There is no doubt A.I. has the potential to be revolutionary. However, now that boardrooms are full of people who remember the dot.com boom and subsequent bust, some approaches have been more cautious. Many casual home users have a lot of fun with the technology, creating videos and memes.
Of course, as with any new tech, it has started to find its way into porn. In the corporate world it is being used for analysis, first draft of reports, and meeting summations. It is beginning to power chatbots for improved customer engagements without having to actually pay a human being.
It feels poised to make the big leap.
Hollywood studios were salivating over the possibilities. So much so that it became a huge sticking point in the failures of negotiations that led to the extensive strikes that froze the industry last year. The same debates in the world of video games are still ongoing.
So who in Hollywood is looking like they are going to jump first? Well, no surprise, but it looks like Disney. According to a report in The Wrap they are planning a major initiative that will have direct creative impacts.
Hundreds of people will be involved, and the focus is the post-production pipeline, including visual effects. The report also says it will impact parks and experiences, but not on the customer-facing side of things yet.
This is all insider leaks, and no announcements have been made as Disney apparently feels this is too early in development to make a big proclamation. LightShed Ventures analyst Rich Greenfield is quoted in the article:
“Disney has always leaned into technology partnerships. It makes a tremendous amount of sense that Disney is heavily focused on this, but also putting substantial resources behind it.”
Lionsgate has a deal in place with A.I. company Runway in the same arena, but the Disney undertaking will, of course, be at scale and backed by more funds.
Disney is massively diversified in the entertainment industry and has huge amounts of data at its fingertips about everything from the way that guests of its theme parks spend their money, to how users of their media spend their time and consume their products. This means they can leverage A.I. on the corporate side more quickly than most competitors. Can they do it on the creative side?
Whatever they do, the unions probably aren’t going to like it.