Chinese AI Short-Drama Prices Collapse 96% as Industry Hits Crisis

AI-generated short-drama production in China has seen prices collapse by 96 percent, according to entrepreneurs in the sector, with per-minute quotes falling from 5,000 yuan to as little as 200 yuan or even a few dozen yuan. One founder told an industry publication that the AI drama business is dead, arguing that when a 100-yuan production can be resold for 1 yuan, producers lose 99 yuan on every deal.

The price crash reflects a broader pattern in China’s AI content market, where increasingly capable video-generation models have flooded the field with low-cost output. Platforms control user traffic and distribution, while production companies churn out episodes and often fail to recoup their costs. The result is a squeeze on margins that leaves little room for quality or differentiation.

Yet not everyone is losing. Hong Kong-listed company Duiba reported 223 million yuan in AI short-drama revenue in the first half of the year, suggesting that scale and distribution advantages can still generate returns even as unit prices tumble. The contrast highlights a widening gap between well-capitalized platforms and small independent studios.

The episode offers an early look at how the economics of AI-generated entertainment may evolve: as production costs approach zero, value shifts decisively toward whoever owns the audience and the pipeline. For China’s thousands of small AI content shops, the question is whether any niche remains profitable.