China's entertainment industry sees 95% of short dramas produced with AI
ai-generated videos now make up 95% of china's short dramas, threatening jobs of 690,000 people.
since bytedance's seedance 2.0 launched, digital performers can produce better videos faster and cheaper than humans. in q1 2026, about 128,000 short dramas were published in china, three times the total for all of 2025, with 95% being ai-generated. the industry employs 690,000 people directly, and 15 million list livestreaming as their primary job. one minute of ai video now costs just $90 to $120, about ten percent of what production with human actors used to cost.