From Content to Character: How Short-Video Agents Build IPs That Last
Why AI-powered video Agents are becoming the fastest way to create personal and virtual brands—turning ideas into consistent, scalable identities.
I’ve always believed that in the age of AI, the most valuable thing you can build is not a tool, not even a platform, but an identity. An identity that people remember, trust, and talk about when you’re not in the room.
In China’s content industry, we call it an IP—not “intellectual property” in the legal sense, but a living brand, whether it’s a real person or a fictional character. And lately, I’ve been watching a quiet shift: the rise of short-video Agents as the fastest way to create such IPs.
Let me explain.
The Old Game: Talent + Team + Time
Traditionally, building an IP was expensive and slow.
If you were a real IP—say, a chef, a lawyer, or a finance influencer—you’d need a content team to brainstorm ideas, shoot videos, edit them, and post consistently. If you wanted a virtual IP, the work was even heavier: 3D modeling, voice acting, scripting, animation, and months of trial and error to see if audiences liked your “character.”
The problem wasn’t creativity—it was throughput. No matter how good your ideas were, you couldn’t outpace the bottleneck of production. This is where short-video Agents change the game.
The Agent Model: From Idea to Publish in Hours
A short-video Agent is not just an editing tool. It’s an autonomous production system that runs the entire chain: from ideation and scriptwriting to shooting (virtual or real), editing, and publishing. You feed it the direction—“Make me a witty 30-second explainer on crypto taxes” or “Have my virtual barista answer five questions about coffee brewing”—and it handles the rest.
The Agent doesn’t just cut costs; it compresses time. What used to take a team two weeks can now be done in two hours. And more importantly, the Agent remembers your style—tone of voice, visual identity, recurring story arcs. Over time, it doesn’t just produce videos; it produces consistency, which is the foundation of an IP.
Building a Real IP: Scaling Yourself Without Losing Yourself
For real IPs, the Agent acts as a force multiplier.
You—the human—are still the “face” and the emotional anchor, but the Agent handles the heavy lifting:
It finds trending angles that align with your niche.
It auto-generates scripts in your own voice (trained on your past content).
It edits with your personal visual style—colors, cuts, music cues you’ve been known for.
I’ve seen lawyers who post one Q&A video per week suddenly scale to three per day, simply because the Agent made “video-making” as effortless as sending a voice memo. The audience sees more of you, but you’re not chained to the editing desk.
Building a Virtual IP: Infinite Characters, Infinite Stories
With virtual IPs, the Agent can do something humans can’t—exist in multiple worlds at once.
One Agent might run “Maya,” a digital fashion stylist giving daily outfit tips, while another operates “ChefBot,” teaching AI-generated recipes with a realistic kitchen backdrop. Both post daily, both interact with fans in comment sections, and both evolve based on feedback.
What’s different from the old era of virtual idols is the speed of iteration. If a character flops, you don’t lose months of sunk cost—you pivot in days. If the audience loves a certain catchphrase or quirk, the Agent can weave it into every future video.
This also means you can run IP portfolios—dozens of characters, each targeting a niche, without hiring dozens of human teams.
The Real Value: Narrative Assets, Not Just Content
Here’s the nuance: an Agent is not valuable just because it makes content faster.
It’s valuable because it makes content that compounds. Every video reinforces the IP’s personality, story, and trust with the audience. In a year, you’re not sitting on “500 random clips”—you have a narrative asset that can branch into merchandise, events, or even full-fledged shows.
This is why I think short-video Agents will reshape both influencer marketing and brand building. In the next wave, we’ll see companies not just hiring influencers, but buying or co-owning IPs—some human, some entirely AI-born—whose value lies in their audience relationship, not just their content output.
Where This is Headed
I suspect that in 2–3 years, “IP creation” will be a standard button in most content platforms’ dashboards. You’ll choose: real or virtual, niche, tone, posting frequency. The Agent will handle the rest. And just like domain names in the 90s, the early movers who lock down valuable niches will have disproportionate leverage.
For now, though, the opportunity is wide open. If you’ve ever wanted to build an identity that lives beyond your own time and effort, this is your moment.
Because in the age of AI, you don’t just create content.
You create someone.
And yes, I’m co-building one currently.
It’s called Hulu Agent—a short-video IP Agent designed for both real and virtual brands. From ideation to publishing, it runs the whole chain so you can focus on shaping the personality, not wrestling with production. Think of it as your full-time creative partner that never sleeps.
I’ll be sharing more about how Hulu Agent works, and what we’ve learned from running real-world IPs through it. If you’re building—or thinking about building—an IP that lasts, you might want to stick around.