"Vertical Shops" Rise Encounters AI Impact; Micro-Short Drama Industry Seeks New Breakthroughs

“Horizontal stores are only in Dongyang, vertical stores are everywhere.”
The explosive growth of micro-short dramas shot in vertical format has led to the rise of many “vertical stores,” significantly reducing filming costs for micro-short dramas and injecting new vitality into the industry.
However, since this year’s Spring Festival, artificial intelligence (AI) video technology has been impacting this emerging sector at a lower cost.

When the wave of technology sweeps in, is it replacing real people or giving the industry new life?
In the highly competitive micro-short drama industry, the pursuit of quality and uniqueness is once again exploring new ways to break through.

“Vertical stores” rise: cultural vitality transforming into economic value

At Zhengzhou Jianye Film Town, a few actors just finished an emotionally charged scene and are immediately preparing their next lines.
Unlike long-running drama crews, micro-short drama crews can quickly change scenes and start filming again.

Since 2025, a batch of micro-short drama filming bases has flourished across the country, mainly shot in vertical format, earning the name “vertical stores.”
Most “vertical stores” are located in second- and third-tier cities, benefiting from convenient transportation, numerous practitioners, and well-developed infrastructure, which effectively improves filming efficiency and reduces production costs.

“Cost for a single 100-episode micro-short drama in Zhengzhou’s Jinshui District can be controlled between 300k and 800k yuan, with a return on investment cycle shortened to 3 to 6 months, demonstrating high cost-effectiveness and profit potential,” said Cao Zhen, director of the Jinshui District Culture, Tourism, Sports Bureau.

The rise of “vertical stores” is quietly changing the virtual stories on mobile screens into real-life experiences beyond the screen.

Abandoned buildings, idle exhibition halls, and other venues are the “heart disease” of many cities, yet they are revitalized into “ideal filming locations” for micro-short dramas.
A director explained that because vertical shooting requires a limited scope, these spaces can be transformed into “offices,” “hospitals,” or “airports” within micro-short dramas with slight modifications.

According to estimates by the National Development Research Institute of Peking University, by 2025, the direct employment in the national micro-short drama industry will reach about 690k people, with a total employment impact of 2.03 million.
The rapid influx of labor has become a key driver of the booming micro-short drama ecosystem.

“‘Vertical stores’ use micro-short dramas as carriers and scene-based production as the core model, creating a linkage mechanism between cultural content production and local economic growth,” said Kan Ping, president of the Micro-Short Drama Committee of China Radio and Television Association.
“‘Vertical stores’ are becoming an important tool to promote the transformation of cultural vitality into economic value.”

AI Impact: Technological Revolution Reshaping Industry Landscape

Challenges are also emerging.
Since the Spring Festival, some bases have seen a decrease in new filming crews, and many practitioners face the dilemma of having no roles to shoot.

Industry insiders point out that rapidly iterating AI models can now generate professional camera movements and realistic characters with one click, profoundly changing the landscape of the micro-short drama industry and raising concerns about potential replacement of practitioners.

“Last year, we only saw the tide of AI approaching from afar, but now, AI has swept through every corner of the film and television industry like a tsunami,” said Feng Shengyong, director of the Drama Department of the National Radio and Television Administration, at the 2026 Chinese Drama Production Industry Conference.

It is understood that the actual usable rate of AI-generated materials with good effects has exceeded 90%, greatly reducing the production costs of micro-short dramas.
A manager from a Xi’an production company explained that a similarly timed micro-short drama shot with real actors costs tens of thousands of yuan, with actors taking the largest share, while AI production costs only over ten thousand yuan, with almost no actor expenses.

The high usability is driving more companies to transition to AI micro-short dramas, aiming to complete the entire process from generation to release at a lower cost and in a shorter time.

One of the most popular forms of AI micro-short dramas currently is “AI manga dramas,” which are AI animated micro-short dramas, often adapted from popular novels, comics, and other sources.

DataEye, an authoritative industry monitoring platform, estimates that the market share of AI manga dramas will reach 16.8 billion yuan in 2025; since 2026, over 10k AI manga dramas have been launched each month; in the nearly 9 billion plays during the 2026 Spring Festival micro-short drama season, AI manga dramas account for nearly 30%.

“When generative AI technology moves from the laboratory to practical application, the technological revolution will greatly break through the high-cost barriers that have traditionally constrained sci-fi film and TV development,” said Sang Shen, vice chairman of Wukong Culture, producer of the sci-fi manga drama “The Bookstore at the End of the Universe.”

This advantage is also evident in genres like xianxia, fantasy, and historical themes.
AI can break through real scene limitations and present visual spectacles that were previously difficult or impossible to achieve at low cost.

However, it is undeniable that the quality of current AI micro-short dramas varies widely, with fierce competition among low-end products and serious homogenization.
“Due to technical application limitations, AI-generated videos still have obvious shortcomings in understanding human behavior, often resulting in incoherent character logic and inconsistent visuals, leading to a lack of ‘human touch’,” said He Tianping, associate professor at the School of Journalism at Renmin University of China.
“To truly assist creators in producing works with ‘human warmth,’ AI must not drift further away from human touch in the creative process.”

Breaking Through: Content as the Key Brings New Opportunities

This Spring Festival, the AI micro-short drama “Zhan Xian Tai AI Real Person Version” became a hit.
Notably, the audience’s focus shifted from criticizing AI video flaws to paying more attention to the plot content and visual presentation.

This change further reflects the trend in the micro-short drama market:
The future competition will not be between real people and AI, but whether high-quality, warm, and textured masterpieces can be created.

“AI can calculate viewers’ preferences, but it’s hard to gauge their resonance.
Works that stay in people’s memories for a lifetime are often not the most ‘exciting,’ but the most ‘genuine,’” Feng Shengyong said.

Industry insiders believe that promoting micro-short dramas toward “quality” depends on effective policy guidance and industry joint efforts.

Since 2025, the State Administration of Radio and Television and other authorities have continuously improved industry management, launched action plans like “Micro-Short Drama Plus,” incorporated micro-short dramas in animation formats into classified review systems, adjusted classification standards, curbed the “adultification” of children’s micro-short dramas, and shifted the industry from “quantity increase” to “quality improvement.”

Micro-short drama creators are actively responding to this trend, adjusting their creative directions.
Many production companies are no longer limited to traditional themes like “bossy CEO” or “revenge,” but are exploring topics such as rural revitalization, intangible cultural heritage, and character growth, producing a batch of content with solid themes and high production quality.

“The core of quality is not about the size of investment but whether you sincerely observe life, craft characters with heart, and use circumstances to reveal human joys, sorrows, and brightness,” said Zhu Yangxie, head of Chu Er Media, producer of works like “Day and Night.”

Platforms also play a guiding role by adjusting support and revenue-sharing policies, curbing homogenized content, encouraging diverse themes and narratives, and jointly creating a market environment more conducive to high-quality works.

“In 2026, we will continue to increase content investment and support innovation,” said Le Li, editor-in-chief of Hongguo Short Drama.
The company’s total content investment budget for the year will increase by over 40%, with continued investment in real-person short dramas.

Meanwhile, “vertical stores” across various regions are actively embracing technological changes, building holographic studios and other facilities to achieve seamless switching between real scenes and virtual environments.

“AI empowerment combined with real-person backing holds the promise of pushing the micro-short drama industry toward a more efficient, diverse, and creative new stage,” said Zhang Yongqiang, secretary-general of the Henan Provincial College Film and Television Education Association.