The artificial intelligence boom has created a new marketplace in China where people can rent out their faces.

A growing number of online platforms are paying people anywhere between $15 and $700 to license their likeness for AI-generated content. The platforms have created catalogs of images — either uploaded by users or taken at designated studios — where producers can browse faces by gender, age, or category such as “girl-next-door,” “rugged,” or “supermodel.” They can also filter candidates based on the genre they are casting, whether it’s a thriller, comedy, or romance.

Users can choose what products or settings their faces can appear in — from television commercials and video games to short-form dramas — and set their own prices based on the type of face, permitted uses, and the number of productions it can appear in. 

“Whether actors and models choose to license their faces on our platform or not, AI has already disrupted the industry,”  Long Lyu, the operations lead at AI-image rights platform New Claw, told Rest of World. “Selling the rights to their photos gives them a way to earn, while continuing their careers offline.” 

Rise of AI in content

AI-generated videos and images have sparked concerns about intellectual-property violations. In the U.S., disputes have largely centered on celebrities, with actors such as Tom Hanks and Scarlett Johansson warning about unauthorized AI versions of themselves.

In China, the challenges have long gone beyond public figures. Ordinary people are increasingly discovering their own faces starring in AI-generated dramas they never agreed to appear in.

Over 95% of the total 128,000 microdramas released in China in the first three months of this year used AI in the production. Microdramas are ultrashort, vertical-format video series designed for mobile phones. These videos are a multibillion-dollar industry in China.

ByteDance’s AI drama platform Hongguo was accused by two influencers of stealing and altering their faces using AI without their consent. The Chinese minidrama, which earned more than 40 million views, was taken down. ByteDance, which also owns Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok,  has also removed more than 85,000 videos involving unauthorized AI-generated reproduction of people’s faces and voices since the beginning of 2026.

ActID, a platform that facilitates the sale and purchase of licensed imagery, helps its users manage licensing agreements while monitoring the internet for unauthorized use of registered faces. The company also connects users with lawyers who can pursue legal action when necessary.

Producers want attractive faces for lead roles, but they also need distinctive ones like elderly people.”Camille Yan, chief marketing officer, ActID

Since launching in March, the Shenzhen-based company has registered around 800 users, about 300 of whom have agreed to license their image to AI production. They include professional extras, influencers and ordinary people with no acting experience.

So far, two AI drama productions have licensed around 10 faces through ActID, the company told Rest of World. Prices range from 99 to 500 yuan ($15 to $74) per episode, with ActID taking a 10% commission.

“Producers want attractive faces for lead roles, but they also need distinctive ones like elderly people, for example,” Camille Yan, ActID’s chief marketing officer, told Rest of World. AI-generated dramas “don’t require acting ability anyway; [the faces] serve as source materials.”

Chengdu-based New Claw pivoted to this business after its earlier operation as a production house was dramatically disrupted due to AI.

“Since late last year, it was really obvious how the rise of AI dramas really has an impact on our industry,” Lyu said. “Traditional drama production declined, advertising budgets shrank, and even luxury brands started shifting toward AI-generated productions.”

Lyu said licensing a person’s face is cheaper than hiring them to perform in person. The platform has imposed a minimum price of 500 yuan ($74) per image to prevent users from undercutting one another and driving prices down.

Using real people’s faces could bring more diversity into AI dramas. On social media, viewers have complained that many AI-generated characters look alike. ByteDance’s Hongguo announced in July that it would crack down on dramas featuring homogeneous faces.

Legal disputes over AI likeness

These platforms argue they are providing a solution to the intellectual property disputes arising from AI-generated videos. But 21-year-old Shanghai-based model Xu Fang, who has filed a legal claim against a Chinese fashion brand after alleging it used his face on products he never modeled, is not convinced. Even as new platforms pay people to license their faces for AI use, Fang said, he would never sell the rights to his own face.

“If I license my face, I have no idea how AI might eventually change it or whether it could portray me in degrading ways,” Fang told Rest of World.

The rapid adoption of AI has fueled a wave of legal disputes over the unauthorized use of people’s likenesses. The city-level Guangzhou Internet Court has heard approximately 700 AI-related face theft cases over the past three years, according to National Business Daily.

In March, the Beijing Internet Court issued a landmark ruling in a case involving an AI-generated drama accused of using a celebrity’s likeness without consent. Widely cited by Chinese state media as setting an important legal precedent, the court held that using a person’s likeness in AI-generated face swaps without authorization is illegal, even if the image has been modified.

Yile Deng, a Beijing-based lawyer who has handled AI-related portrait rights cases, said she believes the emergence of a business model for selling rights to facial images has been a positive step toward establishing commercial and legal frameworks for all parties involved. 

Yet she expects the platforms will be unable to eliminate the broader risks posed by AI. Once a person’s facial data enters an AI marketplace, users may effectively lose long-term control over how their biometric identity is used. The platforms also cannot prevent unauthorized face-swapping, illegal data collection, or future AI training using the uploaded images.

“The most apparent problem remains the unclear scope of authorization,” she said. “Many agencies are still paying people just a few dozen dollars to collect facial data. But when you examine the contracts closely, the licensing terms are often so vague that it’s impossible to know who will ultimately use the likeness, or for what purpose.”

Given the industry’s still-evolving legal framework and the nascent business model behind these licensing platforms, some AI producers are skeptical. Wendi Ma, an AI drama director, told Rest of World that some productions had purchased faces so the characters wouldn’t look “too AI,” but most AI minidramas still featured fully AI-generated characters.  

“At the end of the day, cost control is what matters most,” the director said.