Cyberpunk Cultivation Meets Home-Appliance Sales! Are AI Short Dramas Now Chasing Double 11 Results?

Mengyao reporting from Aofeisi, QbitAI | Official WeChat account: QbitAI

AI Short Dramas’ Business Models Are Starting to Look Like Taobao’s!

Right during the Double 11 shopping festival over the past two days, Taobao Short Drama teamed up with Tmall Little Black Box, Tmall Global, and others to produce a slate of spin-off AI “brand short dramas.”

What’s even smarter is that viewers can go from following the drama straight to browsing product links, influencer reviews, and brand livestreams, all the way to placing an order.

On one side, Sandra Ng stars as the female lead in the Taobao AI short drama “The Nine-Tailed Deity Descends”, practicing cyber-cultivation while promoting Midea and Dyson products～

Even more impressive, no matter how the camera cuts or the action plays out, the character’s face never changes; even the skin texture and microexpressions stay perfectly consistent:

On the other side, our familiar Quanyou Home also seized the Double 11 opportunity to team up with Taobao AI short dramas and put on a show.

They even gave their own wardrobe a custom short drama, “Beyond the Final Chapter,” turning it into a key prop connecting two worlds.

From furniture materials and spatial proportions to multi-shot transitions in complex scenes, product details remain consistent, and even the spatial relationships hold up through repeated changes:

And here is another spectacular AI short drama, created by Tmall Global’s “Pet Purple Medicine Box”: “The Clumsy Paws Restaurant”.

Every strand of fur is sharply defined, expressions are vivid and natural, and multiple adorable pets can interact in the same frame without anything getting out of place.

After shot changes, the characters’ fur colors, markings, and clothing still match:

But for this approach to work, it needs seriously powerful AI technology backing it up—

It has to portray the characters realistically, reproduce the products accurately, and naturally blend the brands into the story to create content that is truly commercially usable.

No need to keep you in suspense: the one tackling this difficult job is the next-generation video generation model Alibaba launched this past August: Wan3.0.

Well, the video-model arena has now gone all the way from a technology showcase to the real-money business world, with competition getting seriously fierce～

The high-end AI video arena has begun competing on commercial productivity.

Today, let’s talk about the AI video industry again. One thing that everyone should have a pretty good feel for is:

It's becoming genuinely easier to generate video footage that makes people cry out, “Wild! Stunning! Mind-blowing!” (Sighing.jpg)

Indeed, from what I've observed, the categories most likely to be branded “Year One” this year definitely include AI short dramas, AI movies, and AI short videos...

But while AI video appears to be blooming everywhere, one use case that sits closest to real money and poses the toughest test of commercial delivery capabilities still hasn't truly been cracked—advertising and e-commerce.

The hard truth is that, compared with other video use cases, the toughest challenge in advertising is that it must not only generate good visuals but also consistently reproduce commercial assets.

Ordinary video-generation tasks allow for imagination, transformations, and fine-tuning, but advertising content cannot.

Packaging must be depicted accurately, logos must not be distorted, and AI's imagination must not alter the core selling points. Once anything is distorted, it is no longer merely creative material but a brand risk.

This means AI must understand products, brands, and content, as well as how to sell the product and get the “client boss” to nod in satisfaction.

This also means that the capability requirements for commercial video models have moved beyond visual generation itself:

It needs sufficient stability, controllability, and editability capabilities, as well as an understanding of client needs, before it can truly enter the commercial content-production workflow!!!

△AI-generated

That said, when it comes to turning AI into an “advertising expert” for brand owners, some players really have figured out the playbook.

In August this year, Alibaba launched the next-generation video generation model Wan3.0. Several of its core capabilities precisely target the most troublesome challenges in commercial creation.

• Consistency:Accurately reproduce reference details, maintaining consistency in key dimensions such as characters, props, sound, spatial relationships, and style.
• Realistic quality:More keenly render facial features and skin details, with characters' emotions expressed naturally and with restraint and micro-expressions coordinated with body movements.
• Style control:Accurately render the visual tone of film and TV production, reducing the likelihood of style mix-ups even when creating in multiple styles.
• Video editing:Support editing the visuals, plot, and dialogue, improving content-creation efficiency.

And these capabilities are precisely the key to AI truly understanding brand needs, consistently reproducing commercial assets, and thereby enabling scaled production of e-commerce content.

Even more interestingly, Wan3.0 has brought this set of capabilities into a more challenging commercial scenario: “AI short dramas”.

This means the model must handle longer stories, more shots, and repeated appearances by characters and products.

Worth noting is that Wan3.0's signature capabilities have now been put to real-world use in the short-drama industry—

It has already partnered with leading companies such as Buming Culture, Qin Jiu, and Bikan Technology, and the related works are about to debut or have already debuted on Hongguo, Douyin and other platforms.

Among them, the "Stepmother Relies on Bullet Comments, Mo Wan Becomes a Top Student" produced by Lingjing Shikong has already reached a Red Fruit heat score of 29.75 million, with collections reaching 4564.

From being able to generate a single video to supporting the continuous production of a short drama, Wan3.0 is pushing the capability boundaries of video models toward genuine commercial delivery.

And this year's three AI brand short dramas for "Tmall Double 11" have put Wan3.0 through a hardcore test in a real commercial setting～

Three AI short dramas: Wan3.0 takes on high-difficulty commercial video scenarios

"Nine-Tailed Deity Descends": the star's face stays unaltered, the details are convincingly realistic, and the stylization and camera performance are all perfectly handled

Let's start with what I think is a pretty "wildly imaginative" work—

the celebrity AI short drama "Nine-Tailed Deity Descends," made by Wan3.0 in collaboration with Tmall's Little Black Box.

This time, Michelle Reis authorized her real-person likeness to travel directly into a world of coexisting humans and gods in the year 2100, becoming the cyberpunk Eastern heroine Su Zhaoying!!

You have to know that for a brand short drama to keep viewers watching, it first needs to show some real skills invisual effects.

And "Nine-Tailed Deity Descends" opens with a mash-up of cyberpunk and Eastern mythology aesthetics.

One second it's a neon-lit, high-tech cyber city; the camera swings around and we're straight into an Eastern mythological night market swirling with immortal energy and blazing with lights:

Original link:
https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/WoivbF8jGnpWYhjSSWgWWA

The two visual styles switch incredibly smoothly; even the hovering cars flying through the air stay perfectly consistent. These visual transitions really feel like a big-budget blockbuster.

Of course, it's easy for AI to generate a beautiful celebrity shot; shooting an entire series continuously and still keepingcharacter consistency across multiple shots is where the real skill lies.

Let's look at the clip below: the instant Michelle Reis strikes with her fan, her white sleeves flutter and spin along with her body, and the motion flows seamlessly.

Even her body posture during fast movement stays rock-steady, with none of the distortion or frame-jumping commonly seen in AI, and her facial features remain stable without wandering off:

Let's zoom the camera in close: the heroine's lip sync, skin sheen, strand-of-hair detail, and the faint smile at the corner of her mouth all look natural.

In other words, Wan3.0's handling of details inskin texture, facial detail andthe realism of characters is genuinely impressive～

A short drama, after all, needs more than just visuals; the emotion has to be maxed out for the audience to enjoy it, which puts the model's handling ofmulti-shot performance andemotional progression to the test.

Take the deity below: one second he's holding back with restraint; the moment the camera cuts, his gaze gradually sharpens and his anger bears down on you.

Strange... watching this brought back childhood memories of chasing xianxia dramas, and the oppressive aura of a big shot in the celestial realm losing his temper almost made me blurt out on reflex: "Yes, Your Eminence!!!"

Of course, no matter how spectacular an AI e-commerce short drama is, the most important thing is still to integrate the product naturally into the story—that is, brand integration.

The home products featured in the drama, such as Midea’s logo, are indeed captured very clearly, and even the numbers on the smart panel are legible.

Original article link:
https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/WoivbF8jGnpWYhjSSWgWWA

Did you notice? The products also appear naturally as the characters go about their daily routines of cooking and tidying, and the transition between the brand and the content narrative is handled very smoothly.

“The Furry Paw Restaurant”: From Fur Details to Ensemble Interactions, Complex Shots Remain Stable

There’s more!

Now let’s look at another production centered on Tmall Global’s “Pet Purple Medicine Box”, “The Furry Paw Restaurant.”

Huskies, orange cats, border collies, raccoons, and other adorable pets all clock in and open a bustling pet restaurant.

Cute-pet short dramas have a widely acknowledged tough challenge: fine fur details are difficult to reproduce, and once the animals start moving, their expressions and facial features can easily distort!!

Fortunately, this is exactly where Wan3.0 excels, handling everything from the fine texture of fur to character consistency under dynamic expressions with ease.

Take the dizzy husky below: the individual hairs on the bridge of its nose, its clearly defined whiskers, and even the moist texture of its nose are all sharply visible:

An even greater test of its capabilities is multi-shot consistency; take a look at this clip demo—

Six adorable pets wearing different uniforms line up as the camera cuts from a wide shot to a close-up, and every animal’s clothing, coat color, and markings match perfectly.

After all, having multiple characters in the same frame already makes it easy for their features to become confused, and every camera cut requires ensuring that each pet’s identity and details don’t get mixed up.

Yet across different shot scales, Wan3.0 still maintains stable character features and spatial relationships, which is very important for AI short dramas that require a large number of consecutive shots:

Now let’s look at the ensemble kitchen scene below. A husky, an orange cat, and a border collie work together in the frame, tossing ingredients in a wok, flaring up flames, and flipping the wok in a flurry of action. The scene is quite lively.

Remarkably, the flames, wok, and character movements always remain coordinated. Even with the cookware flying through the air, the orange cat’s paw stays firmly wrapped around the wok handle.

Even as interactions among multiple characters and complex object movements occur simultaneously, Wan3.0 still maintains strong temporal coherence and spatial stability, be like:

“Beyond the Finale”: From a Single Piece of Furniture to an Entire Room, Complex Spaces Can Also Remain Consistent

Finally, let’s look at another e-commerce production in the home-furnishings genre, “Beyond the Finale.” It is a custom drama made for Quanyou Home Furnishings.

This time, the protagonist is switched to a wardrobe, and the story makes the wardrobe the key prop connecting two worlds, allowing the home product to play a direct role in the plot.

It sounds quite imaginative, but behind it lies a challenge that video models can easily mess up—

Consistency between “complex spaces”and“product structures”.

After all, furniture is itself a product, and the proportions, materials, and appearance shown on screen directly affect consumers’ judgments!!

One of the highlights of this drama is Wan3.0’s ability to make the furniture the star of the story while keeping the materials and structureandspatial relationships consistent.

In just the first few seconds, the heroine sits down on the sofa and types on her laptop; the fine texture of the white velvet is clearly visible, and the sofa’s compression and rebound under her weight look completely natural.

Not only that, Wan3.0 handles the spatial layout and proportions of the sofa, floor lamp, floor-to-ceiling window, and coffee table very well:

Now look at the office confrontation scene in this enormous space: the set is structurally complex, and it cuts between three or four shots in just a few seconds.

But no matter how the camera angle changes, the furniture’s placement, proportions, and spatial relationships always stay consistent, and the entire scene never breaks continuity:

After watching the three dramas, we can actually find an intriguing common thread—

Winnie Ho tests detailed character and role portrayal, Quanyou Home tests product and spatial fidelity, and Cute Pet Restaurant tests multi-character interactions and complex scenes.

These three different tests ultimately point to the same core requirement for commercial video production:

The characters need to look real, the products need to be accurate, the camera work needs to be steady, and the brand still needs to blend naturally into the story.

And what Wan3.0 demonstrated this time is precisely the combined application of these capabilities in a real-world brand project.

This also means that the value of video models is expanding from generating a visually stunning clip to producing controllable, reusable commercial content.

While other companies’ short dramas compete on view counts, Alibaba is starting to calculate GMV

AI has already made short dramas, but that is only the first half.

The commercial value of a branded drama goes beyond giving the product additional exposure; through the story, it can also clearly explain what scenarios the product is suited for and what problems it can solve, then capitalize on the interest this generates among viewers.

For brands, there is another, more practical question they truly care about: just how much business can an AI short drama produced at their own expense actually generate?!

It is quite telling that, while the end goal for other companies’ short dramas is view count, the end goal for Alibaba’s short dramas must also include GMV (gross merchandise volume).

With the Wan3.0 video model in hand and e-commerce platforms such as Taobao and Tmall at its disposal, Alibaba naturally has a path leading directly from content production to completed product transactions.

Brands submit their requirements, Wan3.0 participates in content production, Taobao short dramas handle in-app distribution, and product links, influencer recommendations, brand livestream rooms, and other methods are then used to guide users to search, visit stores, and place orders.

The model, the content, the brand, and the commerce platform are all linked into a single chain.

In fact, this playbook has now yielded tangible “commercial data.”

Previously, within 30 days of its launch, Pechoin’s customized AI short drama “Lingyu: A Chronicle of Another World” surpassed35 million views——

Among deep viewers, the number of paid shop orders and the transaction conversion rate increased by80% and130%, respectively, compared with before watching, while the number of active search users rose by.

The new product featured in the drama, Lingyu Cream, achieved sales exceeding10 million yuan within its first 30 days.

Another short drama, “My Plane Across Dimensions,” together with related derivative product-recommendation videos, accumulated over70 million views and more than300,000 product clicks.

According to disclosures by the project, Taobao Short Dramas has launched more than 30 AI-branded dramas since this year’s 618 shopping festival, with over 50 brands partnering on them.

The brands include Dyson, Shiseido, AMD, Nestlé, Pechoin, CHANDO, Blue Moon, and QUANU, covering multiple categories such as beauty, home appliances, consumer electronics, maternity and baby products, food, and apparel.

Great, great. Here, Wan3.0 provides more stable and controllable content-generation capabilities.

Over there, Taobao Short Dramas provides content-distribution scenarios, while Taobao and Tmall support subsequent search, product discovery, and transactions.

From a brand identifying its needs to AI-assisted production, then to reaching consumers with content and driving product sales, the entire chain can be completed within the Alibaba ecosystem.

Today, the value of AI video models finally has an opportunity to be tested directly by business results～

Behind this, however, lies a change in the logic of competition among video models.

When AI video enters real business settings, the criteria for measuring a model’s value have also expanded from how stunning the visuals are to how much tangible value it can create for a brand.

Of course, it is evident that some leading models have already taken this step——

Taking AI video from the realm of on-screen imagination into real-money business beyond the screen.

The future of AIGC looks promising.