AI is growing by leaps and bounds across a wide swath of industries. No one can argue the benefits it can bring, but there are some pitfalls. In the creative industries, especially in M&E, many argue that AI results in productions that are soulless. What does the future hold for AI in M&E? How will it affect artists, and how will audiences react?
AI is touted as helping creators do their jobs faster, better.
AI is also touted as a job killer for creators.
For the past few years, we’ve been bombarded with arguments on both sides of this issue. So, as 2024 draws to a close and we look toward the coming year, we examine AI in the creative industry, particularly M&E. Does the tech’s future here look bright or murky?
If we had a tarot card reading, we might have an answer to those questions. Instead, we will see what the GPU cards tell us. What we do know is that AI is having a deep impact on this industry in one way or another. However, things are a bit more vague in terms of the impact it will deal the creator industry in the longer term, starting in 2025.
Last year, the dual Hollywood strikes—the Writers Guild and the Actors Guild—stopped the US entertainment industry in its tracks for months. For both groups, curtailing AI was a major negotiating point, big enough for members to take to the picket lines. Writers wanted AI restricted to being used as a research tool and not as a replacement for human writers. Simply put, they did not want AI to be trained to take their jobs. Actors had similar demands. They sought protection from AI being used to re-create their likeness and performances without their consent. Guardrails were put in place, but these will only hold back AI for so long.
Other complaints against AI came from other creatives such as authors, who were concerned that large language models were trained using their books. Artists are also up in arms about their art being used in a similar manner—without their permission and without them receiving compensation.
It’s not that all these creatives are just being paranoid, afraid of what-if scenarios that might, possibly, happen years into the future. It has happened. In 2023, Hollywood heavy hitters, including actors Tom Hanks and Stephen Fry, had their likenesses and voices hijacked by dubious uses of AI. We won’t even tread into the realm of deep fakes, the dark side of AI.
For the past few years, AI-assisted tools have made their way into films known for their cutting-edge visual effects. In 2024, however, AI had some big roles. Here, directed by Robert Zemeckis (known for his cutting-edge digital techniques), focuses on a certain plot of land over many years, from the Mesozoic era to the 21st century. To support this storyline, real-time generative AI from Metaphysic was used to age/de-age Tom Hanks and other actors to depict them over the course of various periods of time. Unlike Hanks’ unwelcome experience with AI earlier, this time, with his approval, the technology was used to produce something unique and entertaining. (On RogerEbertl.com, the reviewer gave it one star. Ouch.)
While de-aging is not unique—we saw it back in 2019 for The Irishman, Gemini Man, and Captain Marvel, and in 2023’s Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, for instance—this latest process takes things to a higher level. In a published interview, Zemeckis notes that the movie could not have been made even three years ago, as the processes then would have involved hundreds of artists, rendering it too expensive.
While Here uses a heavy dose of generative AI, there are also some recent projects that were created solely with AI tech. In July, Hooroo Jackson’s DreadClub: Vampire’s Verdict became the first fully AI-generated animated film. Done in an anime style, it comprises over 17,000 AI-generated images using Midjourney and then animating the output, with all video, performances, music, and sound being AI-generated—purportedly for $405 (no missing zeroes). That alone supports those claims that AI can do things cheaper. As for the reviews, they appear impressed with the effort.
In October 2024, AiMation Studios released Tom Paton’s Where the Robots Grow, another all-AI animated feature that was crafted in traditional CGI style with a crew of nine. However, there is nothing traditional about this film. It was crafted using AI tools such as Adobe Firefly, Wonder Dynamics, Midjourney, MiniMax, Kling AI, Stable Diffusion, and custom pipelines. At 87 minutes in length, it is said to have cost about $8,000 per minute to make (which, at about $700,000 total is still far less than the average CG feature, which can cost in the tens of millions). “So, I’m not sorry at all [for using AI].”
Where the Robots Grow might just signal the growth of AI in filmmaking. In an article appearing in Forbes, Paton even compares the use of AI in the industry to that of CGI back in the day, noting the space is about pioneering. In a YouTube interview, he says filmmaking is a technological industry and the only reason it exists as an art form is because of technological innovation.
“If you take the approach that we did internally here, it’s about taking the skills that you’ve got and applying them in new methodology that gets you to an end result you simply could not have achieved without $100 million before,” he said. Not only that, but it enabled an 8–6 weekday work schedule with a three-day weekend. And, everyone got paid more than they used to.
And, let’s not forget about the holiday Coca-Cola commercials airing at this time, which were 100% AI-generated by three different companies using different AI tools.
Creatives don’t seem to have reason to worry about AI replacing them in the filmmaking industry, at least in 2025. When AI is used solely to perform a creative task, whether that involves writing, animating, acting, or painting, the results lack a certain something—for now. Neither of the two animated films have been exceedingly well received aside from the novelty; the commercials have garnered mixed reaction, with most of the negative comments seemingly coming from the creative community. As for Here, critic reviews have not been favorable.
However, the one thing about AI is that it continues to learn and evolve. Nevertheless, humans have something that AI doesn’t have and likely never will: emotion. And when it comes to storytelling, that is a very important element.
It doesn’t take much assessment to say with confidence that AI is not going to disappear in the creative industry. It has become too valuable to simply dismiss. M&E software vendors like Adobe and Autodesk, among others, have been adding AI-assisted post and creative tools for years now, and artists are taking advantage of them to do their jobs better and faster, as the software takes care of low-level work, freeing up artists to do what they do best—create. And not many artists are complaining.
I do not need to query my AI assistant to find out if AI will be more widespread in the creative industry in 2025. Indeed, it will be. And like the proverbial frog in the kettle of boiling water, AI has been introduced gradually into our lives, mostly in innocuous ways, through AI assistants, services like ChatGPT, and now image generators like Sora—available to make our lives easier through artificial intelligence.
Creatives should keep an open mind about how AI can help them level up their work in the coming year and beyond. However, they should also keep an eye on that flame under the pot.