Hannah Lowery expected to lose acting jobs to rivals — but not to AI.
Earlier this year, the 19-year-old actor, based in Los Angeles, was thrilled to find out she'd been cast in a new show about the cutthroat world of ice skating. Then came the bad news: The project was shifting entirely to AI. She and the other humans were out.
"It's disheartening because the amount of jobs that everyone would have in that production, and the creativity that everyone would bring to that story, is now just completely gone," she told Business Insider.
Lowery's experience shows how actors' AI nightmare scenario is becoming a reality in one corner of Hollywood — the fast-growing $1.3 billion industry of "micro dramas," or short-form series designed for mobile viewing.
The sector had become a rare bright spot for actors slogging through a yearslong slump in film and TV production, especially in Los Angeles. Now it's turning into ground zero for AI displacement of human actors.
Blake Manning, a 21-year-old actor who grew up in Orange County, was tapped to play a renegade hockey star in April before finding out that the project was flipping to AI. Faith Orta, an actor who appeared in half a dozen short series this year, said she lost a role to AI less than two weeks before filming was set to begin. Rebecca Berg, another short-drama star, said her audition calls have been drying up. She had five calls in a recent week, down from the usual 20 to 30.
A big driver of the shift is cost savings. TrueShort, a new AI film startup backed by Khosla Ventures and Jeffrey Katzenberg's WndrCo, said it can make 20- to 30-minute shows for $1,000 to $3,000 each — a fraction of the typical $100,000 to $300,000 cost of those using human actors. Beijing-based startup StoReel said it can make an hourlong series using AI for $20,000 to $40,000.
In China, where micro dramas — also called "verticals" — first gained popularity, a significant share of the work has already shifted to AI. These AI productions are expected to drive around $3.5 billion in revenue this year, according to state-run media. It pegged the overall Chinese micro drama market at more than $14 billion last year.
Hollywood's broader film and television industry could be next. Members of the actors' union, SAG-AFTRA, are voting on a contract proposal that introduces some limitations on AI actors, but still allows producers to bargain for the use of synthetic performers as long as it brings "significant additional value."
The technology is already making its way into mainstream filmmaking. The movie "As Deep as the Grave" grabbed headlines** **in March for using an AI replica of the late Val Kilmer. "Hell Grind," a mostly AI-generated action movie from startup Higgsfield AI, premiered in May at Marché du Film in Cannes.
"Actors are existentially worried about AI," said Zak Barnett, an acting coach who's spent decades training Hollywood aspirants. "It feels like verticals are the first real testing ground."
'A lot of people rely on this for work' #
Micro dramas, which feature soap-opera plotlines like "The Fake Debutante and the True Billionaire," experienced rapid growth in the US last year. Major streamers like Paramount+ and Peacock have begun exploring the format. Issa Rae, an actor and co-creator of HBO's "Insecure," launched a micro drama series earlier this year.
The shows have become an important source of jobs for Los Angeles actors since many productions have moved out of Hollywood to places with favorable tax incentives, such as London, Vancouver, and states like Georgia and New Mexico. In the first half of May, nearly a third (28%) of the LA casting opportunities listed on the Actors Access jobs portal were for roles in verticals.
Luke Dodge, a 20-year-old actor who followed his parents into entertainment, said he earns between $1,200 and $2,000 per day on a nine- or 10-day micro-drama shoot.
"They just keep coming in, it's almost like working a 9-to-5, they're so rhythmic," he said of verticals. "I was able to quit my jobs, and actually have a nice little jump in this industry, which is cool."
Like other young actors, Dodge has noticed AI creeping into his work this year. A production company recently sent him an approval request seeking permission to include an AI version of him in additional scenes.
Dodge is worried about micro dramas fully pivoting to AI actors.
"A lot of people rely on this for work," he said. "It would be, definitely, very destructive if they went AI. We would all be out of jobs."
Orta, a 26-year-old actor who regularly stars in short dramas including "Marrying a Prisoner" and "Rooming with the Devil," said she was cast in a lead role in February. She said a producer then told her that the series was shifting to AI and that they could make 60 AI shows with the same budget.
She said the decision cost her other opportunities she'd passed up for the rare chance to play a strong female lead.
"I don't get to do such roles so often," she said. "She was super strong. I was sad it was taken away."
The sudden shift has sent a chill through the vertical community. Short dramas have provided a steady source of income and offered an on-ramp for unproven actors who otherwise would have had to settle for background work.
"This is 100% my income," Berg said. "My hope is to make TV shows and movies, but I'm not an established TV and film actor yet."
Reviews are … mixed #
Guy Chachkes, a film producer, said he's watched around 15 verticals featuring AI characters, and their performances felt fake.
"The problem is they're not emotionally believable, and as humans we're really good at calling out really minute details that feel fake to us," Chachkes said. "Whether that's important or not, that is what time will tell. The acting is definitely not there to mimic real, true human emotion."
AI actors' faces and voices are getting more consistent from one scene to the next, but their eyes can appear vacant, and voices don't always match facial expressions, body language, or context, said D'Arcy Smith, an acting and voice professor at the University of Cincinnati.
"Big shifts in emotion can make the character sound like another character" in the film, he said.
Steven Diamond, owner of Lumovex, a studio that produces AI-generated micro dramas, said his company has dedicated much of its efforts to humanizing its synthetic characters.
"We realized that every character that we saw that was being generated by AI looked soulless," he said. "We worked really, really hard on figuring out: What is that life force behind the eyes? How can we create that? How can we duplicate that so that the characters are believable?"
Some viewers prefer AI characters.
On TikTok's PineDrama app, one commenter described the AI actors as "better than the human ones" in "Sorry Ex-wife, I'm The Hidden Trillionaire."
Others aren't so sure.
One commenter on "The Hoodie Hides a Fortune" wrote that AI-generated stories are "really getting out of hand these days."
TikTok did not respond to a request for comment.
'There for the humans' #
Ultimately, viewers will determine the future of AI in shows.
Among the 1,670 short-drama fans who responded to a November survey conducted by Jen Cooper, an industry consultant, 93% said the star was the biggest factor in their decision of what to watch.
"The current audience in the West is there for the humans, and people are aware of AI's impact on jobs," she said.
Several of the actors Business Insider spoke with said their loyal fan bases offered them job security, even as studios looked to cut costs.
"They watch the show because we are in the show," Lowery said. "I've seen so many actors and actresses that are so talented just move people in ways that robots can never do and AI can never replicate."
Some performers, like Manning, have millions of followers on social media, enabling them to promote shows in ways a synthetic actor can't. The actor regularly posts behind-the-scenes photos and videos from set to tease shows via TikTok and Instagram.
"It's so cool to see how many people we have on our side that want us to succeed and that push us every single day," Manning said.
Isabel Dréan, a micro-drama producer, said she receives "daily" requests from apps to make AI-generated films. She said the industry's greatest challenge is the high cost of marketing the micro dramas, which AI actors would not help solve.
A sign of things to come for Hollywood #
Are movie stars the next target for AI disruption?
Hollywood studios have been wrestling with how to leverage AI's benefits without upsetting the creative community or alienating viewers. Some are using the technology in limited ways, such as to de-age characters, while others are making deeper bets in areas like animation.
Nikola Todorovic, an artist and cofounder of the VFX studio Wonder Dynamics, said his company uses AI and other tools to generate natural-looking crowd scenes and to design realistic, non-human characters that don't exist in real life (think "Planet of the Apes").
The technology has its limits, Todorovic said. AI-generated video doesn't allow for the necessary tweaking of motion and emotional details that are hard to prompt, for instance.
If the tech improves to the point where it can more effectively mimic actors' work, it would likely draw renewed backlash. When AI character Tilly Norwood came on the scene in 2025 through a short film and Instagram account, SAG-AFTRA and several of its famous members decried her creation. Still, actor outrage may not be enough to slow down Hollywood executives eager to cut costs.
Bryn Mooser, CEO of Asteria Film, an AI-driven film studio, said he expects "exponential growth" in the use of synthetic humans, noting the spread of AI avatars in China who sell things online. He sees Hollywood using AI to create minor characters or those whose faces aren't visible, but believes the industry isn't close to replacing movie and TV stars.
"A world where Tilly Norwood is made for an Avengers movie is far away," he said.
In some corners, it's AI or nothing.
Andrew Pearce, an LA-based producer who makes verticals, said that in recent weeks, at least three platforms had told him they were pausing live-action production and shifting to AI.
"Clients are telling me, 'We're not doing any shows that aren't AI,'" he said. "We can't compete."