Wave of the future here today...
A CCTV report shows what China's AI short-drama boom looks like at the bottom of the stack: a marketplace for human faces.
In Sichuan, a platform lets anyone license their likeness in under 30 minutes. Pricing is per use, not buyout. Ordinary people get roughly 100 yuan per drama, actors 500 to several thousand yuan. The platform takes a cut, and one licensor told CCTV he keeps 70%.
Why faces? AI-generated ones still look stiff and low on recognition. Audiences do not connect. With DataEye estimating the AI short-drama market above 22 billion yuan in the first five months of 2026, this is becoming a standardized supply chain.