You can’t stop playing but feel “brainless”: Did the AI ​​short drama “hook” you?

Six main creators and a team of more than 30 people produced the first season in 20 days. Now it has updated ten seasons and about 1,000 episodes - this is the production method of Hongguo's popular AI short drama "Armed into the Song Dynasty". The producer said that as of November 7, the show's online views exceeded 12 billion.

In fact, such capacity is becoming the norm. According to QuestMobile monitoring, as of July this year, Hongguo’s short drama had 168 million daily active users, a year-on-year increase of 107%, exceeding the combined daily active users of iQiyi, Tencent Video, Youku, and Mango TV.

A new species grew into a super app in three years.

On social platforms, there are many self-complaints about "just relaxing for ten minutes" but "several hours were wasted without realizing it".

Behind this "spectacle" is not just a "short play is popular", but also a change in production and distribution methods. Industry insiders analyze that AI has reduced the cost of a single film from about 300,000 yuan to about 50,000 yuan, reduced the production cycle to 7 to 15 days, and amplified the output to dozens of times that of live-action dramas. The efficiency dividend is real, but so are the controversies that come with it: homogenization, “intelligence reduction,” protection of minors, copyright and personality rights infringement, and the most “broad-spectrum” criticism—it takes up too much time.

Come on, how did it happen?

The rise of Hongguo, a subsidiary of ByteDance, was first considered a victory on the supply side. The free viewing and ad-sharing model eliminates the payment threshold, while Douyin’s traffic portal and same-origin recommendation algorithm solve the problem of “finding the audience”.

Data disclosed by the industry shows that the production cost of AI short dramas has dropped by 70% to 90% compared with live-action dramas, and the production cycle has been compressed from one or two months to a few days; some producers said that the quotations for batch dramas have been as low as 400 yuan per minute, and the premium ones are still around 1,000 yuan per minute.

It is worth noting that the special feature of the recently popular "Armed into the Song Dynasty" is not only its production capacity. The play was launched on August 21. There is no "golden finger". There are clear consumption limits on firearms, ammunition, and fuel. The team repeatedly checked the details of Song Dynasty costumes and scenes, and the audience spontaneously compiled popular science materials on Song history. Chief planner Zhang Hansheng is 54 years old. The team members include mothers, wholesalers, company employees and online ride-hailing drivers, and the whole process is coordinated online. Chief director He Xiushan said frankly, "The mouth shape and expression of the AI actor must be perfectly comparable to that of a real person. It may be a little bit worse, but when the audience can empathize, it means that the AI actor is OK."

AI has reduced the cost of trial and error, allowing small teams to get involved in subjects that were “unaffordable” in the past, such as history, martial arts, and science fiction; it has allowed AI comics such as "The Legend of Ten Thousand Demons" to be produced for multiple seasons and formed a long-term IP; it has also allowed a lower threshold for classic adaptations.

"Everything is the same": AI is not the cause, it is more like an amplifier

For short plays, the expansion of supply does not automatically equal the improvement of quality. According to industry data, in the first quarter of 2026, there will be approximately 128,000 micro-short dramas online across the industry, with AI-based dramas accounting for more than 95%, but the hit rate is less than 0.1%. Themes such as counterattacks and revenge, conflicts between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law, and sadomasochism among wealthy families have been repeatedly remade, and homogeneity has become an unavoidable problem. Many netizens complained that after finishing playing, they were "stupid". Some people spent more than 10 hours a day on the short drama platform; common sense was lost and logic was "off duty". "The heroine has a revenge and counterattack, and the hero is a loser." Even the lines are as if they were shipped in batches.

There is no doubt that the problem is not that AI can only write "boss" and "rebirth", the algorithm often pushes "high arousal content", and even "the more outrageous and exciting, the easier it is to be recommended". When "the cool stuff is given priority and logic is pushed aside" prevails, AI just makes this road wider. Technology itself doesn’t make stories bad, it just makes bad stories cheaper to produce.

But it should also be noted that after the threshold is lowered and there are more works, it will be easier to distinguish the good from the bad. The well-known Hong Kong film director Tang Jili has entered the short drama production industry in recent years, and the AI ​​short drama "Feng Shui Master" produced by him has gained both traffic and reputation. Talking about the current AI short dramas, he said bluntly that at the previously concluded 16th Beijing International Film Festival, the AIGC section received 2,840 works from 14 countries and regions. As the chairman of the jury, he watched nearly 70 of the shortlisted short dramas and judged that very few of them could be commercially viable. The shortcoming was precisely the content. "AI actually provides very good technical support, and the cost of creative inspiration has dropped significantly. In this case, good stories and good shooting ideas are more important and decisive."

The battle over “time”: from “can’t stop” to “how to stop”

Also receiving attention is time. According to media citing agency data, the average daily usage time of Hongguo has risen to 151 minutes in the third quarter. Even if calculated at two hours a day, it is already more than 700 hours a year.

In fact, this kind of "can't stop" has elements of product design: automatic continuous broadcast cancels the pause of "do you want to continue watching?", personalized recommendations eliminate the burden of choosing "what to watch", and sign-ins and gold coins turn watching into a rewarding task. In an interview with the media, a psychological counselor used "intermittent reinforcement" and "unfinished effect" to explain: The reward is uncertain and the suspense is not fulfilled, so people always want to chase the next reversal.

In this regard, regulatory and platform responses are being implemented intensively. The "Measures for the Development and Management of Micro-Short Dramas", which was reviewed and approved on July 27 and implemented on September 1, is my country's first special departmental regulation in the field of micro-short dramas. It clearly requires production and broadcasting organizations to add AI prompts in prominent positions in each episode. "Algorithm models that induce user addiction, excessive consumption, etc. are not allowed to be used," and 11 content red lines are drawn.

The State Administration of Radio, Film and Television made it clear in this regard: All platforms must implement "all broadcasts must be reviewed and all broadcasts must be reviewed by human beings" and "resolutely correct the design of mechanisms that induce addiction."

The platform side is also being adjusted. Recently, Hongguo launched "rest reminder" and "sleep reminder", and announced on October 21 that it plans to remove the gold coin function; Li Liang, vice president of Douyin Group, publicly stated on November 5 that the development of Hongguo "is inseparable from the suggestions and criticisms from all walks of life" and "the short drama has just started and there will be many shortcomings."

Whether these actions can be effective remains to be seen. But it is worth noting that the focus of relevant discussions is shifting from "should users be self-disciplined?" to the more rational and effective "what responsibilities the platform should bear" and "what constraints the algorithm should be subject to."

Next stop: From “one more minute” to “one more point worth it”

On November 5, the 2026 China Radio and Television Quality Creation Conference Micro-Short Drama Forum was held in Beijing. He Biao, deputy director of the State Administration of Radio and Television, pointed out that micro-short dramas have become the most dynamic representatives of new popular literature and art and an important carrier for Chinese culture to go global. Quality is the foundation and the path to success for micro-short dramas.

For the micro-short dramas in "Hurry Up", avoiding loss of control means the sustainability of the "next stop". Regardless of discussions about "where did the time go" or questions about homogenization, "intelligence", and roughness, the output of high-quality content is the corresponding solution.

For the platform, the current account sharing and recommendation include more viewings, duration and streaming returns, all of which encourage "one more minute"; if the quality rate, re-watching rate, complaint rate, and satisfaction after completion are included in the weights, then someone on the supply side will be willing to give up time for "worth it". It is understood that on the content side, in April this year, the Short Drama Copyright Center of Douyin Group announced that it would invest 500 million yuan in special funds to support real-life short dramas; in June this year, Hongguo announced that it would support more than 1,000 realistic-themed works throughout the year, and stated that the "Guo Ran Plan" has supported more than 120 high-quality short dramas.

For creators, where the time saved by AI is spent determines the quality of this round of production capacity. "Armed into the Song Dynasty" may provide an answer: add constraints to the setting, conduct research on the details, and give the audience something to discuss. He Xiushan said that the AI ​​actor's mouth expressions "may be a little worse", and what can make up for this gap is of course not faster generation, but more sophisticated performance guidance, storyboarding and editing.

Director Jia Zhangke said on social media that he was also watching short plays, "If the screen is put up, the creator will not be shorter. Two minutes to impress people is enough to impress people." This sentence hits the nail on the head - changing the debate from "length" to "moving": three minutes is not a downgrade, and two hours is not an upgrade. The standard is whether there is a good story that can really move people in a limited time.