Douyin seizes opportunities from AIGC: discovering IPs before film and television companies.

If we were to choose the most promising young actress of this summer, Fang Taozi, the protagonist of the AI short drama "The Girl Who Was Cut Off," would definitely be on the list.

Treating the launch of the first season as her "debut time," this small-town girl went from being the female lead in an AI short drama to appearing on the cover of COSMO CRUSH, a digital magazine under COSMO magazine, in just over two months.

In both seasons, Fang Taozi goes from being a small-town girl cropped out of group photos to gradually leveling up and overcoming challenges in the fashion industry. Viewers are finding it increasingly difficult to see her simply as an AI character.

The production team has set up a separate account for Fang Taozi, continuously updating her with daily content such as cooking, fitness, buying flowers, and morning journaling; in the comments section, fans urge her to update, discuss her relationship and work, and even plan variety shows and concerts for her.

An created character begins to possess a sense of companionship and a lasting relationship, similar to that of a real celebrity.

Fang Taozi is not an isolated case. In the past six months, more than 20 AI-native content series have emerged on Douyin with over 100 million views.

On September 21, the first Douyin AI Creation Competition concluded. Over 72 days, 170,000 AI-generated works were submitted, garnering over 40 billion views. Douyin has successfully channeled scattered creative impulses into a formal content platform.

On the same day, Douyin announced a partnership with iQiyi, with both parties investing hundreds of millions of yuan to extend high-quality short videos from their platforms into TV series and movies.

From creating a viral hit to leaving behind a story that can continue to grow—Douyin's expectations for AIGC have changed.

AIGC New Force

This year, AI has become significantly more powerful at creating videos, but what's truly changing on Douyin is how AI is used to tell stories.

At the beginning of the year, everyone was competing on visual styles such as Eastern aesthetics and retro imagery; after the modeling capabilities improved in February, the number of popular memes and derivative works increased rapidly; starting in March, realistic short films revolving around family affection, companionship, and real emotions went viral.

Since May, more and more creators have begun to build original worldviews, and the content has moved from single pieces to series.

Following monster containment, Eastern fantasy, and original science fiction, subgenres such as female narratives, urban legends, and Chinese-style mild horror are gradually forming a stable audience on the Douyin platform.

More works are shifting from "showing visuals" to "story first," with creators moving from completing a single piece of work to continuously telling a story.

Behind this round of changes lies the convergence of two forces.

On one hand, generative technology continues to lower the barriers to video production. Genres such as science fiction and period dramas, which used to rely heavily on actors, sets, and post-production, can now be completed by individuals or small teams.

Excerpt from the AI short drama "Return to the Ruins"

On the other hand, Douyin is also actively organizing this new supply.

In September 2025, Douyin launched the "AI Creator Wave Plan," providing support for AI-generated content through traffic, tools, and courses. In nearly a year, over 1.6 million creators have participated, and related content has accumulated 140 billion views.

The inaugural AI Creation Competition, launched in June this year, has further shifted the selection criteria from "generation ability" to scripts, characters, narratives, and IP potential, actively seeking out people who can consistently tell stories.

This group of creators comes from diverse backgrounds: film students, novelists, visual designers, professional illustrators, directors who have returned from overseas, and veteran animation professionals in their 60s. Individual creators and professional company teams are competing on the same stage.

The award-winning film "The Dragon" is from 2XLabs. This team, which has been deeply involved in the film and television industry for more than ten years, squeezed the entire process from conception to completion into a month and a half: more than a month to polish the script, and only about a week to actually hand it over to AI for production.

The story begins with the protagonist fishing on a wooden bridge. To determine the sense of alienation in the world, the team used AI to quickly test hundreds of scenarios, including morning, sunset, evening, and cloudy days.

The trial-and-error process that traditionally requires coordinating scenes, lighting, and scheduling has been compressed into the production stage.

New creators are also continuously joining.

Director Li Rang has no formal film and television background and is self-taught in AIGC video creation. His video "Farewell," released in April, uses the first-person perspective to string together a person's multiple farewells from childhood to old age: leaving his mother, friends, and lovers, until facing aging. The work does not rely on visual spectacle but on ordinary life experiences to resonate with the audience, and it garnered over 100 million views in five days after its release.

Hyun-gu, who previously worked in game art and 3D production, independently produced the post-apocalyptic sci-fi series "Gui Xu," handling almost all aspects of the work himself, including screenwriting, character design, character creation, editing, and music composition.

Feifei Fei, who has been making live-action short films for nearly ten years, uses AI to get rid of some of the limitations of actors, costumes and scenes, and continues to update "The Girl Who Was Cut Off".

Professional film and television teams have gained faster trial and error tools, experienced short video creators have broken free from the limitations of live-action production, and individual creators with backgrounds in art, novels, and other fields have also begun to independently complete complete videos.

AIGC has not eliminated professional skills, but it is breaking the stereotype that image production requires high investment.

For Douyin, the more important thing is not the increase in the number of AI videos, but the formation of a group of original creators who can continuously produce characters, stories, and worldviews.

AI content, which used to be dominated by a single viral hit, is now beginning to show the potential for sustained growth.

Create an IP pool

Douyin's conscious efforts to cultivate the AIGC (AI Generated Content) sector are clearly aimed at more than just increasing the supply of one type of content.

In the past, Douyin excelled at "creating stars." The algorithm pushed creators to people who might be interested, and users would follow, turning casual viewers into fans. Influencers and personal brands became the platform's most important content assets.

But there's a problem with online celebrities: they rise to fame quickly, but fade away just as fast. A viral post might only last a few days, so influencers must continuously produce new content to avoid being forgotten by the algorithm.

The AIGC series stories emerging on the platform today represent another form of production.

Excerpt from the AI short drama "The Girl Who Was Laid Off"

Viewers of "The Girl Who Was Cut Off" are waiting to see what Fang Taozi will experience next, while viewers of "Return to the Ruins" are concerned about how that apocalyptic world will unfold. Users are no longer just following the author, but the characters, the story, and a continuously evolving world.

Unlike personal IPs formed around the creator, a batch of content IP prototypes with stable characters, storylines, and worldviews have begun to emerge.

During his presentation, Chen Hongjia, Senior Vice President of iQiyi, pointed out that good IP comprises two categories: tangible assets such as characters, symbols, and scenes that can be identified; and intangible assets such as emotions, values, and worldviews. Ultimately, it must be able to be developed across different formats and continuously generate commercial value.

To put it simply, for a story to truly become an IP, it must be able to withstand repeated use and be used in various ways.

Whoever identifies the best story first gains control of the starting point for a series of subsequent developments.

In the past, most film and television IPs originated from online novels and comics. The reason behind this is actually quite simple: writing is the cheapest way to create content. One person and one computer are all it takes to start, and there are far more people who can write than who can adapt it into a film.

Filming a TV series is a completely different matter. From assembling a crew, finding actors, building sets, to post-production, tens of millions can be thrown in over several months; a wrong gamble means a real financial loss. Nobody wants to bet on a blank script; they can only choose stories that have already become popular online.

In the past, Douyin was at the very end of this chain. Only after a drama was filmed and its release date was set would it be Douyin's turn to edit trailers, buy trending topics, and find influencers to create derivative works—doing nothing but publicity and promotion.

AIGC has significantly lowered the barrier to entry. What used to be the most expensive genres, such as science fiction and period dramas, can now be easily adapted into short films by individual creators using AI, which can then be directly tested by hundreds of millions of users.

Whether a story can move people will be answered by users' clicks and comments.

If the question of whether a story is worth further development can be answered on Douyin first, the platform has changed from "post-event promotion" to "pre-event screening".

On the day the competition concluded, Douyin announced a deep partnership with iQiyi. The two parties will invest hundreds of millions of yuan to jointly promote the extension of high-quality short videos on their platforms into longer content formats such as dramas and movies.

To give more good stories the opportunity to be developed into IPs, Douyin also announced that it will invest 2 billion yuan in traffic support, continue to increase support such as creation funds, advertising monetization and content payment, and cooperate with film festivals and film and television companies to bring mature stories into more content formats.

The path for IPs on Douyin is not limited to "turning short films into long dramas".

Douyin disclosed that "Zombie Cleaner" has started its film and television adaptation, while popular content such as "Zero Files 8" and "Return to the Void" have begun to try interactive drama gameplay.

TikTok mini-games: "Zero Files: Arrival" and "Return to the Ruins: The Enigma"

A short video that appears on Douyin today may evolve into a TV series, movie, or game in the future.

What Douyin wants to preserve may not be every aspect of IP development, but rather the place where good stories are first discovered and validated.

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