BEIJING: Zhang Pengtao has spent 14 years running an advertising and video production business, but his operation today looks very different from the seven-person studio he once had.
The 37-year-old now runs ACE Studio without any other staff, using artificial intelligence to handle work that would otherwise require more people.
He is among a growing number of one-person companies, or OPCs, in China.
There were reportedly more than 16 million such businesses nationwide as of June 2025.
Despite having no coding background, Zhang used OpenAI’s coding agent Codex to build his own tools for managing projects and finances.
His software allows users to keep track of costs and calculate how much each project has earned.
“If you are an OPC, you probably would not hire a separate accountant just to handle your bookkeeping because the cost of doing that would be around 8,000 yuan (US$1,200) per month,” he told CNA.
