Overseas version of "The CEO Falls for Me" surpasses 30 million views per episode, AI-generated short dramas may become a new trend
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Overseas version of "The CEO Falls for Me" surpasses 30 million views per episode, AI-generated short dramas may become a new trend
When short dramas meet AI, what sparks will fly?
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsAuthor: MetaverseHub
Recently, a game titled "Oh No! I'm Surrounded by Beautiful Women" suddenly topped Steam's bestseller chart in the Chinese region.
With its absurd storyline and visually attractive female leads, it instantly captured the attention of countless male gamers. A few years ago, when "Love & Producer" was released, countless female players enthusiastically declared that dating virtual characters was truly delightful—"a husband can be 2D, 3D, or even nonexistent, just not real." Now, the cyber wave is finally reaching the male market.
However, we can also see that the "AI + short drama" package is indeed highly cost-effective.
Recently, CreativeFitting (Jingying Technology) announced completing millions of dollars in Pre-A round financing. Will AI-generated short dramas become a global trend?
01. An Inevitable Market Trend
This seems like an inevitable trend—just as no one could have predicted a few years ago that short videos would create such a massive disruption, or that TikTok would profoundly impact our lives today.
Short dramas combine the advantages of both short-form and long-form videos: fast-paced, with each episode lasting only 1–2 minutes, capturing user attention within seconds; yet when strung together, they form continuous narratives, offering coherence and deeper audience immersion.
The domestic short drama market is thriving, and so is the overseas market. Zhongwen Online’s subsidiary Maple Interactive has taken first place on the U.S. iOS Entertainment Chart with its Reelshort platform. Its short drama series "Fated To My Forbidden Alpha" set a record on TikTok with over 30 million views per episode.
Yet, the short drama industry faces many pain points, including high production costs, content homogenization, and inconsistent output. However, these very shortcomings are what led CreativeFitting to identify an opportunity.
Founded in June 2021, CreativeFitting is one of the earliest teams in China focusing on video generation using large models. The company specializes in building a new commercial short-video creation model combining "AI + human input," a method that reduces costs while enabling standardized, streamlined production and significantly lowering labor expenses.
The company’s founder and CEO, Zhu Jiang, graduated from the Computer Science Department at Shanghai Jiao Tong University and previously served as Chief Growth Officer at TouchPal, where he built a content platform with tens of millions of DAU from scratch and led global user growth for the group.
"CreativeFitting aims to aggregate these AIGC contents into a new content platform and bring it before millions of overseas users," said Zhu Jiang.
02. A New Model of Multimodal Interactive Short Dramas
In addition to ReelShort mentioned earlier, numerous startups have entered the short drama space, with platforms such as GoodShort, FlexTV, MoboReels, and Mini Episode launching on overseas app stores.
However, these platforms face common challenges: live-action short dramas are costly and inefficient to produce, talent in the short drama industry is scarce, innovation is limited, and consistently producing high-quality content at scale remains difficult.
Undoubtedly, the emergence of AIGC can largely address these issues.
On one hand, AIGC's efficient production capability is unquestionable, dramatically reducing production costs far below those of live-action productions. On the other hand, the short drama industry is growing at an astonishing pace, having already established relatively mature creative models and standardized workflows—providing ideal conditions for human-AI collaboration and AI-generated content.
Leveraging AIGC technology, CreativeFitting unlocks infinite possibilities for short drama creation. Its proprietary AI-powered short drama format further expands interactivity and multimodality, allowing human perception of imagined worlds to evolve from seeing, to chatting, to playing.
To deliver an exceptional user experience, CreativeFitting has invested heavily in developing its video generation models:
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Specifically optimized for narrative video consistency and controllability, extracting facial expression features from audio to align emotional expressions in generated videos with the corresponding audio.
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Dedicated training datasets tailored separately for advertising and short dramas, enhanced by insights and expertise accumulated by professional creative teams through real-world business applications, enabling superior performance of the current video generation models.
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In addition to external data obtained through paid collaborations with specialized institutions, a portion of the training data comes from real content created by actual creators.
Beyond this, CreativeFitting has also made creator experience more user-friendly. High-quality video generation models do not charge creators directly. Instead, the short dramas created by users are distributed across AI short drama platforms via a hybrid monetization model combining subscriptions and ads, with part of the revenue returned to creators—further incentivizing ongoing content creation.
These innovations and advantages enable CreativeFitting to stand out in the short drama landscape—not only empowering creators with robust tools but also delivering a fresh viewing experience for audiences. It is reported that their AI short drama app will soon launch in overseas markets, potentially sparking a short drama revolution.
03. How Will the Industry Evolve?
If CreativeFitting successfully launches its globally first AI-powered short drama app, this innovation could offer users richer and more dynamic entertainment experiences. Could this move pave the way for broader advancement across the entire AI short drama industry?
Why Are Short Dramas So Popular?
In recent years, micro short dramas have thrived due to their short duration, rapid pacing, and suitability for fragmented viewing time, perfectly aligning with modern consumers’ habits and preferences. Dozens of such micro dramas can be filmed in a single day in Hengdian, drawing widespread market attention.
According to data from the National Radio and Television Administration, there were only 398 registered micro dramas in 2021. By 2022, the industry began booming, with registrations surging to nearly 2,800—an increase of 600% year-on-year. From January to October 2023 alone, the number reached 2,276.
From a business perspective, the success of short dramas lies not only in content innovation but also in their wealth-generating potential. With production costs as low as 100,000 RMB, some projects generate tens of millions in revenue, achieving break-even in record time.
This low-cost, high-return business model has become a key driver attracting producers and investors alike, fueling explosive growth in the short drama sector.
Moreover, the rise of short dramas reflects consumer demand for diverse, engaging content.
Recently, the hit short drama on the overseas platform ReelShort, "The Double Life of My Billionaire Husband"—essentially Eastern-style wish-fulfillment stories wrapped in Western aesthetics—was uploaded to YouTube and garnered over 3 million views.
At their core, these dramas revolve around the concept of "escapism," featuring themes like reincarnation,逆袭 (nixi – rising from adversity), revenge, and triumph—perfectly catering to a large segment of viewers.
AI Advancements Driving Cost Reduction and Efficiency
Although current short drama production still relies heavily on large crews—including directors, actors, makeup artists, and other professionals—the development of AI in image and video generation suggests that AI technologies will inevitably play a major role in the future evolution of the industry. AI may soon exert significant influence across content creation, character design, and even full scriptwriting processes.
Recent developments include Pika AI, a video creation tool developed by a Chinese-founded team, while major companies like Meta continue advancing AI-driven film and video technologies.
Companies like CreativeFitting, leveraging large models for video generation, are drastically cutting production costs and improving standardization and workflow efficiency. AI applications make short drama production more efficient and may even help mitigate content homogenization.
Can the Creative Boom Continue?
Despite the booming micro drama market, certain issues remain unavoidable: tightening regulations, narrowing creative windows, and growing audience fatigue toward repetitive content.
In China, male-oriented content has always been popular—but this doesn’t represent the whole picture. Diversified content creation will be the future trend.
How long will overseas enthusiasm for short dramas last? Reelshort’s success in topping the U.S. iOS Entertainment Chart proves the promising international outlook for short dramas.
Nevertheless, overseas audiences’ appetite for unique culture and originality may raise the bar. Therefore, creators must consider how to sustain operations beyond initial popularity.
04. The Next Revolution in Super Content Platforms
Currently, the short drama赛道 is heating up both domestically and internationally, making it an ideal moment for global expansion. Judging from current development trajectories, the future of short dramas lies in AI technology.
AI provides substantial technical support and opens new possibilities, enabling AI-generated short dramas to better simulate—and potentially surpass—human creativity. However, the technology still has limitations, meaning AI cannot fully replace human creativity and aesthetic judgment. Human involvement and guidance remain essential to ensure quality and narrative coherence.
Nonetheless, AI-powered short dramas have already demonstrated immense potential and appeal, drawing increasing numbers of creators and viewers, and ushering in a new era of digital media.
The industry is expanding with unstoppable momentum. As CreativeFitting’s founder Zhu Jiang puts it, "AI short dramas will trigger the next revolution in super content platforms."
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