With a two-person team and $2,000 in generation credits, Emmy-winning creator Stephan Bugaj produced a science fiction film in just six weeks, demonstrating how rapidly evolving generative AI technology is transforming video production.

"You can make new content within a matter of days or weeks, as opposed to months or years," Bugaj said at a conference during CES 2026 in Las Vegas last week. He collaborated with Chinese AI company Kling AI to create visuals, music and character voices for the film The Seeker. Calling it the world's first commercially available AI film, Bugaj said they have partnered with a distributor for release on Amazon and iTunes in the coming weeks.

"I think with Gen AI (generative AI), a small team can serve all of those needs for their community in a very efficient way, without having to spend hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars going to all these specialized teams that work in all these different media," he said.

Emmy-winning director Jason Zada experienced similar efficiency gains. His studio, Secret Level, also using Kling AI's tools, created a video based on two hours of original content and two hours of original AI music in under two weeks.

The studio produced a version of the traditional yule log video, featuring surreal AI-generated creations appearing alongside the roaring fire. The resulting video contains 630 scenes, each lasting 10 seconds, totaling one hour and 45 minutes of visuals.

Secret Level had previously created a yule log video, but the technology wasn't sufficiently advanced at that time, Zada said at the conference. "The latest version of Kling just blew us away," he said. "It just felt like, one year later, how fast the technology has moved."

Breakthrough Technology

Kling AI showcased its latest breakthrough, Kling 2.6, at CES. The platform, powered by its proprietary AI model, introduces "simultaneous audio-visual generation" capability. This update transforms the traditional AI video production workflow, which previously required silent visuals followed by manual dubbing, significantly accelerating creative efficiency, according to the company.

Since launching in China in June 2024, the platform has generated more than 600 million videos and accumulated over 60 million users globally. More than 30,000 enterprises and developers had integrated its application programming interfaces by the end of 2025. The company reported annual revenues exceeding $100 million in March 2025, 10 months after launch.

Professional filmmakers and television producers already use the company's tools, while its latest model is designed to be accessible to users without technical expertise. Video edits can be executed through simple text commands such as "change daytime to dusk" or "remove bystanders".

"The technology excels particularly in generating photorealistic human characters and complex human movements, achieving outstanding performance in industry-recognized benchmarks," a Kling AI representative told China Daily.

China's rapid adoption

China appears to be integrating these tools into actual production workflows faster than other markets, whether for long films or short dramas.

Generative AI is driving down production costs dramatically at Hengdian World Studios, often called "China's Hollywood", in Zhejiang province. AI-powered workflows there have reduced financial exposure by up to 60 percent for some productions, allowing studios to greenlight projects that were previously too expensive, according to AI Films, an online studio.

A report published last month by AI Films found that studios shooting short dramas can complete entire productions for the cost of a single day of Hollywood shooting using generative AI.

The significant advances include custom large language models for script evaluation, AI for visual effects and digital crowds, virtual production with real-time rendering, automated copyright monitoring and integrated production infrastructure.

China's generative AI user base doubled to 515 million in just six months, according to an October report by the China Internet Network Information Center. This figure increased by 266 million from December 2024, bringing the user penetration rate to 36.5 percent in China.

Tencent announced last month that generative AI has begun dominating short dramas and short animations by drastically lowering costs. The Chinese tech giant predicted that as much as a third of long-form film and animation could be "dominated by or deeply involving AI" within two years.

Democratizing production

By dramatically reducing costs and production time, Kling AI offers an alternative to traditional professional video production, which has long been expensive and time-consuming. The technology enables small companies, marketing teams and content creators to produce works previously limited to large studios with substantial budgets.

Kling AI is often viewed as a strong competitor to OpenAI's Sora, offering strengths in video length and motion control, in particular. The company's user base includes film studios, marketers and social media influencers, with most paid users located outside China.

"There was a new wave of AI-native creative studios, as it really empowers people with wild imaginations and great ideas to transform them into videos," said Aleksandr Mashrabov, founder of Higgsfield AI, a foundational video model company democratizing video creation for social media.

Unlike Hollywood, AI studios operate without the financial burdens of loans and other debt obligations, Mashrabov said. "AI really democratizes the production process so that the best ideas win."

AI-generated models make it possible to work at the level of concepts, similar to how humans think, he added. Calling it a new approach to content creation, he said people marketing products or looking to share ideas should not overlook generative AI tools.

liazhu@chinadailyusa.com