AI reshapes the production mode of short drama, industry reshuffle gives birth to new investment opportunities.

Observations on short video platforms have shown that AI short dramas are gaining users' attention at an astonishing speed. Since the beginning of the year, multiple AI-generated short films have become popular successively, with "Rescuing the Fox in the Snow Mountains" standing out for its witty dialogue and unconventional narrative, sparking a "remix craze" on short video platforms. According to the "Top 100 Anime Dramas in January 2026" report released by DataEye Research Institute, the proportion of AI-generated dramas on the list has skyrocketed from 7% in the same period in 2025 to 38%, accumulating a total of 2.548 billion views that month. Additionally, monitoring data from DataEye-ADX industry edition shows that during the 2026 Spring Festival, the total viewing volume of short dramas across all platforms reached 8.67 billion, with AI-generated dramas accounting for nearly 30% of the total. A report on micro-dramas in the first quarter of 2026 released by the streaming media website revealed that the production cost per episode of traditional live-action dramas ranges from 50,000 to 100,000 yuan, with a production period of 2 to 4 weeks. With AI intervention, the production cost per episode has been reduced to less than 5,000 yuan, with a production period shortened to 3 to 7 days. Industry data also shows that AI technology can reduce the production cost per minute from tens of thousands of yuan in traditional live-action mode to 1,000 to 2,500 yuan. The short drama Agent feature launched by ByteDance's Xiaoyunque AI even supports the upload of 100,000-word scripts and provides a one-click output of the finished product, allowing even novice creators to create professional-level short dramas.