A Billion-Dollar Market with 0.16% Hit Rate and 90% of Companies in the Red: The Madness and Truth of AI Comic Dramas.

The AI video generation landscape has seen dramatic changes.

In late January, at an AIGC offline salon organized by Feifan Industry Research in Chengdu, Chen Jie, Senior Director of Volcano Engine's Large Model Products, admitted to Shuzhi Frontline that AI applications in short and comic dramas only took off in 2025. Production teams could use AI to replace some shots, but full automation remained unfeasible for a long time due to a low "draw rate" of just 20%-30%. The application value would only significantly increase once the draw rate exceeded 50%. Just over ten days later, the release of Seedance2.0 changed everything. Shuzhi Frontline learned that Seedance has become ByteDance's top emerging business.

'Many traditional film and TV industry people couldn't sleep during the Spring Festival,' Luo Linfan, General Manager of Guangguang Chuangying, told Shuzhi Frontline. After the holiday, everyone was working overtime to test Seedance2.0, with average queue times exceeding six hours.

Platforms like ByteDance, iQIYI, Youku, Tencent Video, Mango TV, Baidu, Kuaishou, and Bilibili are all accelerating their entry, with cinemas also launching AI film projects. The industry describes AI comic dramas as having 'covered in one year what short dramas achieved in three.' Positioned between animation and short dramas, AI comic dramas use dynamic comics as their medium, with each episode lasting 3-5 minutes. Leveraging breakthroughs in video large models, they have quickly evolved from a niche hobby to an industrialized content system with high-frequency output. On this rapidly emerging new track, frenzy and rationality, involution and breakthrough, are unfolding simultaneously.

01

A Billion-Dollar Market: 'Everyone is jumping in'

The year 2025 is seen by the industry as the 'first year of AI comic dramas.' That year, among Douyin's monthly TOP 5000 short dramas, the number of fully AI-generated micro-dramas surged from 4 in January to 217 in November. The hit *Beneath the Immortal-Slaying Platform, I Shocked the Deities*, made by a 12-person team in just 30 days, garnered over 1 billion views and an ROI exceeding 110.

Chen Wenqing, Head of Content Consumption Industry Strategy at Huge Engine (Juliang Engine), predicts the comic drama market will surpass 22 billion yuan by 2026, contributing 50% of the short drama industry's growth. DataEye estimates that the domestic comic drama user base will grow from around 120 million in 2025 to 280 million in 2026.

This is a billion-dollar market, and players of all kinds are flocking in. 'Those from traditional film and TV, animation, online literature, gaming, as well as IT and agent R&D, are all rushing into this track,' observed Luo Linfan. The track also includes crossovers, such as those from investment and financing backgrounds hoping to enter the AI sector through comic dramas.

Qichacha data shows that 80,200 comic drama-related companies were newly registered in 2025, up 37.1% year-on-year. As of February 5, 2026, there are 245,000 existing companies, with 7,307 new registrations in 2026 alone.

Companies like Jiangyou, Lingju, and Huasheng were early movers in 2025, capitalizing on the technological trend to enter the AI comic drama space and have since become leading players. Wang Shubo, Founder & CEO of Judian Short Dramas & Lingju Animation, revealed, 'We launched our project in May 2025, producing just 2-3 episodes per month in July and August, but by the end of the year, we were up to 50-70 episodes, with an expected 150 by the end of March this year.'

The success of the first wave of players is attracting more entrants. An e-commerce advertising practitioner said they recently entered the AI comic drama space, leveraging their merchant advertising resources. Many young people are also joining, such as a second-year medical student who enrolled in an AI video production training camp. On Xiaohongshu, beneath notes about transitioning into AI comic dramas, many netizens leave comments asking to be 'taken under wing.' The one-stop short drama creation tool platform 'Youxi AI,' launched in January this year, attracted 13,000 creators in five days and generated first-month revenue exceeding 36 million yuan in ARR (Annual Recurring Revenue), reflecting high market enthusiasm.

Internet giants are also diving in. Since the second half of 2025, China Literature, Qimao, and Tomato Novels have licensed tens of thousands of IPs. In November, ByteDance's Hongguo Short Dramas launched a standalone comic drama app; in December, Baidu completed a dual-line layout (deployment) with 'Youmanju' and 'Qimao Manju'; in February 2026, Tencent launched its standalone comic drama app 'Huolong Manju.' Kuaishou, Bilibili, iQIYI, Youku, and Mango TV have also established comic drama channels, deployed AI creation tools, and introduced incentive policies. During the 2026 Spring Festival, AI comic dramas debuted on various platforms' Spring Festival slates, marking the full entry of long and short video giants into the space.

The entry of iQIYI, Youku, and Tencent Video is seen as an industry signal. On the launch day of Tencent's 'Huolong Manju,' ChineseAll announced that Tencent had procured a large volume of comic drama content from them for 23.2 million yuan. The core strengths of iQIYI, Youku, and Tencent lie in medium-to-long dramas and live-action productions. With their full entry, demand for high-quality content is set to explode. The industry also observes that cinemas are starting to move, with AI cinema films expected soon.

As the market rapidly expands, industry pricing tiers are becoming clear, forming three mainstream types: dynamic comics (including emoji/sand sculpture comic dramas), 2D/3D comic dramas, and AI simulated human dramas, with significant differences in market ceilings and costs. Among them, 2D/3D comic dramas are the current traffic mainstays for platforms, while AI simulated human dramas are becoming an important growth pole for the industry.

In terms of pricing and costs, Luo Linfan explained that for dynamic and sand sculpture comics, platform quotes have dropped to 400-600 yuan per minute, around 50,000-60,000 yuan for 120 minutes, while high-quality dramas (including premium 2D/3D and AI simulated human dramas) generally start at over 500,000 yuan. Zhu Wenxu, General Manager of Chengdu Aimenweisi, revealed that AI live-action short dramas are being commissioned at 30,000 yuan per minute, with major platforms potentially stopping acceptance of A-grade and lower dramas in the future, compressing A-grade short drama costs to under 350,000 yuan per episode.

In terms of profit margins, Wang Tianhai of Xi'an Feiying Technology once revealed that AI live-action narrated comics currently offer the best cost-effectiveness, with two people able to complete 30-40 minutes of content in ten days, yielding profit margins exceeding 50%, though platforms are now restricting low-quality narrated comics. AI comic dramas (including 2D/3D) have profit margins around 30%-40%, while sand sculpture comics have seen margins drop below 10% due to involution. Miao Yi of Nanjing Haoshoujuxi said premium AI live-action dramas have profit margins exceeding 60% but limited production capacity, with a 10-person team able to produce only one episode per month; mass-produced dramas have margins around 20%-30% but benefit from volume. Wu Haiming, CEO of Huasheng, revealed that the current revenue ceiling for AI comic dramas is 1-2 million yuan, with blockbuster dramas able to reach 10 million yuan.

Industry growth momentum continues. Luo Linfan said many companies saw their comic drama output increase over 30-fold last year, with at least another threefold increase expected in 2026, and the hype potentially lasting until 2030.

02

'Seedance2.0 Kept Traditional Practitioners Awake During Spring Festival'

The rapid rise of AI comic dramas is essentially an efficiency revolution and cost transformation driven by technology.

After Sora sparked the AI video craze in 2024, the industry attempted to use AI for cost reduction and efficiency gains, but early results were unsatisfactory. Lingju Animation tried AI short dramas in August-September 2024, with costs around 15,000 yuan per minute—triple that of live-action short dramas for a 100-minute project costing 1.5 million yuan—leading to the project's suspension. By the first half of 2025, some teams purchased memberships for various AI tools, only to generate one usable shot after dozens of attempts, with finished characters heavily 'AI-flavored' and achieving just 30% of expected results.

The turning point came in the second half of 2025. Breakthroughs occurred in mainstream domestic and international video models like ByteDance's Seedance, Kuaishou's Kling, MiniMax's Conch, Alibaba Cloud's Wan, OpenAI's Sora 2, and Google's Veo 3.1, enabling stable 5-10 second generations with significant improvements in character consistency, audio-visual synchronization, and camera movement smoothness. This duration perfectly matched the single-shot narrative logic of comic dramas, allowing 8-15 shots to be spliced into an episode. Costs dropped from 1,500-2,500 yuan per minute to 400-1,000 yuan, with individual daily output surging to 10-20 episodes, directly opening up the industrialization space for AI comic dramas.

'In just one year, 2025, multimodal AI saw a flourishing development,' summarized Ma Fei, CEO of Haiyi AI. He noted that 2023 was the enlightenment period for text and image AI, 2024 for image vertical applications, and 2025 as the first year of multimodal AI.

Model vendors also continued optimizing engineering aspects. To address the 'expensive draw' issue, ByteDance introduced the 'Draft Sample' function in Seedance 1.5 Pro in December 2025, allowing generation of a 480P preview before rendering the high-definition version. Shengshu Technology's Vidu Q2 solved complex interaction challenges like fight scenes, supporting 'reference-based video generation' and providing libraries for narrative, visuals, and audio subjects, enabling rapid film production without extensive prompts. Vendors also achieved breakthroughs in the core pain points of character consistency and audio-visual synchronization.

Various one-stop tool platforms also launched in the second half of 2025, such as Jurilu AI, China Literature's 'Comic Drama Assistant,' Kuaishou's 'Dream Maker 2.0,' and MovieFlow. AI rapidly covered 80% of the comic drama production process, from text to images, storyboarding, dubbing, and soundtracking.

AI began landing in the film and TV industry on a larger scale. Sun Tingyan, Founder of Chengdu Xinshijue AIGC, said that while their fantasy project was 100% live-action, AI replaced 50%-60% of CG (special effects). 'AI can't fully replace human emotional performances yet, so we use its strengths for cost reduction and efficiency gains,' he said. Wang Shubo of Lingju Animation revealed that their team simplified from a '1 director + 6 draw/post-production' model to '1+2' or '1+1,' tripling production efficiency within six months.

The emergence of Seedance 2.0 became a new key milestone. Luo Linfan of Guangguang Chuangying said it significantly reduced drawing attempts and saved work for directors and screenwriters. They are conducting detailed cost tests, with preliminary estimates showing a 50% cost reduction from before. 'This directly kept many traditional film and TV industry people awake during Spring Festival,' Luo said, noting that Seedance2.0 would involute the entire AI film and TV industry.

Around the Spring Festival, models like Kling 3.0 and Vidu Q3 also completed major upgrades. Kling 3.0 achieved physical simulation breakthroughs, directly yielding usable professional-grade outputs; Vidu Q3 provided the world's first model supporting 16-second direct audio-visual output, greatly lowering post-production barriers.

As the industry scales up, the economic efficiency of model usage has become a focus. Zhang Lu of cloud service provider Akamai introduced three main deployment models in the industry: API calls, cloud GPU rentals, and self-built servers.

The specific choice depends on cost calculations based on scenarios: For companies like MCNs and short drama producers making 500 minutes of video per month, using APIs for all 500,000 text + 1 million character dubbing + 8,000 images + 6,000 video segments would cost around $3,000/month, while using cloud servers would cost about $4,600. However, a hybrid approach—stable workloads on the cloud + elastic workloads via API—would cost only about $2,300, nearly halving expenses.

Self-building is worth considering when voice models process dozens to over a hundred hours daily. For image/video generation models, high-quality ads should prioritize top-tier APIs, while batch production with moderate quality requirements can switch to mid-range closed models or cloud + open-source models. Based on industry averages, when an agent produces 100-400 images or 400-800 minutes of video daily, it reaches a critical breakeven point and should consider self-building GPU servers.

Ma Fei of Haiyi AI predicted that in 2026, AIGC development would deeply integrate with Coding Agents. Currently, short dramas and games still rely on tools like CapCut and game engines, but future content production could see natural language directly controlling pixels, music, rhythm, and interactions, triggering a new wave of content explosion.

03

AI Comic Dramas: A Magical Phase of Involution and Frenzy

As the AI comic drama market grows rapidly, many practitioners admit it's an 'extremely involuted' sector.

'We felt the involution deeply last year,' admitted Zhu Wenxu. In 2025, few companies truly made big money from short dramas. 'I don't care about turnover; I only care about net profit,' he said.

DataEye data confirms this: In 2025, 60,946 comic dramas were launched, but only 96 surpassed 100 million views, yielding a hit rate of just 0.16%. Currently, the industry heavily focuses on genres like suspense, fantasy, time travel, and rebirth, leading to content homogenization and user aesthetic fatigue.

On the market, cases abound of creators spending months making over a dozen videos with dismal view counts, or investing tens of thousands in tools and courses without recouping costs. Huang Haonan, Founder of Jiangyou Culture, bluntly stated, 'AI comic dramas are in a magical phase. The narrative suggests everyone can make money with comic dramas, but from what I've heard, 90% of non-leading companies are losing money or breaking even!'"

Luo Linfan of Guangguang Chuangying pointed out that involution mainly concentrates in the B2B sector, especially in lower-cost areas like sand sculpture and dynamic comics, where competition is fierce. However, the C-end (creator side) and high-end production market (S-grade dramas, AI + live-action) are 'not involuted at all.' Currently, composite talents remain scarce in the market, and Luo predicts 'the talent market won't be involuted for the next three years.'

Facing involution, the industry is 'fighting back' on multiple fronts.",

Luo Linfan also said that recently, many companies have emphasized overseas layout (layout) in their communications, such as focusing on blank (untapped) markets in Southeast Asia, Russia, Kazakhstan, and along the Belt and Road Initiative. Some believe that the next phase of the industry will focus on content that aligns with overseas user preferences, such as werewolves, vampires, Western fantasy, and battle royale themes.

In addition, talent issues have also been put on the agenda. Xu Long, head of Wukong AI AIGC, mentioned that the biggest challenge in the current industry is the shortage of composite type (interdisciplinary) talent, with a significant gap in individuals who understand both AI tools and possess foundational audiovisual language construction skills. Luo Linfan also revealed that many companies planning to transition into AI-animated dramas have failed midway due to the inability to recruit suitable talent. Currently, they are accelerating the cultivation of AI-animated drama-related talent through university collaborations, industry training, and in-house corporate training.

Some industry insiders describe that AI-animated dramas have moved past the era of excessive profits and entered a period of steady growth, or an 'upward phase.' During this stage, companies will be more tested on their original content creation, industrial efficiency, and refined operational capabilities.