Hollywood embraced AI in 2025 but yielded no positive outcomes from it.

AI is not a new concept in Hollywood — but this year was significant for its prominence. The entertainment sector has long utilized various generative AI tools for post-production tasks including de-aging performers and erasing green screens. Often, this technology has served as a valuable resource for human creatives, alleviating arduous tasks that would have otherwise taken considerable time. However, in 2025, Hollywood genuinely began to embrace the concept of utilizing generative AI that primarily produces basic text-to-video content with limited applicability in standard production processes. In spite of the significant investment and resources allocated, no generative AI initiative has convincingly demonstrated its worth amidst all the fanfare.

This intersection of Hollywood and AI didn’t begin on a positive note. Studios found themselves in a favorable position to pursue legal action against the companies responsible for this technology, given that their video generation algorithms had evidently relied on copyrighted material. Several prominent studios including Disney, Universal, and Warner Bros. Discovery took legal action against AI developers for this reason. Yet rather than dismantling these AI firms, some of Hollywood’s leading figures opted to collaborate with them instead. The onset of this new age of generative AI collaborations is just beginning to unfold, but indications suggest that matters could escalate quickly in the near future.

While many of this year’s generative AI news stories were led by larger companies such as Google and OpenAI, a handful of smaller enterprises made their presence felt in the entertainment sector. Notable mentions include Asteria, Natasha Lyonne’s startup that focuses on crafting film projects with “ethically” constructed video generation models, and platforms like Showrunner, an Amazon-supported service designed to enable users to create animated “shows” (a term used loosely) from merely a few input phrases in Discord. These emerging firms were eager to validate that their iteration of generative AI could facilitate significant advancements in film and television creation while lowering overall production expenses.

Asteria offered little more than hype after revealing its initial film, and skepticism lingered regarding whether the general public would gravitate towards Showrunner’s hastily thrown-together imitations of actual animations. In the latter example, it seemed evident that Showrunner’s ultimate aspiration was to forge lucrative partnerships with established studios like Disney to integrate their technology into platforms where users could generate custom content featuring well-known characters from huge franchises.

This notion appeared absurd when Showrunner emerged since its models generated the contemporary equivalent of clumsy JibJab animations. However, in due course, Disney indicated that — unimpressive as text-to-video generators can be for anything outside of quick memes — it was willing to experiment with such content. In December, Disney secured a three-year, billion-dollar agreement with OpenAI that would allow Sora users to create AI videos featuring 200 characters from Star Wars, Marvel, and beyond.

Netflix emerged as one of the inaugural major studios to boldly declare its full commitment to generative AI. After leveraging the technology to create special effects for one of its original productions, the streaming service published a list of guiding principles for its partners to consider should they choose to adopt similar methods. Although Netflix did not mandate generative AI use by filmmakers, it was clear that reducing costs on visual effects was a primary motivation for its support of the trend. Shortly after, Amazon followed a similar path by debuting multiple anime series that were poorly translated into various languages because the localization process excluded human translators and voice actors.

Amazon’s generative AI dubbing served as a glaring illustration of this technology’s shortcomings. It also underscored how certain studios were not putting forth sufficient effort to ensure that their generative AI-derived offerings were polished enough for public consumption. This was similarly the case with Amazon’s machine-generated recaps of TV shows, which often contained inaccuracies about various series. Both situations led to the perception that Amazon assumed viewers would overlook or be indifferent to AI’s recurrent inability to produce high-quality work. The studio swiftly withdrew its AI-dubbed content along with the recap feature, yet it did not commit to avoiding such missteps in the future.

All these incidents, along with other unfortunate promotions such as the AI “actress” Tilly Norwood, gave the impression that certain factions within the entertainment industry were becoming increasingly willing to impose generative AI “entertainment” onto audiences, even as it left many feeling disenchanted and alienated. None of these endeavors convincingly illustrated to the public why anyone besides budget-conscious executives (and those inexplicably revering them) would be enthusiastic about a future influenced by this technology.

Aside from a handful of underwhelming visuals, the potential outcomes of collaborations like Disney pairing with OpenAI remain speculative. However, next year will see an even more significant AI presence in Hollywood. Disney aims to create an entire segment of its streaming platform dedicated to user-generated content sourced from Sora and will promote the use of OpenAI’s ChatGPT tools among its employees. Ultimately, the real importance of this deal lies in the message it conveys to other studios as Hollywood enters its era of sloppy execution.

Whether Disney believes this will turn out positively, the studio has indicated a desire to keep pace with the rapid adoption of AI technology. This suggests to other production companies that they should also adapt, and if this trend continues, there’s no limit to how much more of this content we may be compelled to endure.