AIGC reorganizes China’s content industry with humans still at the center

AI generated content is enabling one-person studios and cutting production costs, while human creativity remains at the heart of China’s content industry

By CLS Marketwatch

AI-generated content (AIGC) technology is making steady advances into creative fields such as film, TV, advertising and gaming, disrupting how content is produced. The technology, allowing individual creators to complete work that previously required entire teams in very short time and on rock-bottom budgets, has not only given rise to “one- person companies,” but has also propelled China’s AIGC industry into a new golden era.

One-person factories

Traditional content production has long relied on collaboration by people in multiple roles. In advertising, film and TV production, roles such as director, actor, cinematographer and lighting technician are all indispensable. Meanwhile, scriptwriting, location scouting, shooting, editing, and post-production revisions form a lengthy production chain, leading to production cycles ranging from several weeks to several months. This model creates high barriers to entry, requiring big investment in labor, equipment and other upfront costs. That makes it difficult for individual creators to take on projects independently, and thus content supply is concentrated in the hands of well-capitalized teams.

But the introduction of AIGC technology is revolutionizing this model. As large language models gradually mature in areas such as script generation, storyboarding, and video compositing, tasks that previously required teams to complete can now be done by a single person using conversational tools. At the same time, efficiency gains have directly enhanced commercial responsiveness. While traditional advertising film production workflows were measured in weeks or months, the adoption of AI technology has shortened delivery times to as little as three to four days, and also significantly reduced costs.

That’s enabled the emergence of a new type of production unit, with “large teams, heavy equipment, and long production cycles” morphing into “one person, one computer, short cycles, and low costs.” One independent creator managed to produce a well-crafted short film in just five evenings at a cost of 1,000 yuan to 2,000 yuan ($150 to $300), reflecting how next-era production tools are replacing manual labor. In this model, creative insight and technical proficiency have become core competencies, while the execution phase has been significantly streamlined by AI.

Zero-barrier creators

The unleashing of individual creative potential has further spurred platforms to reorganize the creation-to-monetization chain. As AI tools enable a single person to produce content that previously required teams, the question of how to engage more non-professionals in creation and allow them to profit from it has become a new focus for the AIGC industry. For example, the “ZeroCube” solo creator community uses an approach combining AI-powered film and gaming with an easy-to-use editing system, enabling anyone to earn money through AI-driven creation with no entry barriers.

The project says it allows content creators to use its self-developed editing system to add interactive segments to film and television works, thus turning them into games. Interactive short-drama game development traditionally required multiple roles such as screenwriters, artists, programmers and testers, and is time-consuming and costly. Now, with the help of AI technology, ordinary users can become video game developers and create gamified content for web series.

In terms of profit distribution, the project envisions allocating 20% of profits to developers, with the remainder going to web series copyright holders, copyright referrers, investors and others. Revenue is generated through a hybrid IAA monetization model, in which non-paying users watch advertisements, while paying ones do so directly, generating revenue from advertising traffic sharing and direct payments from film-gaming users. While the viability of this model remains to be seen, there’s no doubt that AI is simultaneously lowering the barriers to both creation and monetization. What’s more, platforms are no longer merely content distribution channels but also serve as organizational entities for providing tools, offering training support and distributing revenue.

The human edge in a machine age

We should note that trends toward independent production and zero-barrier-to-entry platforms both rest on a rapidly expanding market foundation. Data shows that China’s core AIGC market grew from just 1.15 billion yuan in 2022 to 80.58 billion yuan last year, and is expected to further climb to 277 billion yuan by 2028. That shows that segments such as content production, tool utilization, and platform profit-sharing are all sustaining rapid growth.

Yet market expansion does not mean that technology can independently complete high-quality production. For example, while visuals for the award-winning short film “Spring in a Bottle” were generated by AI, it won the award for the creator’s distinctive ideas realized through use of the technology, which transcended cultural differences and moved the judges. That shows that human ingenuity remains irreplaceable by AI. This observation highlights a key boundary within the current AIGC industry: AI can shorten production processes, lower capital barriers, and replace repetitive tasks. But the selection of themes, emotional expression, cultural resonance, and value judgments still depends on human creators.

From the production side to the platform side and the industry as a whole, AIGC supplies not only tools for efficiency, but also a restructuring of production relationships. It brings individuals stronger independent production capacity, and more complex distribution functions for platforms. And most importantly, human creativity has become the most critical and irreplaceable core element in the entire chain. As AIGC gains momentum, greater efficiency provided by AI and meaning provided by humans may become the new paradigm for digital content creation in this new era.

CLS Marketwatch provides insights and analysis on China’s industries. You can contact the author at liujingyi@cls.cn

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