Netflix admitted during its earnings telephone connected Thursday that it utilized generative AI to create VFX successful The Eternaut, a Netflix original from Argentina that was released successful April 2025. The company's co-CEO Ted Sarandos said that generative AI was specifically utilized for a VFX changeable successful nan post-apocalyptic drama, but nan move is 1 of respective ways Netflix is embracing AI.
According to Sarandos, nan creators of The Eternaut wanted to see a changeable of building collapsing successful Buenos Aires, and alternatively than statement a workplace of ocular effects artists to create nan footage, Netflix utilized generative AI to create it. "Using AI powered tools, they were capable to execute an astonishing consequence pinch singular speed," Sarandos shared during nan net call. "In fact, that VFX series was completed 10 times faster than it could person been completed with... accepted VFX devices and workflows."
The changeable "just wouldn't person been feasible for a show connected that budget," Sarandos says, arsenic personification pinch immoderate input connected nan show's budget. The executive says that The Eternaut features "the very first Gen AI last footage to look connected surface successful a Netflix original bid aliases film." Clearly, nan show is besides a prototype for really Netflix tin debar costs it doesn't want to swallow successful nan future.
Workers successful nan intermezo manufacture person not taken kindly to nan usage of generative AI. Labor strikes — including nan precocious resolved SAG-AFTRA video crippled strike — person made securing protections against AI a cardinal issue. The Oscar-nominated movie The Brutalist came nether occurrence successful 2024 for utilizing AI tools during production. Beyond that, whether generative AI models were illegally trained connected copyrighted worldly is still an unfastened question.
Netflix plans to usage generative AI to create ads for its ad-support Netflix subscription, and nan institution is reportedly testing a caller hunt characteristic powered by OpenAI models. Using generative AI successful accumulation mightiness look par for nan people for a institution that's already invested, but it could thief to normalize a exertion that galore creatives stay actively against.