In the first quarter of 2026, China released almost 128,000 micro-dramas, and the vast majority were made with the help of artificial intelligence. The boom has also opened up a parallel market: licensing real human faces.
China’s micro-drama industry is growing at an unprecedented pace, driven by generative AI. According to data from the China Netcasting Services Association, roughly 128,000 micro-dramas — the ultra-short, vertically shot series designed for smartphones, with episodes lasting one or two minutes — were released between January and March 2026, and more than 95% of them were made with the support of AI models. It’s within this context that a parallel market has emerged: licensing real faces, first reported by the magazine Rest of World and later picked up by numerous international outlets.
The industry, born in 2018, has won over millions of users with bite-sized episodes and an increasingly industrial pace of production: around 470 new AI-generated micro-dramas debuted every day in January 2026 alone, according to data from DataEye. AI production drastically cuts time and cost: what once took months can now be done in under 30 days, slashing expenses by up to 90%. It’s this scale of production that’s driving demand for the faces feeding the new licensing platforms.
Platforms such as ActID (Shenzhen) and New Claw (Chengdu) let anyone upload a few photos and license their likeness, choosing where it can be used. Producers browse catalogues organized by age, gender and facial features: the selected face doesn’t actually act — it becomes source material that AI animates and turns into different characters.
ActID, launched in March 2026, has around 800 registered users, roughly 300 of whom have licensed their image. Payments per episode range from 99 to 500 yuan ($15–$74), with the platform keeping a 10% commission; so far, two productions have licensed about ten faces through the service. Some users have reportedly earned as much as 5,000 yuan, around $700, for a single production. On New Claw, the minimum price per image is set at 500 yuan, about $74.
The boom hasn’t been free of controversy. In March 2026, the series Peach Blossom Hairpin, streamed on ByteDance’s Hongguo platform, was pulled after several bloggers accused its creators of recreating their facial features without consent; the show had already racked up more than 40 million views. The Guangzhou Internet Court is reported to have handled around 700 cases involving the unauthorized use of AI-generated likenesses over the past three years, while Hongguo says it has removed more than 85,000 videos found to be in breach of the rules. Chinese law requires consent for processing biometric data, but experts warn that once a face is online, keeping long-term control over it becomes difficult.
Foto di Steve A Johnson su Unsplash
