AI reshapes the production logic of comic dramas. Wondershare Technology Group (300624.SZ) empowers the AI comic drama workflow across the entire chain.

On January 20th, the Douyin Giant Engine held the Manhua Ecology Conference in Hangzhou, a set of data once again ignited the heat of the AI manhua industry: Byte Manhua daily peak consumption has reached 30 million yuan; by 2026, the overall scale of the manhua market is expected to reach 22 billion yuan, or may contribute 50% of the incremental value to the short drama industry. Against the background of the saturation competition and increasing industry differentiation of live-action short dramas, manhua is becoming a rare high-profit track in the content industry. Behind the heat, the core variable driving the rapid expansion of this track is the reshaping of production logic by AI: the competition in the AI manhua track has shifted from "can we make it" to "can we produce it steadily and on a large scale", making the tool chain a new focus. Digital creative software companies such as AIGC-listed Wondershare Technology Group (300624.SZ) are laying out the entire production chain of AI manhua. From "new attempts" to "new mainstream": the concentrated outbreak of AI manhua AI manhua is a "content form" between live-action short dramas and traditional animations: it has the high density of punchlines and strong rhythm control of short dramas, while using static content such as comics and novels as the foundation, and AI tools as the core productivity to achieve large-scale output at extremely low cost and in a very short period of time. Over the past year, the live-action short drama industry has shown a trend of "20-80 differentiation". Headline projects continue to attract funding, but many production companies are still struggling in a marginal profitability. In contrast, AI manhua has emerged as a rising star, with companies like Lingju Anime and BlueNeo seeing it as a new "second growth curve". Taking Lingju Anime as an example, in 2024, they tried to use AI to produce short dramas, but due to technological limitations, production costs were prohibitively high. Lingju Anime revealed that at that time, the production cost of AI short dramas was significantly higher than that of live-action short dramas in the same period. In less than a year, there has been a significant change in industry cost structure. In May 2025, Lingju Anime initiated two manhua projects and received positive feedback in terms of commercial performance, further boosting their involvement in the manhua track. Lingju Anime's shift indirectly confirmed that 2025 was the year of the concentrated outbreak of AI manhua. Data shows that from April to July 2025, the supply volume of manhua programs continued to expand at a compound growth rate of 83%, with views and likes increasing by 92% and 105% respectively. Against the backdrop of slowing growth in live-action short dramas, AI manhua is transitioning from an industry "new attempt" to the "new mainstream" of the content market. The continuous increase in content supply and the application of AI technology constitute the dual driving factors of the concentrated outbreak of AI manhua. On the supply side, platforms and IP holders such as CHINA LIT, Zhihu Salt Stories, Tomato Novels, IReader Technology, and Qimao have successively opened up their copyright resources, forming a massive IP pool covering various genres such as urban, fantasy, romance, and suspense, providing "fuel" for the development of AI manhua. On the technical side, in 2025, many platforms such as Yuewen and Kuaishou continued to invest in AI creative and production tools, providing multi-link AI support for creators. Soochow points out that the cost per minute of traditional manhua is between 2,000 to 5,000 yuan, but with AI assistance, it can be reduced to 1,000 to 2,500 yuan, and efficiency can be improved by 50% to 80% in some aspects. In addition, driven by AI, manhua is gradually moving from a "labor-intensive industry" to a "tool-driven industry". A survey by the media at a production company in Hangzhou found that the popularity of AI tools allows newcomers to participate in basic production after about a week of training, and it has also reduced the cost of content production to some extent. AI manhua is on fire, and Wondershare Technology Group provides integrated workflow efficiency solutions If IP opening solves the problem of "what to shoot", AI tool perfection solves the problem of "how to shoot", then the key to the competition in the second half of AI manhua lies in the "full-chain solution" of AI manhua: whoever can string together the scattered links into a stable workflow, will have a better chance of gaining an advantage in high-frequency supply. The actions of digital creative software companies like Wondershare Technology Group are representative. Recently, the Shenzhen Municipal Bureau of Culture, Radio, Television, Tourism, and Sports released a list of projects proposed to be funded under the "2025 Annual Micro Short Drama Support Program", with Wondershare Technology Group proposed to receive 1 million yuan in support, indicating that its practices in the field of new content production have entered the policy's field of vision. Specifically, Wondershare Technology Group's Weixin Tianmu AI and Weixin Meow Shadow 2026 cover two key aspects of AI manhua production: "inspiration generation" and "finished product production". Weixin Tianmu AI focuses on creative visualization, emphasizing the rapid production of usable materials at lower costs and higher quality, supporting stylized effects such as Chinese style manhua, ink characters, and love of movies, helping creators to quickly complete concept validation and style trials in the project initiation phase. At the same time, with the support of Weixin Tianmu Audio-Visual Multimedia Big Model 2.0, it excels in professional-level camera operations, 3D sound effects generation, intelligent completion of starting and ending frames, making it more suitable for the high-frequency demands of manhua in terms of shot transitions, pace advancement, and ambiance creation. Weixin Meow Shadow 2026 embeds AI capabilities throughout the editing process, covering functions such as inspiration to finished product, text-to-video, picture-to-video, AI video erasure, intelligent image extraction, AI super clear, AI dynamic subtitles, AI continuation writing, etc., bridging the entire chain of production needs from rough editing to fine editing, thereby improving the stability of large-scale content production. (Weixin Tianmu, Weixin Miaoying 2026 empower AI manhua production) Wondershare Technology Group has established a reusable tool chain around AI manhua production: using generative capabilities at the front end to shorten the distance between creativity and materials, and using integrated editing capabilities at the back end to quickly integrate materials into content products. The strong synergy between the two allows creators to iterate faster and platforms to obtain more stable and scalable content supply. As AI manhua transitions from "quantity expansion" to "quality competition", such tools and solutions covering from creativity to finished product production may become key engines driving the industry's development. Public information shows that Wondershare Technology Group is an A-share listed company in the field of Chinese digital creative software with a wide product coverage, a large revenue volume, and a high degree of globalization. Its business covers more than 200 countries and regions worldwide, with over 2 billion active users, making it known as the "Chinese version of Adobe".