A young bank employee listed his likeness on a face-trading platform and, within just three days, his "face" was purchased seven times by advertising companies, earning him nearly 2,500 yuan. This is the new business venture a Chengdu-based startup is betting on, capitalising on the explosive growth of AI-generated short dramas and advertisements by transforming real human faces into priced digital assets for matchmaking and revenue sharing.

Since its launch just two months ago, the Chengdu face-authorisation platform Xinzhua has facilitated nearly 70 transactions, totalling approximately 40,000 yuan in trading volume. In the UK, Actorsy, founded by industry insiders, allows actors and ordinary people to list their facial, voice, and motion data, while in the US, PersonaShare enables individuals to authorise their faces for AI model training. As "faces" are priced and placed on shelves, the question arises: is this nascent business model truly safe?

Where the Opportunities Lie

According to Yu Zilin, founder of the Chengdu face-authorisation platform Xinzhua, one ordinary user's face was purchased seven times by a single company within three days, with a one-time authorisation fee of 500 yuan per use. After platform deductions, the individual took home nearly 2,500 yuan. This bank employee, recommended for his handsome appearance, became a sought-after asset for advertising producers. With AI video generation technology advancing rapidly, faces are becoming digital assets that can be repeatedly authorised and distributed.

Industry data shows that in the first quarter of 2026, approximately 128,000 short micro-dramas were launched domestically, of which about 122,000 were AI-generated, accounting for over 95% of the total. The market size for AI-generated dramas and animated series in 2026 is projected to reach 40 billion yuan, meaning over 1,300 AI short films go live daily. This massive content production capacity has elevated the demand for real human faces to unprecedented levels. Yu Zilin observed that current buyers on the platform are primarily short-drama companies and advertising agencies, noting that while there is strong demand, the market remains unregulated and prone to infringement issues, similar to music and image copyrights, albeit with more stringent and specific requirements for face authorisation.

On the supply side, professional actors and online influencers dominate the current landscape. Early this year, individuals claiming to hold "AI legal portrait rights resources" admitted that the actor community generally resists "selling faces" due to market chaos and the absence of unified pricing. However, many actors have begun to test the waters, including Qi Wei, Joey Wong, Wu Qihua, and You Benchang, who have authorised their likenesses for AI use. Yu Zilin believes that the rise of AI-simulated human dramas poses a direct threat to actors' livelihoods, making them understandably anxious. Currently, professional actors and influencers account for approximately 80% of Xinzhua's face authorisations, with ordinary people comprising the remaining 20%.

Despite this, Yu Zilin views ordinary people as the "biggest goldmine of the future." He anticipates that as buyers and sellers both increase, and as aesthetic fatigue sets in from the "thousand faces with one look" AI modelling trend, the faces of everyday individuals may present more opportunities for viral success.

Three Dominant Models in the Face-Authorisation Business

When a face can be authorised, traded, and protected like a song or an image, a new industry centred on face authorisation is emerging. How exactly does this business operate, and how is a "face" priced? Insights from industry and market sources reveal three primary models currently in practice. The first involves selling portraits in "bundles," such as offering up to 50 ordinary people's portrait rights for 10,000 to 20,000 yuan for use in a single short drama. The second model sees leading film and television companies or talent agencies signing AI actors. The third model involves face-authorisation trading platforms like Xinzhua and Shenzhen's ActID, which operate similarly to a "face version of Visual China."

Xinzhua, established in April of this year, requires authorisers to upload their portraits, after which the platform conducts professional collection and packaging to generate "buyer showcases" in various styles and roles. Production companies can filter by gender, age, and genre, paying on a per-project basis once selected. Xinzhua sets a minimum authorisation fee of 500 yuan per work, while the upper limit is determined entirely by market forces. For authorisation duration, short dramas and film/TV works fall under the category of "works," receiving "permanent authorisation but limited to a single production," whereas advertisements have a time limit, typically two years.

Yu Zilin explained that his team previously focused on advertising production but pivoted to face authorisation after witnessing rampant portrait infringement following the AI content boom. On one hand, more producers are using AI to generate and swap faces; on the other, AI has directly impacted traditional acting opportunities. He framed the initiative as a way to "press the brakes" on runaway AI content generation while providing actors with a new avenue for monetisation. As a trading platform, Xinzhua's key differentiator is that it does not buy out or hold authorisations, but merely facilitates transactions and emphasises rights protection. The platform currently has nine collection points nationwide, with over 200 listed face authorisations and a reserve of approximately 400 to 500 potential authorisers.

This model remains in a small-scale trial phase, not yet fully commercialised, with revenue derived primarily from authorisation commissions. Yu Zilin disclosed that the platform takes a 30% information service fee, while the authoriser retains 70%. Currently, the platform processes about 30 to 40 transactions per month, with a total trading volume of around 40,000 yuan in its first two months, indicating it is still in a market testing period.

Global Face-Trading Platforms Proliferate

The "face-selling" phenomenon is not confined to China. In the UK, Actorsy, founded this year by a group of film and television insiders, allows actors, ordinary people, and even athletes to upload their faces, voices, and movements for production companies to select suitable likenesses, much like casting. Actorsy's reference pricing suggests that AI extras or background characters command authorisation fees of approximately 150 to 800 pounds, while regional brand advertisements can reach 1,500 to 6,000 pounds. If a face is used long-term as an AI host or brand ambassador, fees may exceed 10,000 pounds. The platform takes a 25% commission on each transaction, with the authoriser receiving 75%.

In the US, PersonaShare allows ordinary individuals to sell their facial, voice, and motion data simultaneously, with prices set by the users themselves and a 15% platform commission. Beyond advertising and film generation, the platform even lists "AI model training" as a purchasable use case. However, neither Actorsy nor PersonaShare has disclosed definitive valuations or revenue figures to date, and no platform purely focused on brokering ordinary people's portrait authorisations has yet achieved unicorn status.

In contrast, companies that protect celebrities' likenesses from AI misuse and help them legally monetise their image have secured significant funding. US-based Vermillio is one such example. Its TraceID platform tracks unauthorised AI content using individuals' names, likenesses, and images across the internet, while also offering content removal and licensing services. In March 2025, the company completed a $16 million Series A funding round led by Sony Music and DNS Capital, following a $7.5 million seed round. Vermillio disclosed that its enterprise software fees are approximately $4,000 per month, with additional charges for licensing transactions, serving clients such as Sony Music, Sony Pictures, and Hollywood agency WME.

Another US copyright governance company, Loti AI, secured a $16.2 million Series A round in April 2025 led by Khosla Ventures, bringing its cumulative funding to approximately $23 million, and has established partnerships with Hollywood agencies including WME and CAA. By 2026, Loti has expanded its protections to a vast number of online creators, with its partner agency Underscore Talent's creators collectively amassing over 3 billion followers across various platforms. The fundraising success of overseas copyright protection platforms underscores the compliance challenges that portrait assets face in the AI era.

Weighing the Business Potential Against Legal Risks

Yu Zilin remains confident in his venture, believing that the true determinant of whether ordinary people's "face-selling" can achieve scale is the increasingly stringent compliance regulations. The "Digital Virtual Human Information Service Management Measures (Draft for Comments)" released in April requires that using individuals' sensitive personal information for modelling and image generation must obtain their separate consent, and upon withdrawal of consent, relevant personal information should generally be deleted.

Wang Guangying, a senior lawyer and adjunct professor at Renmin University of China, noted that face authorisation involves both portrait licensing and sensitive personal information processing, and cannot be simply understood as "selling a face." Each new project may require fresh authorisation, and "material authorisation does not equate to training authorisation." Xinzhua currently adopts a per-project authorisation model, where buyers must specify the project name and publishing platform, meaning a face authorised for one AI short drama cannot be used for other works without further approval.

Yu Zilin estimates that as human AI short dramas move towards compliance, if every production incorporates face authorisation into its production costs, the AI short drama segment alone could form a market worth hundreds of millions of yuan. However, the imaginative potential of the face-authorisation business is accompanied by considerable legal risks. Wang Guangying cautioned that while this business has sustainability due to the technical demands of AI content creation, the legal risks are extremely high and rising. In particular, as face authorisation moves towards cross-border transactions, differing regulatory requirements for biometric data across countries and regions will further increase platform compliance costs.

More critically, facial information differs from ordinary data. Wang Guangying warned that "biometric data, once leaked, is irreversible," potentially leading to long-term identity theft risks, and that "compliance costs and legal risks far exceed those of general data business operations."

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