In China, the AI boom that displaced actors and models has found a new, ironic use for them: renting their faces. A growing number of platforms now pay individuals between $15 and $700 to license their likeness for AI-generated content, as reported by Rest of World. Producers browse catalogues of faces sorted by gender, age, and category—from “girl-next-door” to “supermodel”—and filter them by genre. The driving force behind this demand is China’s microdrama industry, the ultrashort vertical series designed for mobile consumption.
The microdrama industry has exploded in recent years. In the first quarter of 2026 alone, China released 128,000 such dramas, and more than 95% used AI in their production. This rapid adoption of AI has drastically reduced the need for traditional actors, as AI can generate performances, backgrounds, and even entire storylines. However, the demand for realistic, recognizable faces has opened up a new niche: face licensing. Platforms like ActID and New Claw have emerged to fill this role, acting as intermediaries between face owners and AI producers.
How Face Renting Works
ActID, a Shenzhen-based platform that launched in March 2026, has registered around 800 users. Of these, approximately 300 have agreed to license their images. According to the platform, two AI productions have licensed roughly ten faces so far, paying between 99 and 500 yuan ($15 to $74) per episode, with ActID taking a 10% commission. The platform’s pitch is straightforward and unsentimental. “Producers want attractive faces for lead roles, but they also need distinctive ones like elderly people,” said Camille Yan, ActID’s marketing chief. “AI dramas don’t require acting ability anyway; the faces serve as source materials.”
New Claw, based in Chengdu, pivoted into this business after AI disrupted its original model as a production house. The platform sets a floor price of 500 yuan ($74) per image to prevent users from undercutting each other. “Traditional drama production declined, advertising budgets shrank,” said Long Lyu, New Claw’s operations lead. Even luxury brands, he added, are shifting to AI. “Selling the rights to a photo at least gives people a way to earn.”
For many former actors and models who have seen their traditional income streams dry up, these platforms offer a lifeline. A model who once earned thousands of yuan per shoot might now earn a few hundred yuan per episode for their face. Still, the work is passive: once the image is licensed, the platform handles the rest. The face owner does not need to act, travel, or even interact with the production. This convenience is both a selling point and a source of concern.
Legal and Ethical Problems the Platforms Cannot Fix
The platforms present themselves as a solution to the rampant theft already occurring. Ordinary people keep discovering their faces in AI dramas they never agreed to appear in. Two influencers accused ByteDance’s Hongguo platform of using their faces without permission in a microdrama that attracted over 40 million views. ByteDance subsequently removed the video and has stated that it has taken down over 85,000 videos featuring unauthorized AI reproductions of faces and voices since early 2026.
Chinese courts are increasingly flooded with such cases. The Guangzhou Internet Court has heard approximately 700 cases over three years related to AI-generated facial likeness misuse. In March 2026, a Beijing court ruled that even after editing an image, unauthorized AI face-swapping violates the law. These legal precedents underscore the growing tension between rapid AI deployment and existing rights protections.
A legal marketplace like ActID is meant to route around these problems by obtaining consent and paying license fees. Yile Deng, a Beijing lawyer who specializes in these cases, called it a step toward proper frameworks. “It creates a clearer path for producers to obtain rights legally,” she said. But then she named the catch: once a face enters an AI marketplace, its owner effectively loses long-term control of it. “The licensing terms are often so vague that it’s impossible to know who will ultimately use the likeness, or for what purpose,” Deng explained. Platforms cannot stop unauthorized face-swapping, illegal data collection, or future model training on the uploaded images. The face might end up in contexts the owner never imagined—and would never have agreed to.
This loss of control is a central ethical dilemma. China’s Personal Information Protection Law requires explicit consent before biometric data can be processed, and it bans fabricating a likeness without permission. Enforcement, however, is the hard part. The same pattern of non-consensual AI imagery plays out across other platforms, from Grok images to footage filmed on smart glasses. The sheer scale of AI-generated content makes it nearly impossible for regulators to police every misuse.
The People Who Know Best Are Refusing
Xu Fang, a 21-year-old model in Shanghai, knows these risks firsthand. He is currently suing a fashion brand that allegedly used his face on products he never modeled. Even with platforms offering to pay, he refuses to sell the rights to his own image. “If I license my face, I have no idea how AI might eventually change it or whether it could portray me in degrading ways,” he said. His caution reflects a broader wariness among those who understand the technology’s capabilities. Other models and actors share similar concerns, preferring to avoid the AI marketplace altogether despite the financial temptation.
The economic pressures that drive people to license their faces are immense. Many former performers have few alternative income sources after AI took over their jobs. The platforms offer a small but steady revenue stream. Yet the long-term implications are troubling. Once an image is uploaded and licensed, the data can be used to train future AI models, potentially creating synthetic versions that never need to pay royalties again. This could lead to a race to the bottom, where face owners are paid less and less over time.
The Irony of Cost Control
There is a final irony to this entire system. The marketplace may not even take hold permanently, because the same economic logic that created it also limits its growth. Most AI microdramas still use fully synthetic faces, one director told Rest of World. Buying a real face is optional. “At the end of the day, cost control is what matters most,” he said. Producing a synthetic face costs almost nothing once the AI model is trained, while licensing a real face requires ongoing payments. As AI technology improves, the visual quality of synthetic faces will continue to approach that of real ones, making the premium for authenticity less worthwhile.
This cost calculation is the same force that keeps China’s AI industry ahead of the rules meant to govern it. Companies push boundaries to gain competitive advantage, and regulators struggle to keep pace. The face rental market is a stopgap measure—an attempt to impose order on a chaotic system. But it may be a temporary one. If synthetic faces become indistinguishable from real ones, demand for licensed likenesses could collapse. The actors and models who gave up their images for a few hundred yuan might find themselves replaced by digital ghosts that need no compensation.
In the meantime, the platforms continue to grow. ActID plans to expand its catalogue and attract more face owners, while New Claw is developing additional services for AI producers. The legal cases pile up, and the courts try to set boundaries. But the fundamental tension remains: a face is now a line item, priced, licensed, and, once uploaded, no longer entirely its owner’s. The AI that took their jobs is now renting their faces—for as long as the market holds.