Star News reports that Koreans travelling home after Chuseok are filling the journey with short dramas made by generative AI. Each story runs from a few dozen seconds to a few minutes across romance, revenge and fantasy, and the next begins as soon as one ends.
Part of the draw is spectacle that would be too costly to film. Kang Da-hae, chief executive of Nable Company, a short-drama IP and distribution firm, says settings and scale that budgets once ruled out, from exotic locations to period costume, are now opening up new genres. Park Ji-hun, who leads the short-form team at KT Studio Genie, says AI short dramas have surged since early 2026, led by China, and now dominate even the US market.
Demand from abroad is rising too. Kang says that when overseas platforms order 50 to 100 short dramas at a time, about 20 to 30 percent of those requests ask whether new AI titles are available. Industry sources cited in the report put the cost of a 50-episode short drama in China at 100 million to 150 million won when shot live, against 20 million to 30 million won with AI so far more projects get tried.
The format still has flaws. Expressions and movement can look less natural than real actors, and similar faces recur across different titles; Kang says that because AI draws on its training data, results tend towards standard attractive faces and feel uniform. Viewers keep watching anyway, the article says, because each clip builds conflict fast and ends on a hook.
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