As the entertainment industry reckons with when and how to use generative AI in filmmaking, Netflix is leaning in. In its quarterly earnings report released on Tuesday afternoon, Netflix wrote in its letter to investors that it is โvery well positioned to effectively leverage ongoing advances in AI.โ
Netflix isnโt planning to use generative AI as the backbone of its content but believes the technology has potential as a tool to make creatives more efficient.
โIt takes a great artist to make something great,โ Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos said on Tuesdayโs earnings call. โAI can give creatives better tools to enhance their overall TV/movie experience for our members, but it doesnโt automatically make you a great storyteller if youโre not.โ
Earlier this year, Netflix said it used generative AI in final footage for the first time in the Argentine show โThe Eternautโ to create a scene of a building collapsing. Since then, the filmmakers behind โHappy Gilmore 2โ used generative AI to make characters look younger in the filmโs opening scene, while the producers of โBillionairesโ Bunkerโ used the technology as a pre-production tool to envision wardrobe and set design.
โWeโre confident that AI is going to help us and help our creative partners tell stories better, faster, and in new ways,โ Sarandos said. โWeโre all in on that, but weโre not chasing novelty for noveltyโs sake here.โ
AI has been a contentious topic in the entertainment industry, as artists worry that LLM-powered tools that non-consensually used their work as training data have the potential to negatively impact their jobs.
With Netflix as a bellwether, it seems that studios are more likely to use generative AI for special effects rather than to replace the role of actors โ even if an AI actor recently caused an uproar among Hollywood actors, despite not yet booking any gigs (that we know of). These behind-the-scenes AI uses still have the potential to impact visual effects jobs, however.
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These debates recently escalated when ChatGPT-maker OpenAI unveiled its Sora 2 audio and video generation model, which was released without guardrails that prevent users from generating videos of some actors and historical figures. Just this week, the Hollywood trade organization SAG-AFTRA and actor Bryan Cranston urged OpenAI to institute stronger guardrails against deepfaking actors like Cranston himself.
When an investor asked Sarandos about the impact of Sora on Netflix, he said that it โstarts to make senseโ that content creators could be impacted, but heโs less worried about the movie and TV business โ or so he tells investors.
โWeโre not worried about AI replacing creativity,โ he said.
Netflixโs quarterly revenue grew 17% year-over-year to $11.5 billion, though this fell below the companyโs forecast.
