China’s film and video industry is being remade by artificial intelligence, and the transformation is happening faster than many Western creators anticipated. Actor Chen Yilong, who has accumulated two decades of credits in Beijing, recently signed a contract to license his face to a Chinese production studio. The studio will film him making facial expressions, neutral stares, angry glares, looks of surprise, which AI software will then use to generate a digital avatar for AI-generated films.
“If you can’t beat it, join it,” Chen said of the shift reshaping his career prospects. The economics of this new model are brutal: Chen estimates that many actors have lost more than 60% of their work this year as production studios increasingly rely on artificial intelligence rather than live talent.
The primary vehicle for this transformation is the micro drama, short videos typically one or two minutes long that Chinese audiences consume during breakfast, commutes, lunch breaks, and any free moment. These snack-sized productions require far less investment than traditional film, making them ideal for AI-generated content. In the first three months of 2026, Chinese producers created 128,000 micro dramas, according to the China Netcasting Services Association. More than 95% of them were made entirely with AI.
The Technology Driving Mass Production
The rapid surge in AI micro dramas is fueled by video-generation software developed by Chinese technology giants including Kuaishou Technology and ByteDance, which owns TikTok globally. These tools have cut production costs drastically and made filmmaking accessible to anyone with a laptop and an internet connection. ByteDance showcased its Seedance video platform at an event in Santa Monica earlier this year, signaling that Chinese AI video companies are actively seeking entry into the Hollywood market. Other Chinese firms pursuing global expansion include Alibaba’s HappyHorse and Kuaishou’s subsidiary Kling.
The implications stretch beyond China’s borders. Michael Berry, a UCLA professor specializing in contemporary Chinese culture, noted that Americans could soon find themselves consuming entertainment created by Chinese producers using AI-generated actors. “In this new environment, none of the old rules matter anymore,” Berry said, pointing out that funding source, production location, and performer identity become irrelevant when all “actors” are bots.
The Legal Reckoning
The speed of technological advancement has outpaced regulation, creating a legal vacuum that Chinese courts are struggling to navigate. Fan Baile, an entertainment lawyer in Beijing, says his celebrity clients are filing lawsuits against filmmakers for “stealing” their faces to create unauthorized digital avatars. The challenge lies in AI’s ability to preserve 70% to 80% of a person’s likeness while altering minor features, making infringement cases harder to assess than traditional portrait theft.
High-profile actors have begun fighting back publicly. In April, popular actor Jackson Yee’s studio issued a statement condemning the misuse of his face by AI drama producers. That same month, actress Dilraba Dilmura won a court case against the producer and distributor of an AI micro drama featuring an actor with a striking resemblance to her. Even non-actors have been affected: a commercial model discovered that photos she posted on social media had been used to create a villain in the popular AI micro drama “The Peach Blossom Hairpin.”
The China Federation of Radio and Television Associations’ Actors Committee released a statement in April condemning such infringements and demanding that AI platforms comply with existing laws and strengthen compliance rules. Yet enforcement remains nearly impossible. Fan describes the problem as “whack-a-mole,” noting that he once watched more than 50 AI micro drama series frame by frame, searching for fleeting three-second appearances of clients’ faces. Some producers, he says, deliberately craft AI characters to resemble celebrities, banking on outraged fan engagement to drive viewership.
A Different Path Forward
Sun Wei, founder of Feixiang Universe, the Shenzhen-based studio that cast Chen, took a deliberately different approach. Concerned about accidentally “stealing someone’s face,” she decided to license real people’s likenesses for an AI production set during China’s Tang Dynasty. Sun noted that AI-generated performers tend to have similar features and a homogenous look due to training data bias, with many displaying flawless skin and artificial perfection. Licensing actual human faces allows studios to introduce variety and authenticity that purely generative AI cannot yet achieve.
This licensing model represents one way the industry might coexist with both AI and human talent, though it depends on actors like Chen accepting reduced work and pay in exchange for face-licensing fees. Whether this arrangement will spread or whether the economics of pure AI production will eventually make human licensing unnecessary remains unclear. What is certain is that Chinese studios are not waiting for Western regulatory frameworks to shape their use of artificial intelligence. The transformation is already underway, and its pace suggests that Hollywood’s concerns about AI-generated talent may soon become its reality.
