AI is taking a bigger role in short dramas, and actors are paying the price
The entertainment industry may be approaching a strange new reality: the actor you are watching might not be an actor at all. AI-generated dramas and digital performers are moving from experimental technology into everyday entertainment, with production companies increasingly using artificial intelligence to create characters, scenes and entire short-form productions. The shift is happening…
The entertainment industry is embracing AI-generated dramas and digital performers, leading to a potential shift in the roles of human actors. Powerful new video-generation tools, such as ByteDance’s Seedance 2.0, are enabling production companies to create higher-quality videos at lower costs, accelerating the adoption of AI in short dramas.
In May 2026, 89 of the top 100 animated dramas on Douyin were AI productions, and about 95% of 128,000 short dramas released in the first quarter of 2026 were AI-generated, according to the China Netcasting Services Association. Consequently, many performers are losing their jobs and being asked to help create the AI versions that replace them.
Some performers are being pressured to create AI replicas of themselves or risk being replaced by other actors. For viewers, this could mean a flood of cheap, rapidly produced entertainment, but for performers, it signals a less exciting future. AI-generated performers are already competing for screen time, and the audience may not always be aware of the difference.
This emerging model of entertainment demonstrates a new approach where expensive human production processes are compressed into software, with AI-generated performers increasingly vying for screen time.
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