AI has officially entered the animation business, and Prime Video is leading the way. Amazon MGM Studios and Amazon Web Services have jointly launched the GenAI Creators’ Fund. This is a new initiative that provides professional AI production tools and funding to filmmakers who previously didn’t have access to either.
The first results are three animated series that have been greenlit and will be moving to Prime Video: Punky Duck, Love, Diana Music Hunters, and Cupcake & Friends.
Three AI-animated series coming to Prime Video
Amazon MGM Studios
First, punky duckfrom Emmy Award-winner and filmmaker Jorge R. Gutierrez book of life. In this show, a lovable punk duck and his best friend Smiley Cat are thrown into a wild and uplifting Los Angeles, where they encounter an alien invasion, a robot conspiracy, and giant monsters.
after that, Love, Diana Music Hunterscreated by former Nickelodeon president Albie Hecht and brought to the world spongebob square pants. The film is about a band of K-Pop musicians who travel through space and arrive on the planet Goo to hold a concert in order to restore music and save alien lives. Its central character, Diana, is reportedly the most followed girl on YouTube.
Amazon MGM Studios
cupcakes & friendsThis production from BuzzFeed Studios centers on Cupcake and her crew as they face unexpected disruptions at a sleepover. The release date for both is undecided.
Introducing Project Nara, the AI platform that makes it all possible.
Powering all these shows is Project Naga, Amazon MGM Studios’ purpose-built AI production platform running on AWS infrastructure.
The platform connects directly to industry-standard tools such as Maya, Blender, Nuke, Unreal Engine, and Adobe Suite, and routes each task to the AI model that best handles it.
Amazon reportedly gave creators just five weeks to launch their pilots, which just goes to show how quickly the technology is progressing.
The studio also said that all creative decisions are made by humans and that all shows feature real actors and voice actors. It remains to be seen whether that promise will hold true as technology expands.
