"Today you'll experience the life copy of: a girl who came out of the mountains." — The camera pulls back, AI-generated comic-style visuals slowly unfold, and a low female voice narrates the story.

This is the "Life Copy" short video genre that's been blowing up on Douyin recently. Fixed opening line, second-person "you" narrative perspective, AI-generated comic-style visuals, voice actor narration — no real people appear on screen at all, yet tens or hundreds of thousands of viewers get immersed, crying and laughing along with "your" life journey.

This genre's topic has already exceeded billions of views, and a wave of creators are rapidly gaining followers on this track — the fastest accounts gained hundreds of thousands of followers overnight. MCN agencies are catching wind — Fengqun Culture has already built a matrix of over 60 AI accounts, targeting 100 by year-end.

Why Did "Life Copy" Blow Up?

AI short videos aren't new. So why did the "Life Copy" genre specifically catch fire? The answer lies in three key design choices.

First, second-person narrative. Storytelling with "you" versus "he/she" creates a completely different level of immersion. Traditional story videos are "watching someone else's story," but Life Copy is "experiencing someone else's life" — you are the protagonist, you live through everything. That level of代入 is hard to achieve with traditional narrative approaches.

Second, AI-native visual style. It's not live-action, not traditional hand-drawn animation — it's AI-generated comic/illustration style. This style has several advantages: first, extremely low cost, you can generate a high-quality image in minutes; second, consistent style, no issues with varying actor performances; third, precisely because it's not real people, it's actually easier to代入 — you don't get distracted by whether the actor is attractive or not, you just focus on the story itself.

Third, maxed-out emotional value. Life Copy topics mostly focus on themes like "ordinary person's comeback," "loser's rebirth," "making up for regrets" — the things people deep down crave and resonate with most. In real life you might live an ordinary existence, but in these 2-3 minute videos, you can experience a completely different life. The value of this "emotional meal replacement" is especially marketable in an increasingly stressful era.

So you see, this isn't simply "using AI to make videos" — it's an AI-native content format. Its narrative approach, visual style, and production workflow are all custom-built for AI. You simply can't achieve this cost structure or update speed with traditional production thinking.

The Dimension Drop on Content Has Only Just Begun

The viral success of "Life Copy" is just one microcosm of the AI content revolution. Bigger changes are underway.

Start with cost. According to industry data, the average production cycle for traditional 3-minute 2D animation is 18.5 days, costing roughly 8,000 yuan per minute. By 2026, with AI workflows, production time for comparable quality has compressed to under 3 days, and per-minute cost has plummeted to 150 yuan. That's a 6x efficiency gain and a 98% cost reduction. What does that mean? Where a team used to make two videos a month, one person can now make 20.

Then there's barriers to entry. Before, to make short videos you needed shooting skills, editing skills, copywriting skills, maybe acting skills too. Now? If you have ideas and can write prompts, you can generate a pretty decent video. Technical barriers have collapsed; creative barriers have emerged. Going forward, the content industry won't compete on "who has better production tech" — it'll compete on "who has better ideas, who understands user emotions better."

But this also brings a problem: homogenization. When tools become this simple, when everyone's using the same models to generate similar visuals and write similar copy — where does content differentiation come from? The answer might be: personality, vertical depth, unique perspective. Just like in the blogging era, everyone could write — but those who truly broke through were the bloggers with unique style and depth. In the video era, everyone could shoot — but those who went viral were the creators with personal charisma. The AI era is the same — tools let everyone make content, but those who truly stand out are still the ones with unique souls.

Fengqun Culture's 60-account AI matrix, the institutional entry of MCNs — this signals AI content has moved from "individual player experimentation" to "institutionalized operation." Competition will get fiercer from here, but so will opportunities — because the market is expanding rapidly, and new content formats, new platforms, new business models keep emerging.

"Life Copy" is the first phenomenal AI-native content format, but it absolutely won't be the last.

See you tomorrow.