Because the leisure trade reckons with when and how one can use generative AI in filmmaking, Netflix is leaning in. In its quarterly earnings report launched on Tuesday afternoon, Netflix wrote in its letter to buyers that it’s “very nicely positioned to successfully leverage ongoing advances in AI.”
Netflix isn’t planning to make use of generative AI because the spine of its content material however believes the know-how has potential as a device to make creatives extra environment friendly.
“It takes an incredible artist to make one thing nice,” Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos mentioned on Tuesday’s earnings name. “AI may give creatives higher instruments to boost their general TV/film expertise for our members, nevertheless it doesn’t mechanically make you an incredible storyteller for those who’re not.”
Earlier this 12 months, Netflix mentioned it used generative AI in remaining footage for the primary time within the Argentine present “The Eternaut” to create a scene of a constructing collapsing. Since then, the filmmakers behind “Glad Gilmore 2” used generative AI to make characters look youthful within the movie’s opening scene, whereas the producers of “Billionaires’ Bunker” used the know-how as a pre-production device to ascertain wardrobe and set design.
“We’re assured that AI goes to assist us and assist our inventive companions inform tales higher, sooner, and in new methods,” Sarandos mentioned. “We’re all in on that, however we’re not chasing novelty for novelty’s sake right here.”
AI has been a contentious subject within the leisure trade, as artists fear that LLM-powered instruments that non-consensually used their work as coaching information have the potential to negatively influence their jobs.
With Netflix as a bellwether, evidently studios are extra seemingly to make use of generative AI for particular results slightly than to interchange the function of actors — even when an AI actor not too long ago induced an uproar amongst Hollywood actors, regardless of not but reserving any gigs (that we all know of). These behind-the-scenes AI makes use of nonetheless have the potential to influence visible results jobs, nonetheless.
Techcrunch occasion
San Francisco
|
October 27-29, 2025
These debates not too long ago escalated when ChatGPT-maker OpenAI unveiled its Sora 2 audio and video era mannequin, which was launched with out guardrails that forestall customers from producing movies of some actors and historic figures. Simply this week, the Hollywood commerce group SAG-AFTRA and actor Bryan Cranston urged OpenAI to institute stronger guardrails towards deepfaking actors like Cranston himself.
When an investor requested Sarandos concerning the influence of Sora on Netflix, he mentioned that it “begins to make sense” that content material creators may very well be impacted, however he’s much less nervous concerning the film and TV enterprise — or so he tells buyers.
“We’re not nervous about AI changing creativity,” he mentioned.
Netflix’s quarterly income grew 17% year-over-year to $11.5 billion, although this fell beneath the corporate’s forecast.
