In 2026, there will be an explosion of AI short dramas in China. According to official data, 430,000 micro-mini dramas were launched in the first eight months of this year, an increase of 13 times that of last year. Among them, the share of AI dramas exceeds 90%, and the number of micro mini drama users exceeds 800 million. However, large quantity does not mean high quality: in the first half of the year, 221,900 AI mini-dramas were launched across the network, and only 1,055 of them exceeded 100 million broadcasts. The rate of breaking 100 million was about 0.47%, and hits were rare. However, amidst this flood of mass production, there are still 5 works that have broken the trend and have been named by netizens as the Top 5 unprecedented AI short dramas that are “more beautiful than real people”.
These five parts are “Ask the People”, an epic poem about strange things that satirizes the past and present, “Sang Nian Across the Sinking Boat”, which is known for its charming drama, “Green Plum on the Edge of the Inkstone”, which breaks down people’s defenses by saying “Come to the history books and find me”, “Su Zu Guili”, the dark horse of oriental fantasy tragedy, and “Laid Off Girl”, which directly attacks the layoffs of major factories. They don’t have traffic stars, and they’re mostly completed by creators alone. They rely on history, human nature and realistic themes to break out of this realm. Netizens call him the “renaissance” of AI film and television. On the other hand, ByteDance, TVB and Hollywood industry players have also entered the market. This gold race has just begun.
According to data from the China Internet Audiovisual Association, there were 128,000 short dramas online in the first quarter of this year, of which 122,000 were AI short dramas, accounting for more than 95%.Tik Tok In March, nearly 50,000 new AI dramas and comics were added in a single month, an average of more than 1,300 per day. The monthly number of live-action short dramas dropped from 1,934 at the beginning of the year to 1,629 in June. It is estimated that the market size of China’s AI dramas and comics will exceed RMB 40 billion in 2026, an annual increase of 138%.
👉AI short drama “Renaissance” is here… “Sang Nian Du Shen Zhou” and other three independent works have become popular in the industry because of word-of-mouth
👉Chinese AI short drama “Right People Into Demons” became a hit on Bilibili and received more than 12.72 million views. When the author woke up he was scared
The following works have broken out from the routine of “Son-in-Law’s Counterattack” and have been appraised by netizens as “drama quality”.
