Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos said the long-term impact of generative AI on Hollywood is “hard to predict” — but he tried to address it anyway.
“I think AI is going to create a great set of tools for creators, and it’s a great way for creators to tell better stories,” Sarandos said in an interview about second-quarter earnings. The business case for generative AI isn’t to cut costs, he said, but to improve the quality of storytelling.
“There are a lot of filmmakers and producers experimenting with AI today. They’re very excited about how useful this tool is,” he said. “We have to see how things evolve before we can make any meaningful predictions about how this will impact anyone. But our goal remains the same, which is to tell great stories.”
His response came in response to a question from an analyst who cited: diverseOn this week’s episode of Netflix’s Strictly Business podcast with CTO Elizabeth Stone, Stone said the current wave of AI is “an incremental function of this technology” and said Netflix is exploring how it can be integrated into the product to improve the member experience or how it can “empower creators and better bring their vision to life.” She also shared that the company is working on a generative AI project that she described as an “interactive discovery experience.”
“One thing is for sure, if you look back over 100 years of entertainment, you can see how great technology and great entertainment work together to build great businesses,” Sarandos said during the interview in the second quarter of this year.
You don’t have to look beyond animation, Sarandos said. “Animation hasn’t gotten cheaper, it’s just gotten better at moving from hand-drawn animation to computer-generated animation. There are more people working in animation today than at any time in history. So I’m pretty sure there’s a better job — and a bigger job — in making content 10 percent better.” [using technology] instead of [there is in] “Make it 50% cheaper.”
“Shows and movies win audiences when you connect with them,” Sarandos added. “The secret is in the beauty of the writing. It’s in the interactions between the actors. It’s in the surprise of the plot. And audiences probably don’t care much about budgets, and they probably don’t even care about the technology needed to deliver it.”
Sarandos recently commented on AI in a recent interview with The New York Times , where he expressed skepticism that AI platforms will replace Hollywood professions like screenwriting. “I have more faith in humans than that. I really do,” Sarandos said. “I don’t think an AI program is going to write a better screenplay than a great writer, or replace a great performance, or that we won’t be able to tell the difference. AI isn’t going to take your job. Someone who uses AI well might take your job.”
Also in the Q2 interview, co-CEO Greg Peters said Netflix has been using AI and machine learning in its content recommendations for years, which echoes Stone’s comments. “We believe that generative AI has tremendous potential to further improve our recommendations and discovery systems,” he said.
But Peters also noted that “the key to our success is quality at all levels,” starting with great TV shows and movies.
