauce Culture” who hauled in a staggering 300 million yuan in revenue in half a year, with net profit exceeding 100 million. That’s eating a whole lot of meat for real.

Now, 80% of people entering the industry aren’t even film-and-TV trained. Whether you can shoot or not doesn’t matter as much—what’s essential is picking the right content and understanding aesthetics. The platforms are also extremely laid-back in attitude: whether you shoot it yourself or generate it with AI, as long as you label it as AI, it’s fine. They only care whether audiences are willing to stay and binge. If the data looks good, then it’s good content.

Of course, there are pitfalls: mass production doesn’t equal hit-making. Lots of low-quality, factory-style short dramas will eventually bore viewers too—and the dividend won’t last forever.
$SPCX