AI-assisted microdrama content share could rise to about 80% in 18 months: Experts

Rapid adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) is changing the content dynamics of the microdrama segment of India’s entertainment industry.

The share of microdrama content created with the help of AI is likely to rise to as much as 80% over the next 18 months from 20-25% now, founders of microdrama mobile applications told ET.

Since the beginning of AI usage, visual consistency in a microdrama series has been a key challenge.


But constant innovation by microdrama content creators has ironed out these problems materially.

With AI, visual consistency associated with characters’ looks, objects, locations and the feel of stories over longer-length episodes has been tackled. This has given confidence to microdrama companies that AI-assisted content will rise.

“Today, AI is changing the economics of microdrama very quickly. In the next one year, I estimate that around 80% of microdrama content could be AI-generated, while about 20% will continue to be made through human-led production,” said Vinod Kumar Meena, cofounder and chief operating officer at Kuku.

Two clear advantages support this trend. AI-assisted microdrama content materially reduces the time and cost for content creators. This has made the economics of producing microdrama content through AI more favourable.

Several microdrama content creators said production using AI is at least 30% cheaper compared with traditional ways of using human actors. Also, the time required to create microdrama content through AI is materially lower—it takes up to seven days for a 50-episode series compared with 30-45 days for traditional live-action production. According to a recent study by consulting firm Redseer, increasing use of AI is likely to reduce the production costs of close to 100-episode micro-drama series to Rs5-6 lakh from Rs15-20 lakh in the next three to four years.

“Due to time and cost advantages, I anticipate AI-assisted micro-drama content creation to surge to over 50–60% within the next year from the current 20–25% baseline,” said Anshita Kulshrestha, founder and chief executive officer of TukTuki Entertainments. “This will set a new benchmark for scalable and mobile-first storytelling.”

Increasingly, considerable improvement in AI-assisted language models has also added to the optimistic view about the rise of AI usage in microdrama content creation. Even the audience experience of AI-assisted microdrama content has been favourable enough to encourage content creators to use more AI. Companies which use AI as a tool for content creation said there is huge scope for content creators to toy with diverse themes and subjects through AI-assisted models. Generally, microdrama content is small-budget fare revolving around romance and drama genres.

But increasing use of AI will enable creators to broaden the range of genres in their storytelling. “AI allows creators to imagine stories across diverse genres. The other advantage is scale,” said Rahul Basak, cofounder of Round Table Media, a company which creates microdrama only through AI. Some companies said microdrama content involving human actors could become premium content as AI-assisted content production increases sharply.

According to the market research firm, Redseer, India’s microdrama market is estimated to generate revenues of close to Rs2300 crore in 2026. By 2027, the segment’s revenues are estimated to jump two times to Rs4600 crore.