At the 13th China Internet Audio-Visual Convention in Chengdu, the atmosphere was one of both technological marvel and existential reflection. The event, a high-level summit for China’s digital media elite, revealed that the country’s internet audio-visual user base has reached a staggering 1.099 billion people. More significantly, the rise of 'micro-dramas'—bite-sized, high-tempo serials—has fundamentally altered consumption habits, with the average user now spending 129 minutes daily on these short-form productions, surpassing traditional long-form video for the first time.
Beneath this growth lies an unprecedented surge in Artificial Intelligence integration that is rewriting the rules of production. Officials from the National Radio and Television Administration (NRTA) noted a startling trend: among recent micro-drama releases, the ratio of AI-simulated characters to human actors has reached 10 to 1. This surge in AIGC (AI-Generated Content) is fueled by platforms like Kuaishou, whose 'Kling AI' has already served 60 million creators, slashing production costs by two-thirds and reducing two-month special effects cycles to a mere two weeks.
However, this explosion of automated content has triggered a strategic pivot among industry leaders like Tencent and iQIYI. Tencent Online Video Chairman Sun Zhonghuai observed that as AI enables 'creative squads' of five to twenty people to do the work once requiring hundreds, the market is becoming flooded with low-quality, homogenous content. Consequently, platforms are shifting their investment logic from funding massive projects to betting on specific, trusted creators who can provide the 'human soul' that algorithms still struggle to replicate.
Regulators are also stepping in to navigate the 'Wild West' of AI entertainment. NRTA head Cao Shumin emphasized a new 'premiumization' mandate, requiring that over 60% of new content on major platforms be high-definition and original, while warning against 'copyright theft' and 'stolen voices' inherent in AI cloning. The industry consensus is clear: while AI provides a 'Hollywood-level' expressive toolkit to the masses, the bottleneck for high-quality production remains a severe shortage of 'hybrid talent'—those who can bridge the gap between technical AI prompt engineering and traditional artistic depth.