More people than ever are hunched over their phones, scrolling through short dramas.

On commutes, on subways and buses—they're everywhere.

A friend recently told me that when he went back to his hometown, he saw people scrolling short dramas wherever he went.

An episode every few minutes, dopamine hits coming one after another—this is popularity visible to the naked eye.

Not long ago, Li Liang, vice president of Douyin Group, and well-known media figure Qin Shuo had a public debate online.

The core issue was how much of users' time Hongguo short dramas are occupying.

Setting aside other issues, has the short drama evolved to a new stage with the support of AI?

01 AI Sets Off a Short Drama Boom

October's A-share trading has ended, and most retail investors are reluctant to talk about it.

But throughout October, the AI short drama concept did go through a round of market movement.

In the first ten days of the month, Guomai Culture, Fuchun Shares, and Chinese Online all hit the daily limit at some point. The narrative investors were chasing was short drama IPs plus AI production, plus going overseas.

After the close on the 30th, many had already fallen back, while Guomai Culture had still risen 34% cumulatively in October.

There was also a catalyst for the sector: Tencent's Green Bubble short drama mini-program launched, signaling that this track is quite hot.

Setting aside this roller-coaster market movement, can industry-side data confirm the gut feeling?

First, both the number of short dramas and the user scale have increased significantly.

According to a report by CNR, 490,000 short dramas were launched from January to September 2026—13 times the total for the whole of last year.

Currently, the number of domestic micro short drama users is 850 million, with more than 600 million monthly active users.

According to multiple media reports citing QuestMobile monitoring data, as of July 2026, Hongguo short dramas reached 168 million daily active users, a year-on-year increase of 107%, exceeding the combined daily active users of the four traditional long-video platforms—iQIYI, Youku, Tencent Video, and Mango TV.

Note that the data here is for the Top 50 Apps, but this is also a field with relatively high daily usage frequency.

Tencent Green Bubble is also growing rapidly. As of August 2026, the monthly active users of Tencent Green Bubble's short drama mini-program had reached 143 million, with the data likewise from QuestMobile.

Next is AI short dramas.

Data from the China Netcasting Services Association shows that in the new short dramas launched in the first quarter of 2026, AI short dramas accounted for more than 95%.

In terms of cost and production cycle, AI short dramas have changed the production model of short dramas.

A person from a team that has worked on short drama production said that the cost of a single traditional live-action premium short drama is relatively high, with some investments reaching millions, and it requires organizing crews, actors, and locations. Even if everything runs smoothly, it takes weeks or even months.

But the cost per episode of AI animated dramas and AI simulated live-action short dramas has been compressed, greatly reducing costs. Even a small team of 2–3 people can complete one for tens of thousands of yuan, and the production cycle can be reduced to a few days.

This reduction in cost can bring new models to some professional companies.

These companies can produce multiple short dramas at the same time and can also conduct data-based horse racing for continuous trial and error.

Some companies are also exporting overseas, using proven hit scripts and relying on AI to adjust voice and visuals before directly releasing them to overseas markets.

According to DataEye's "2026 First Half Overseas Short Dramas and AI Drama Data Report," the overseas short drama market is expected to exceed $6 billion in 2026.

Sensor Tower data shows that ByteDance's overseas version of Hongguo, PineDrama, has surpassed 100 million cumulative downloads in less than a year since launch.

From this point of view, AI has transformed the short drama model.

02 The Application Demand for AI

Behind the surge in AI short dramas, there are two main threads.

Global AI has already completed a round of competition. Basic functions such as large models and generative applications are shifting toward the application side.

At present, aside from computing power, AI vendors do not have many application scenarios where they can make money.

Short dramas are different. Content standards do not require cinematic image quality, and audiences have a high tolerance for fineness, making them more compatible with the capabilities of current video generation models.

Many teams currently take proven hit stories or live-action short drama scripts and produce them through AI, ensuring the thrill of the plot.

In this field, AI's capabilities can be transformed into industrial tools for stable delivery and mass production, making this a benchmark scenario in AI applications today.

The other main thread has already been mentioned above: the bottleneck of short dramas.

A high-quality short drama used to be a project-based business.

Small as a sparrow but complete in every organ. Compared with larger long dramas, although it is a reduced version, many basic processes cannot be avoided.

Unless it is a hastily made series—and after competition became fierce, teams with lower production levels have gradually been washed out.

Limited production capacity and expensive trial and error make it difficult for most teams to produce in batches.

Although the industry track looks hot, it is not necessarily easy to make money.

In October, many listed companies repeatedly warned in abnormal trading announcements that the AI short drama business is still in the expansion stage and its short-term contribution to performance is limited.

In fact, from this round of fluctuations in AI short dramas, it can be seen that on the one hand, capital entered because AI has restructured the short drama model and brought overseas incremental growth, and the value of online literature IPs also appears higher.

But on the other hand, the overall ROI of the production segment is relatively low. Production costs go to AI vendors, traffic promotion costs go to channels, and the surge in the number of series intensifies competition—all of which make this industry look less rosy than it appears.

According to interviews by some media outlets, not many production teams are making money.

In this field, ByteDance is running ahead. On the surface it is Hongguo, but behind it is a complete industrial chain.

In the animation industrial chain in the past, Tencent was strong. Yuewen's works connected the entire chain from novels and animation to films through IP.

Tencent put Green Bubble on WeChat mini-programs, showing its lightweight approach. After all, in the short drama field, ByteDance has already occupied an important position.

In AI short dramas, ByteDance is gradually forming a new chain with its products.

For example, Fanqie can produce IPs and provide large models to generate short dramas, which are then placed on Hongguo, and it can also use Douyin and TK for traffic acquisition.

But in terms of users' usage time, short dramas are already high enough, and fierce industry competition is unavoidable.

The only worry is, can users' dopamine hold up?