Amazon MGM Studios is touting the power of AI to help create “cinematic” entertainment in a big new initiative, but executives are quick to say AI will empower, not replace, human creative experts.
The studio announced the GenAI Creators Fund, which will provide funding and access to AI production tools to filmmakers, digital creators, and technology startups to develop premium TV shows and movies. Amazon MGM Studios is partnering with sister organization Amazon Web Services (AWS) to launch what it claims will be the industry’s first dedicated AI production platform for visual storytelling.
“The most important thing to remember is that we are human-centric,” Albert Chen, chief operating officer of Amazon MGM Studios, told Variety. “AI tools aim to enhance human creativity and enable previously impossible TV shows and movies.”
Under the GenAI Creators’ Fund, the studio has greenlit three animated series for Prime Video. “Love, Diana Music Hunters” from Albie Hecht, chief content officer at pocket.watch (former president of Nickelodeon, creator of “SpongeBob SquarePants”). and “Cupcake & Friends” by BuzzFeed Studios. All three series will premiere on Prime Video, but no dates have been set yet.
The new initiative will be announced at the 2026 AI on the Lot event on Wednesday at Culver Studios.
Chen declined to say how much recipients of Amazon’s GenAI Creators Fund will receive. This grant is for creators to create proof-of-concept pilots and short films. The studio will then decide which of them to greenlight into a full project. In addition to the animated series, Amazon MGM Studios is developing a live-action short in collaboration with another creator (Chen declined to be named). In all AI-powered projects, creators collaborate with human actors and voice actors, Chen said.
The Amazon MGM-AWS AI creation platform is called “Project Nara” and will be available only to creators selected for the GenAI Creators’ Fund. The companies describe Project Nala as a “collaborative workspace” designed for teams to integrate AI production agents and creators with the production tools they already use, including Maya, Blender, Nuke, Unreal Engine, and Adobe’s suite of products. It is built around a “model-agnostic architecture”, combining the best available third-party video models with its own models. Project Nala also includes an “Origin Tracking” feature to ensure the protection of your intellectual property.
“One of the biggest complaints we hear from creators is that AI doesn’t do what you want them to do,” Chen said. Current generative AI video systems are geared toward social media, and “we’re turning these models into tools that can be used in industry,” he said.
According to Chen, Project Nala promises to reduce the total cost of production and speed up production. Amazon gave the three initial partners a five-week deadline to complete the pilot “to prove that it can be implemented quickly,” Chen said. Additionally, he said, directors can figure out what a particular scene will look like early in the process (i.e. before principal photography begins), allowing them to make creative adjustments on set.
What’s unique about Amazon’s approach is that it’s both a studio and a technology company, said Samira Pana Bakhtyar, GM of media, entertainment, games and sports at AWS.
“Amazon has quietly and methodically built the industry’s only end-to-end AI content creation ecosystem, from infrastructure to creative tools to creative content distribution and financing,” Bakhtyar said. “Project Nala demonstrates how AWS can help filmmakers of all types bring AI to the entire creative pipeline, from concept to screen, using a wide range of familiar models and tools on the cloud trusted by the entertainment industry.”
Below is the logline for the project by Greenlit’s Amazon MGM Studios under the then-new AI Fund.
- “Punky Duck”: A lovable punk duck and his best friend Smiley Cat race through a wildly exaggerated Los Angeles, hilariously encountering alien invasions, giant monsters, robotic criminal conspiracies, telenovela-esque family drama, and paranormal mayhem while trying (and often failing) to do the right thing. It was created by Jorge R. Gutierrez, writer and director of 20th Century Studios’ animated film The Book of Life and creator of Nickelodeon’s El Tigre: The Adventures of Manny Rivera and Netflix’s Maya and the Three.
- “Love, Diana Music Hunters”: Based on pocket.watch creator partner Diana, the most followed girl on YouTube, a young band of K-Pop space-traveling musicians rush to the planet Goo. There you have to restore the music and hold a concert to save the aliens. Created by Albie Hecht on pocket.watch.
- “Cupcakes & Friends”: The relatable Cupcake and her friends face the hilarious and thrilling challenges of a slumber party, with unexpected twists around every corner. Created by BuzzFeed Studios.
