The Zhitong Finance App learned that CITIC Construction Investment Securities released a research report saying that recently Huace Film, Television, and Mango Supermedia have successively launched native AI artists; iQiyi officially announced the first batch of AIGC creators. Among them, the AI acting competition romance variety show “Start Your Heart Again” will soon be launched. From the explosive growth of AI comes/AI skits to the rise of the AI long drama “Journey to the West” and the entry of the AI film “Sanxingdui: A Past in the Future”, AI has penetrated deeply into the film and television industry; AI artists and AI variety shows are expected to take over AI skits and become the next flashpoint for AI+ film and television. At present, the technical foundation is in place, and all cases have been implemented.
1. Recently, native AI artists have intensively “debuted” and “participated” in AI content
Recently, film and television companies have intensively launched native AI artists and simultaneously launched their participation content.
1. Mango TV will simultaneously launch an AI-imitation reality drama with 5 AI artists and their participation. On October 12, 2026, Mango TV released 5 native AI artists, Cheng Du, Fang Yu, Lin Enna, Qi Xu, and Zhan Yan, created by AIGC Innovation Content Center in collaboration with Lize Pictures; on October 14, the first season of the five-member AI-imitation reality drama “Amazing Friend” was broadcast exclusively on Mango TV, with a total of 6 episodes; currently, all five AI artists have set up social accounts with the “AI Artist” logo.
2. Huace Film and Television launched an AI idol boy band, and has released its first MV and music. It is expected that they will participate in movies, series, variety shows, and interactive dramas in the future. The AI boy band MO:V Mowu under Huace Film and Television consists of Lu Heng, Xia Mingzhe, Jiang Yichen, Lin Qiao, and Zeno. The first MV was released on the official video channel on September 26, 2026.
What is a native AI artist? What are the similarities and differences between virtual idols and digital people?
1. CITIC Construction Investment believes that native AI artists are virtual characters created by generative AI and will continue to perform content. Currently, there is no strict definition of AI artists in the industry. The common feature of AI artists recently introduced is that AI participates in the generation of their images, sounds, and performance images, and fixes personal images. The creative team is responsible for character setting, work production, and account operation.
2. Compared with virtual idols and digital people, AI artists pay more attention to content management and are closer to real artist brokerage. AI artists are not a new concept; similar to the images of characters such as virtual idol Luo Tianyi and AI blogger Liu Yexi; CITIC Construction Investment believes that the main differences are the depth of AI participation and the operation and commercialization of AI characters: 1) AI participation is the deepest in the production and operation of native AI artists; 2) virtual idols mainly rely on music, live broadcasts, and performances to attract fans and monetize performance tickets, peripherals, and brand cooperation; digital people are more functional, mainly used for broadcasts, customer service, and delivery of goods, and charges for projects or services. However, native AI artists are expected to perform in series, variety shows, musical works, interactive dramas, etc. with a fixed personal image, and commercialize them with more diverse methods of operation and monetization.
2. AI Variety Show: AI Mini-zum has entered the social media, and iQiyi will launch the first AI competition Love Series
Currently, AI variety shows that have been broadcast on social media platforms are basically short films produced by AI, and in most cases, the rules of live variety shows have been preserved. In terms of topic selection, it basically starts with models with mature rules and high genre recognition, such as survival challenges, food contests, idol drafts, and love watching; traditional reality shows first have real people, and their personalities, experiences, and relationships are gradually revealed in the program; AI programs, in turn, set personalities and then let the characters unfold along the label. On October 15, iQiyi announced the signing of the first batch of 11 AIGC creators, including the first AI acting competition romance variety show “Start Your Heart Again”. It is expected that AI artists will participate.
Case 1: AI micro-variety show “One Hundred Thousand Challenges”: The production cost of the first episode of the program is about 3,000-5,000 yuan, and the production cycle is about 1 week (not including early planning and communication); its account is priced at 80,000 to 150,000 yuan per transaction.
“One Hundred Thousand Challenges” is an AI challenge micro-variety show created by the Peanuts team. Real people write the competition format and plot, and then use AI to generate characters, scenes, and game images. The masterpiece “The Whole School Chalk Battle” is set to have 1,000 students fighting against 100 teachers. The items drawn with chalk can be turned into reality, thus starting a school attack and defense battle. The total duration is about 5 minutes, and Station B+ Douyin has been played more than 10 million times. Currently, accounts are mainly monetized through brand implantation and customized content, such as incorporating a fluorite camera as a “sentinel” into the competition. The price of a single transaction is about 80,000 to 150,000 yuan, and actual transactions may be discounted.
Case 2: “MBTI Transfer Love”. Its setting simulates the reality show “Transfer Love”, and retains the rules of the original program. Virtual characters with different MBTI personalities live in a love house. The characters and plot are designed by the creators, and the audience guesses pairings and compound trends based on personality characteristics and interactive details. The first issue was broadcast on August 14. Currently, the account has more than 50,000 fans of Xiaohongshu.
3. Increased multi-modal capabilities and reduced costs are the technical foundation for the AI artist/variety show explosion
As the multi-modal model is iterated and subject consistency is improved, AI artist assets can be accumulated and reused in different content. The multimodal model iteration mainly focuses on several directions: 1) subject consistency (especially in dynamic situations), image beauty, and long-shot storytelling ability; 2) single generation time; 3) secondary editing ability; 4) card drawing success rate. With Seedance 2.0 as a node, subject consistency and video generation quality have been significantly improved. At the same time, the overall price of generating 5- and 10s videos is also on a downward trend. Among them, MiniMax H3 insists on high cost performance and is open source, providing a good ecosystem for multi-modal model implementation.
4. The production cost of AI artists/variety shows is low, and both have been initially commercialized; the two are expected to catalyze each other
Production costs for AI artists/variety shows are low, and currently they are mainly commercialized through commercial orders.
1) Native AI artist: Take Fang Taozi as an example. She became popular because of her starring role in “The Cut Girl”. The first season of the drama cost 100,000 yuan in computing power; as of October 25, 2026, Fang Taozi Starmap was priced at 168,000 yuan from 1 to 20 seconds. In the future, native AI artists are expected to refer to the monetization methods of real artist agents, such as receiving film rewards for participating in dramas/variety shows/music works.
2) AI Variety Show: The production cost for the first episode of the “One Hundred Thousand Challenges” (Douyin account) program is about 3,000-5,000 yuan, and the duration is about 5 minutes. Revenue has been generated through brand cooperation. A single merchant order is priced at 80,000 to 150,000 yuan, and the actual transaction price may be discounted. iQiyi will launch the first AI acting competition romance variety show “Heartbreak Again”. The AI variety show may be monetized by referring to traditional variety shows, such as charging copyright fees. On October 15, 2026, iQiyi announced the signing of the first batch of 11 AIGC creators, including 8 brands and 3 individual creators, covering online movies, documentaries, animation, skits and variety shows. “Heartbreak Again” was launched by Van Ku Culture in collaboration with iQiyi. It shows the character's personality through competition and emotional interaction, and provides AI artists with performance scenes outside of the series.
