Asian streamers expand microdramas and AI content

Nikkei Asia reports that major streaming platforms across Asia, including ReelShort, Viu, and iQiyi, are increasing investment in short-form "microdramas" and AI-powered content to attract viewers. Nikkei Asia describes microdramas as very short, vertical-format series with episode lengths of several minutes and runs commonly of 50-100 episodes, often in romance genres. Nikkei Asia reports that an increasing number of these productions are being generated or assisted by AI.

Nikkei Asia reports ReelShort founder Joey Jia saying AI is "completely changing" the competition landscape and that ReelShort has doubled its AI team after rapid growth last year. Nikkei Asia reports that Jia told the APOS 2026 conference in Bali he was struck by his ten-year-old daughter watching fully AI-generated content and that audiences ultimately seek "great content." Nikkei Asia also reports Janice Lee, managing director of PCCW Media Group and CEO of Viu, saying AI is about "how we do things faster, be more responsive to market, perhaps at a lesser cost, so that we can redeploy the resources where it counts." Separately, Viu reports that nearly 20% of its existing long-form user base now consumes its Viu Shorts microdrama format - a milestone reached within months of launch, per Resonate reporting.

Companies producing high volumes of short-form video often adopt automation for scripting, voice synthesis, and visual generation to reduce per-episode production time. AI-assisted pipelines commonly combine generative video or image models, synthetic speech, and template-based editing to scale episodic output while preserving brand or genre conventions. Localization at scale is a frequent technical focus, involving automated translation, voice cloning, and culturally adapted story templates.

For practitioners, the shift toward AI-enabled microdramas highlights two near-term priorities: tooling for fast iteration across many short episodes, and quality controls for synthetic media (consistency, rights management, and detection of low-quality or infringing outputs). Audience retention on short-form platforms often depends on hook design, pacing, and localized cultural cues more than raw production polish.

Indicators to monitor include whether platforms disclose specific AI tools or vendors, adoption of synthetic-audio and video watermarking for provenance, and regulatory or platform policy responses to AI-generated narrative content. Reporting so far does not provide technical vendor names or detailed production pipelines; Nikkei Asia reports the strategic direction and executive comments but not lists of models or suppliers.