Amazon plans to use artificial intelligence to speed up the production process for movies and TV shows, despite concerns that AI will eliminate jobs in Hollywood and permanently reshape the industry.
Albert Chen, a veteran entertainment executive who is leading a team at Amazon MGM Studios responsible for developing new AI tools, said this will reduce costs and streamline the creative process.
Amazon plans to launch a closed beta program in March and invite industry partners to test the AI tool. The company expects to announce results by May.
Cheng described AI Studio as a “startup” that operates on Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ “two-pizza team” philosophy of keeping groups small enough to feed on two pizzas.
The team consists primarily of product engineers and scientists, with a smaller number of creative and business departments.
Amazon is publicly introducing AI in response to soaring production budgets that limit the number of shows and movies companies can finance. This technology fast-tracks certain processes to produce more movies and TV shows more efficiently.
“The production cost is so high that it’s really difficult to produce more, and it’s really difficult to take big risks,” Chen said in an interview. “We fundamentally believe that AI can accelerate, but not replace, the innovation and unique aspects that[humans]bring to producing work.”
The move to introduce artificial intelligence comes as big-name actors like Emily Blunt have expressed concerns that the rise of AI, particularly AI actress Tilly Norwood, will make their jobs obsolete.
Amazon emphasized that writers, directors, actors, and character designers will be involved in every step of production, and that AI will be used as a tool to enhance creativity.
Watch Apple TV+ for free for 7 days
New subscribers only. £9.99/month after free trial. Your plan will auto-renew until canceled.
Try it for free
advertisement. If you register for this service, we will incur a fee. The proceeds help fund journalism across The Independent.
Watch Apple TV+ for free for 7 days
New subscribers only. £9.99/month after free trial. Your plan will auto-renew until canceled.
Try it for free
advertisement. If you register for this service, we will incur a fee. The proceeds help fund journalism across The Independent.
Like many other technology companies, Amazon is pushing nearly every department to explore uses for AI, citing the technology’s success as one of the reasons it has cut about 30,000 company jobs since October, the largest layoff in history. This includes numerous layoffs at Prime Video.
Chen said AI could help Prime Video overcome some of the challenges inherent in large-scale film and television production.
AI Studio is building tools that bridge what Cheng describes as the “last mile” (perhaps a cheeky reference to Amazon’s delivery operations) between existing consumer AI services and the fine-grained control that directors need over their film content. This includes improved shot-to-shot character consistency and integration with industry-standard creative tools.
Amazon has turned to its cloud computing arm, Amazon Web Services, for help and plans to work with several large language model providers to give creators a wider range of choices in pre- and post-production filmmaking. Chen said protecting intellectual property and ensuring that AI-created content is not absorbed into other AI models is essential to making AI Studio work.
AI Studios is collaborating with producers Robert Stromberg (Maleficent) and his company Secret City, and Kunal Nayyar (The Big Bang Theory) and his company Good Karma Productions. and former Pixar and ILM animator Colin Brady explore new tools and how best to implement them.
The studio, which launched last August, points to its hit series House of David as an example of how AI could be used in the future.
For the second season of the Biblical epic, director John Irwin created battle scenes using a combination of AI and live-action footage, then seamlessly edited the two to expand the scope of the sequences at a lower cost.
