Character.AI is expanding beyond chatbots into short-form, AI-generated video series. The company launched c.ai Series — episodic vertical videos designed to be watched and interacted with on your phone.
Unlike traditional microdrama services like ReelShort that use cheaply produced live-action shows, c.ai Series are fully animated and made almost entirely with generative AI. The move makes sense when you consider the microdrama market is projected to hit $26 billion in the next few years.
The company is launching with three projects. “Last Summer” is an anime-styled story about secret admirers. “The Nighttime Game” — think Netflix’s Entergalactic — follows friends playing a deadly card game. “Eden Fall” drops a group of elite MMO players into a Ready Player One-style virtual world that looks a lot like Genshin Impact.
Each series debuts with 10 episodes, all under two minutes each. The first eight are free. The last two? Behind a paywall.
What sets this apart from other microdrama apps is the interactive element. After watching an episode, viewers can chat with the characters. That’s the Character.AI twist — the story doesn’t end when the video stops.
CEO Karandeep Anand told The Verge these were developed by a human-led in-house studio “using AI as part of the production workflow.” The company enlisted Hollywood screenwriters to write scripts and detailed bibles for each story’s lore. Those scripts fed into Character.AI’s proprietary pipeline to generate visuals and audio, then edited with traditional post-production software.
“This isn’t just a one-off thing because microdramas are the next cool thing,” Anand said. “It’s a very natural extension of what our users are already doing.”
Eventually, Character.AI plans to let creators produce their own microdramas using the platform’s AI tools. For now, it’s testing the waters with three series and a lot of questions about whether audiences actually want AI-generated video content.
