Tang Jiancong does not need an army of animators to summon an immortal figure.
In one AI-generated short drama produced by his company, a white-robed master drops from the heavens into an arena where a female martial artist is losing ground to a fighter in an Iron Man-style mecha suit. A glowing shield wraps around the woman. Then the immortal steps forward and declares, "I, your master, will fight for you."
The clip comes from Immortal Master Comes Back: My Disciples Are Top Tycoons, a xianxia story — a Chinese fantasy genre — that blends traditional combat with futuristic technology, old legends with virtual worlds, and human warriors with robotics.
Yet all those elements can now be produced by a small team: one director who adapts the script, two people who generate clips using AI and a final editor who brings everything together, according to Tang, 32, founder of Shenzhen Aizao Technology.
Tang, a former programmer at Tencent, founded the company in 2025 after concluding that AI video would be "the next big thing".
"By then, ChatGPT had already shown what AI could do with text, and Mid-journey had done the same for images," he said. "Video felt like the next frontier. We believed that was where the industry was heading, especially as people were already spending so much time watching short videos."
For Tang, the most striking change is not only what AI can put on screen, but how quickly and inexpensively it can now do so.
"For a 120-minute 2D animated drama, we can now finish production in about 20 days," he said. "Including labor and computing power, the cost can be kept under 300 yuan ($44.28) per minute."
Producing 3D animation with AI remains more expensive than 2D animation and varies by theme, but Tang said it can still be 10 to 100 times cheaper than traditional hand-drawn, frame-by-frame animation.
Tang's company is part of the broader surge in AI-generated animated short dramas, or AI manju, sweeping the industry.
According to market data firm Data-Eye, AI-simulated live-action manju accounted for 38 percent of the top 100 manju titles in January 2026, up from 7 percent a year earlier, reflecting how quickly AI animation has moved from experiment to mass production.
Xianxia stories have become one of the most natural genres for AI manju. They often require elaborate settings, magical battles, glowing weapons and large-scale effects — elements that are expensive in traditional animation but easier to generate with AI tools.
This means that web novels once considered too costly to adapt can now be turned into animated dramas by small production teams.
Tang said many viewers do not necessarily come looking for high art. They are drawn instead to fast-paced stories delivered with enough visual energy to keep them watching.
Jin Sheng, vice dean and associate professor at the School of Animation and Digital Arts, Communication University of Zhejiang, said the appeal lies in the immediate pleasure of seeing online stories brought to life.
"It gives viewers quick visual satisfaction — a kind of 'dopamine rush'," Jin said.
For many viewers, he added, whether a drama is made with AI is less important than whether it is exciting.
"As long as the content is good and attractive, that's enough," he said.
