One Person Company (OPC) is not a solo operation, but an advanced version of digital nomads, representing a new era of one person army. ?Sitting in front of the french window of the office of Lingjie Rubik's Cube Industrial Park in Shanghai Lingang New Area, Yao Zhenguo, a 35 year old entrepreneur, defined his entrepreneurial form in this way.

Outside the window, there is a construction hotspot lined with tower cranes, and inside the window is a "company" composed of only three people, led by Yao Zhenguo. But with the help of AI (artificial intelligence), this small company was able to compress the traditional finance team's 5-hour bookkeeping process into 15 minutes, and thus attracted over 100 small and medium-sized enterprise clients.

Mingchao's entrepreneurial team is also a "one person company" that has settled in the Zero Realm Magic Cube. The company's AI "digital employees" are generating content in batches on Little Red Book and Tiktok to attract online customers. Compared to traditional manual generation models, the conversion rate of customer transactions will be 30% higher year-on-year.

In a shared office in Jing'an District, Shanghai, Liu Yixiu utilized AI to complete a complete cultural and creative project from creative conception to product implementation, which was unimaginable in the past. Two years ago, such jobs that required multi skilled collaboration often required a team collaboration that included multiple positions such as planning, design, and production to complete.

These three entrepreneurs do not know each other, but share the same identity tag - "one person company", which is a new type of entrepreneurial entity composed of individuals or micro teams of no more than 10 people. This identity represents a "super individual" that leverages AI technology to single handedly leverage considerable production capacity.

In April 2024, Liu Yixiu established a cultural and creative studio with only one employee, which can be called a standard "one person company".

At that time, the gradual rise of AI tools not only improved the design efficiency of cultural and creative products, but also supplemented the shortcomings of individual skills and expanded the boundaries of creation, so that Liu Yixiu, who has a working background in Yu Garden Cultural and Creative, Rococo and other companies, realized that the threshold for individual entrepreneurship has been significantly reduced. In the past, a designer may only know how to draw and cannot complete animation script writing, but AI can help her fill this gap and upgrade simple graphic design into a complete animation work. ?

Liu Yixiu used her work "Ma Inspirational Sign" as an example to illustrate that she has shortcomings in planning and animation video production, and previously relied on collaboration from other teams. As a result, she assigned AI to undertake topic selection and planning, resulting in 28 signatures related to horses. She then used AI to transform the visual images into animations, ultimately upgrading ordinary cultural and creative products into ones with audio and video dissemination capabilities.

For Liu Yixiu, the benefits of establishing a "one person company" are very obvious. Freelancers who take orders as individuals find it difficult to gain the trust of large corporations and can only handle small orders; And 'one person company' has independent legal personality, compliant financial and tax system, and can directly serve big brands.

Liu Yixiu is at the Hakka station. Image source: Interviewee

Shen Tao, Deputy Secretary General of the Shanghai Artificial Intelligence Association, observed that in the past one or two years, the scale of "one person companies" in Shanghai has approached a thousand and is still expanding day by day, becoming a highly dynamic emerging force in the development of Shanghai's artificial intelligence industry.

The 'one person company' not only enriches the 'capillaries' of Shanghai's industrial ecosystem and fills the gap in traditional enterprise services, but also becomes an important carrier for promoting Shanghai's industrial innovation and the comprehensive implementation of artificial intelligence technology, "Shen Tao told Interface News.

The "one person company" model initially emerged overseas, with its core derived from the breakthrough development of AI Agent technology. This technology can replace traditional manual positions with digital employees, allowing an entrepreneur to lead multiple AI agents to carry out work and achieve the possibility of "one person completing multiple people's work".

Regionally speaking, the "one person companies" in Shanghai are mainly concentrated in the core development areas of artificial intelligence, with a relatively large number in Xuhui District. Pudong, Lingang, Jing'an and other districts have also formed a certain agglomeration effect.

After this year's Spring Festival, Liu Yixiu officially settled in the OPC Park Audiovisual Jingjie ? Space located in Jing'an District.

During the previous two years of entrepreneurship, Liu Yixiu was in a state of "solo, unstable, and silent volume" for a long time, and her income fluctuated greatly with orders. The platform support and resource docking ability provided by the park are the primary reasons why she chose to settle in.

After only one month of settling in, Liu Yixiu participated in the China Home Appliance and Consumer Electronics Expo with Suiyuan District, gaining industry exposure opportunities that were previously difficult to achieve alone. This made her see the possibility of a "one person company" shifting from accepting orders from the second party to developing its own brand.

Since the middle of last year, various districts in Shanghai have established OPC exclusive parks to provide comprehensive policy and carrier support for "one person companies".

Last August, Lingang New Area took the lead in launching the "Super Individual 288 Action" and established the Zero Boundary Magic Cube Industrial Park; In December, Pudong New Area, Xuhui District, and Jing'an District successively launched special support policies; In March of this year, Yangpu District launched the Fuxing Island OPC Super Individual Community, and Alibaba also established the "Hongcheng OPC Community" located in Minhang District at the same time.

Audiovisual stillness in ? space. Photography by Fang Zhuoran

Since its official opening at the end of December last year, Audiovisual Jingjie ? Space has attracted about 30 "one person companies" to settle in over three months, mainly covering four business areas: e-sports animation, virtual large space, 3D digital assets, and AI+large audiovisual applications.

Yang Jinyu, the person in charge of Audiovisual Jingjie ? Space, revealed to Jiemian News that after the Spring Festival, the popularity of consultation and on-site inspections for park residents has continued to rise, with an average of 7-8 times per day. Currently, the office area of the park is basically fully rented, with less than 10 vacant workstations.

The Zero Boundary Magic Cube Industrial Park located in Lingang is another popular option for "one person companies" to settle in. In October last year, Lingjie Rubik's Cube attracted the Mingchao team to settle in with the preferential conditions of "90 yuan/month/workstation, including water, electricity, network, and dormitory".

At that time, I thought it was no different from 'white picking' and came to investigate with a try and see attitude. But as soon as I arrived, I didn't want to leave, "he recalled to Interface News.

At the beginning of their entrepreneurship in 2025, Mingchao and his partners chose to locate their office in other areas of Shanghai, but encountered difficulties in recruiting AI talents. The talent density nearby is too low to recruit suitable people, so we wanted to move to places where talent gathered, "Ming Chao recalled.

The core goal of this "one person company" founded by Mingchao is to solve the problems of customer acquisition and transaction in the sales process. At the customer acquisition end, high-quality content is generated in batches through AI, and potential customers are accurately reached on such platforms as Xiaohongshu, Tiktok, and official account; In terms of transactions, the knowledge system, language strategies, and thinking logic of the sales champion will be replicated as an AI intelligent agent, significantly reducing the training costs and performance fluctuations of sales personnel.

While providing carriers for "one person companies", exclusive parks such as Zero World Magic Cube and Audiovisual Quiet World ? Space also provide full process support for entrepreneurs.

The policy support obtained by "one person companies" is not a single financial subsidy, but provides supporting support in company registration, financial processing, legal services, and other aspects, solving many practical problems in the entrepreneurship of "one person companies".

Lingang New Area Zero Boundary Magic Cube. Image source: Interviewee

In Mingchao's view, the OPC park in Shanghai has gone beyond simple space provision and formed a true entrepreneurial ecosystem. Not long ago, Ming Chao encountered the person in charge of Zero Realm Magic Cube, who took the initiative to mention to him, 'There is a company that has AI customization needs and asked us if we want to take it.'. ?

In addition to business docking, the park often organizes industry experts to teach free courses on the application of AI technology to enterprise management for "one person companies". Whether it is financing needs, office expansion, or policy applications, as long as the enterprise raises them, the person in charge of the park will assist in coordinating.

In Shen Tao's view, for a "one person company" that highly relies on resources, integration, and technological iteration, ecological support is far more important than a single financial subsidy.

Shanghai's comprehensive advantages in talent base, industrial layout, resource aggregation, regional synergy, etc. have also made it one of the fastest-growing cities for "one person companies" in China, forming differentiated competition with cities such as Beijing, Hangzhou, and Shenzhen.

Hangzhou relies on Alibaba's e-commerce industry foundation, and 'one person companies' mostly focus on entrepreneurship in the e-commerce field; Shenzhen, relying on Huaqiangbei's well-established hardware supply chain and cross-border e-commerce advantages, concentrates its business on related industrial chains, "Shen Tao analyzed.

Due to the large scale and comprehensive layout of traditional industries, Shanghai's "one person company" covers various fields from AI technology application to traditional industry upgrading, from software services to hardware support, and each track can form a certain development volume.

The coordinated development pattern of the Yangtze River Delta region has also strengthened Shanghai's agglomeration effect on "one person companies".

Shen Tao gave an example that an entrepreneur in Ningbo who is deeply involved in the clothing industry moved his "one person company" to Shanghai, relying on local resources, partners, and international integration advantages to carry out clothing design, flexible production, and even single piece customization business, achieving business upgrading.

Shanghai has many opportunities and a high degree of internationalization, making emerging ideas easy to implement; it has strong financial strength and is willing to support young entrepreneurs; the development of AI technology liberates repetitive labor, and the 'one person company' model can help entrepreneurs save personnel costs and adapt to the current market environment. ?Yang Jingyu listed many advantages of the development of "one person companies" in Shanghai.

Yang Jinyu is responsible for operating the Audiovisual Jingjie ? Space, which has planned a clear growth path for the "one person company". One person companies need to provide a 5-year plan to settle in, with clear tax and revenue targets, and will also be assessed in the future, "she told Interface News.

In Shen Tao's view, "continuous emergence, survival of the fittest, and gradual growth" will be the future direction of Shanghai's "one person companies". A group of "one person companies" will be eliminated due to market competition, while another group will gradually develop into traditional scale enterprises as their business scale expands. Some "one person companies" will also form new business entities through upstream and downstream collaboration.

Liu Yixiu, who has been exploring the entrepreneurial path for two years, sees "one person company" as an important trend in the future workplace. This era is amplifying the strengths of those who dare to express themselves and possess unique skills, and 'one person companies' are the best carriers of this individual value, "she concluded.