As part of its latest earnings report, Netflix has revealed it has utilised generative AI in roughly 300 titles so far this year, with the largest use in post production.
The technology is being employed across multiple production workflows, said the streamer, from concept and pre-visualisation to post and delivery.
“We are increasingly leveraging these tools to deliver higher quality output more quickly and at a lower cost than traditional methods,” said Netflix. “In some cases, productions would have had to leave out key shots and sequences in the absence of GenAI technology.”
Speaking about the use of GenAI in certain projects, Netflix’s co-CEO Ted Sarandos revealed documentary series The American Experiment features 17 minutes of AI-enhanced footage.
“It enabled us to expand the scope of the series in ways that just wouldn’t have been feasible before,” said Sarandos on the company’s earnings call. “Those 17 minutes, they were produced twice as fast and at half the cost of previous options. By equipping creatives with these tools, we believe they’re going to enhance their abilities, and we are going to have better and more impact for every dollar we spend on our programming.”
The co-CEO added that the company is “making higher quality output more quickly and efficiently” than it would using traditional methods.
“Keep in mind that in many of the cases, productions would have left out those key shots because they just wouldn’t have been able to afford them,” he said. “They wouldn’t have been able to do them in the timeframes that they’re working on. Those sequences are saved by the availability and access to these GenAI tools.
“On the content side, we believe it takes great artists to make something great, and AI is not changing that. AI will give creatives better tools to bring their visions to life. Movies are being made by people who make movies. AI provides them with better tools to make them even better.”
