Jobless Due To AI Micro Dramas, Chinese Actors Now Offered As Little As S$19 To License Their Faces For AI Dramas
Chinese actors are facing significant unemployment as production companies increasingly replace human performers with AI-generated likenesses. Some actors are now resorting to licensing their facial rights for minimal fees to survive in a shifting entertainment landscape.
Why it matters
This highlights the disruptive impact of generative AI on creative labor markets and the potential for widespread job displacement in the entertainment industry.
Companies are now looking to buy the “faces” of actors to use in their dramas instead of hiring the actors to, you know, act.
Ainslyn Lim 27 Jul 2026 at 16:42 Share Bookmark Bookmark Share on Facebook Share on WhatsApp Share on Twitter Share on WeChat Set 8days as your preferred source on Google Add 8days as a trusted source to help Google better understand and surface our content in search results. Artifical intelligence AI-generated AI actor actors actress Jobs taking over image rights likeness Lately, reports about China’s entertainment industry have highlighted how AI is changing the way dramas are made , and the harsh reality is that actors now have fewer jobs.
In fact, some actors who once earned 20,000 to 30,000 yuan (S$3.8K to S$5.7K) a month are now seeing their pay cut down to just hundreds of yuan, with some even struggling to find work altogether.
Get smarter about the news
Sign up free for a feed built around what you actually care about, Dive Deeper research on any story, and the full text of every article.
Create free accountAlready have an account? Sign in