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The\u00a0<\/span>first wave of AI-generated videos<\/span><\/a> was largely the territory of tech bros experimenting with the limits of technology, but as generative video models become more sophisticated, a\u00a0growing industry has been emerging around turning those experiments into commercially viable entertainment. The emphasis seems to be less on telling better stories than producing more of them. And the industry isn\u2019t limiting itself to new material, especially when there are opportunities to capitalise on the enduring commercial value of celebrity. Case in point: the\u00a0<\/span>Australian soap\u00a0<\/span>Neighbours\u00a0<\/i>is being recut<\/span><\/a> into AI-assisted microdramas turning Margot Robbie\u2019s old storylines into a\u00a0new product for our phone screens, exploiting and extracting yet another product from a\u00a0familiar face. For a\u00a0technology repeatedly promising to\u00a0<\/span>\u200b\u2018<\/span>redefine storytelling\u2019<\/span><\/a> and unleash human imagination, it\u2019s a\u00a0remarkably unimaginative ambition.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n An AI-generated series can currently be<\/span> produced in just two weeks<\/span><\/a>, compared with 12<\/span> for live-action. The most popular apps offer creators an\u00a0<\/span>AI<\/span> production toolkit<\/span><\/a> complete with automated storyboarding, visual sets, voice cloning and dubbing in more than 40<\/span> languages. Shortical, a\u00a0microdrama app rapidly expanding into AI<\/span> (PSA<\/span> for the discerning: it\u2019s\u00a0<\/span>Israeli-owned<\/span><\/a>), claims its ten highest-earning creators made over\u00a0<\/span>$2<\/span> million in a\u00a0single quarter<\/span><\/a>, and promises to turn an\u00a0<\/span>idea into a\u00a0global hit within weeks<\/span><\/a>. For a\u00a0generation facing increasingly precarious creative careers and questioning whether their work will ever matter, the possibility of making a\u00a0living this way is hardly insignificant.<\/span><\/p>\n As the industry celebrates how few people it takes to make a\u00a0series today,\u00a0<\/span>actors are already<\/span><\/a> losing roles to people who don\u2019t exist, while their replacements appear to have inherited some remarkably familiar beauty standards. The aesthetic that social media spent years encouraging real people to aspire to \u2013 the eerily uniform, racially ambiguous, but Western-centred ideal of beauty known as\u00a0<\/span>Instagram Face<\/span><\/a> \u2013 can now be generated without them. From my own extensive \u2013 if regrettable \u2013 viewing experience, AI<\/span> microdramas seem particularly fond of a\u00a0limited gene pool of doe-eyed women and vaguely Mediterranean-looking men, seemingly plucked from a\u00a0<\/span>Love Island\u00a0<\/i>casting call. A\u00a0technology capable of conjuring almost anyone, determined to reproduce the same handful of\u00a0faces.<\/span><\/p>\n Even the peculiar world of celebrity worship is finding ways to dispense with real people. One AI<\/span> microdrama that found fame through TikTok has amassed over 120<\/span>M<\/span> views, with its creator setting up social media profiles for the two leads. Between them, they\u2019ve quickly attracted close to 100<\/span>K<\/span> followers, some of whom speak directly to the characters as though they were real. Meanwhile, the person behind them remains entirely invisible, referred to by fans simply as \u200b\u2018<\/span>the creator\u2019: a\u00a0rather grand title in an industry concerned with how little creating its creators need to\u00a0do.<\/span><\/p>\n But there\u2019s a\u00a0difference between making filmmaking more accessible and making the production of content more efficient. These platforms aren\u2019t just competing with TV<\/span>, they\u2019re competing with scrolling \u2013 during commutes, queues and chores, for every spare moment of our lives. It\u2019s no surprise in this race to produce more, the distinction between having the tools to make\u00a0<\/span>anything<\/i> and having the time, freedom and imagination to create something worth watching is becoming blurred.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Storytelling has never been about arriving at the end of a\u00a0plot. Long before they were written down, stories have passed between people, carrying their fears, desires, histories and ways of understanding the world. Irish storyteller\u00a0<\/span>Clare Murphy speaks<\/span><\/a> of how reflecting on our experiences allows us to turn them into stories, transforming what we\u2019ve lived into knowledge and, when shared, wisdom. More than just a\u00a0sequence of events, a\u00a0story is somebody\u2019s attempt to make sense of it all. There are as many ways to tell stories as there are people telling them. Myths and romances have been borrowed and retold but each retelling can bring a\u00a0new understanding of the world, shaped by the experiences of the person telling it.<\/span><\/p>\n AI<\/span>, on the other hand, can reproduce the patterns of stories without having to make sense of the experiences that gave rise to them.\u00a0<\/span>In one rather bleak experiment<\/span><\/a>, researchers asked an AI<\/span> model to generate over 11<\/span>,000<\/span> stories from 236<\/span> different countries. Despite the enormous cultural differences, it repeatedly produced variations of almost exactly the same plot. Remembering the contents of a\u00a0story isn\u2019t the same as understanding why someone needed to tell it in the first\u00a0place.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n This is more than a\u00a0theoretical concern. Having watched a\u00a0frankly concerning number of AI<\/span> microdramas while researching, I\u2019ve encountered almost identical scenes with little more than a\u00a0change of setting. Writer and cultural critic\u00a0<\/span>Kyle Chayka<\/span><\/a> has written about how algorithms have spent years pushing creators towards \u200b\u2018<\/span>flattened styles\u2019 of similar work.\u00a0<\/span>As he puts it<\/span><\/a>, the \u200b\u201c<\/span>fastest route through the AI<\/span> machine is to get a\u00a0clich\u00e9: what AI<\/span> produces is fundamentally kitsch\u201d. Combine this with platforms measuring success in views, shares and watch time, and it\u2019s hardly surprising that the results look so alike. The artistic ambition seems to be capped at whatever the algorithm already knows will\u00a0sell.<\/span><\/p>\n A film (or series) however, is rarely the work of a\u00a0single imagination. The actors, writers and crews being displaced aren\u2019t interchangeable parts of a\u00a0production line. There is beauty in the number of minds that come together \u2013 their personalities, experiences and creative disagreements all shaping what eventually appears on screen. An\u00a0<\/span>improvised performance<\/span><\/a> can reveal something about a\u00a0character the writer hadn\u2019t previously considered. Better yet, human tensions can find their way into the work itself (lest we forget\u00a0<\/span>Don\u2019t Worry Darling<\/i><\/a>). The finished product can become something nobody could have imagined at the outset. Regenerating an AI<\/span> scene to correct distorted faces or disappearing limbs might require effort \u2013 not to mention considerable natural resources \u2013 but these glitches are problems of execution. The most valuable struggles of storytelling aren\u2019t technical. They\u2019re empty pages, abandoned ideas or moments of uncertainty when a\u00a0creator has to question what they\u2019re trying to say in the first place. It\u2019s often through that process that something genuinely unexpected emerges, rather than another version of what already exists.<\/span><\/p>\n Hayao Miyazaki<\/span><\/a> puts it best: \u200b\u201c<\/span>all important things in the world are a\u00a0hassle\u201d. An industry determined to eliminate that hassle loses the human experiences that make it worth watching.<\/span><\/p>\n China, where microdramas first took off, offers\u00a0<\/span>a\u00a0glimpse<\/span><\/a> of where this all might lead. In the first eight months of 2026<\/span> alone, some 430<\/span>,000<\/span> microdramas were released, with more than 90<\/span>% reporting some use of AI<\/span> technologies. An extraordinary amount of entertainment, all competing for a\u00a0place in an already overcrowded attention economy.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n As production becomes cheaper and content more abundant, the platforms controlling distribution become more powerful.\u00a0<\/span>Research into China\u2019s microdrama<\/span><\/a> industry found that filmmakers often had limited access to audience data, sometimes receiving little more than figures showing whether viewers were still watching three, five or ten seconds into an episode. Filmmakers have always had to satisfy the people financing their work, but they\u2019re also making stories for systems that measure their worth in a\u00a0few seconds.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n There\u2019s a\u00a0cruel irony to an industry promising to remove the financial barriers to filmmaking, only for the cost of getting anyone to actually watch your film to become the bigger obstacle. Without free promotional support, producers reported that getting a\u00a0drama seen could mean\u00a0<\/span>spending ten times<\/span><\/a> its production budget on marketing, effectively paying to push their episodes into more people\u2019s feeds. In the US<\/span>, microdrama companies are pouring advertising money into Meta\u2019s platforms, with some dedicating\u00a0<\/span>as much as 75<\/span>%<\/span><\/a> of their budgets to the tech giant. And through all this, Meta benefits twice: collecting advertising revenue whilst the promotional episodes themselves keep audiences scrolling on its platforms.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n For all the promises of democratising filmmaking, the power to reach an audience remains concentrated in remarkably few hands. AI<\/span> might allow more people to make films without major studio blessing, but it does little to free them from the demands of the platforms distributing their work. The tools might be available to everyone, but the audience certainly isn\u2019t.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n And what of the audience? Unlike your run-of-the-mill doomscroll where each video is forgotten almost as quickly as it\u2019s watched, I\u00a0found myself with a\u00a0growing collection of unfinished stories rattling around my head. Rather than a\u00a0revolution in entertainment, AI<\/span> microdramas are the inevitable conclusion of what the internet has been becoming for years: an endless procession of influencers, trends and cultural products competing for the same shrinking sliver of attention. Everything must be immediate and, more importantly, short enough to watch whilst waiting for the kettle to\u00a0boil.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n When every spare moment is swallowed by another, there\u2019s less room for our own minds to breathe. As the industry races to manufacture ever more stories, I\u00a0wonder what happens to the ones we might have dreamed ourselves.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\nGet more Little White\u00a0Lies<\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
The hassles of storytelling<\/strong><\/h2>\n
The price of being\u00a0seen<\/strong><\/h2>\n