Amazon said it plans to use artificial intelligence to speed up the process for making movies and TV shows.
Albert Cheng, a longtime entertainment executive at Amazon MGM Studio, is leading a team charged with developing new AI tools that he said will cut costs and streamline the creative process, according to Reuters.
Amazon plans to launch a closed beta program in March, inviting industry partners to test its AI tools. The company expects to have results to share by May.
Cheng describes AI Studio as a “startup” operating under Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’s “two pizza team” philosophy — keeping the group small enough to be fed by two pizzas. The team consists primarily of product engineers and scientists, with a smaller creative and business contingent.
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Amazon’s move comes as a response to product engineers and scientists, with a smaller creative and business contingent. The technology reportedly allows certain processes to be fast-tracked so that movies and TV shows can be made more efficiently.
“The cost of creating is so high that it really is hard to make more and it really is hard to take great risk,” Cheng said in an interview. “We fundamentally believe that AI can accelerate, but it won’t replace the innovation and the unique aspects that (humans) bring to create the work.”
This comes during a time of growing debate over the role of artificial intelligence in the entertainment industry. A-list actors like Emily Blunt have expressed concerns about the rise of AI, and if it would make jobs obsolete.
Amazon says that writers, directors, actors, and character designers will be involved at every stage of production, with AI being used to enhance creativity.
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Cheng said AI could help Prime Video overcome some of the inherent challenges of large scale film and television production. Amazon, like many other tech companies, have been pushing the use of AI in every division.
The company has pointed to the successes of the technology as among the reasons it cut about 30,000 corporate jobs since October, its largest layoff ever. That included a number of job cuts at Prime Video.
The AI Studio is working with producers Robert Stromberg (“Maleficent”) and his company Secret City, Kunal Nayyar (“The Big Bang Theory”) and his company Good Karma Productions; and former Pixar and ILM animator Colin Brady, as it explores new tools and works on implementing them.
The Studio, which was launched last August, points to its hit series, “House of David,” as an example of how AI could be used in the future. John Erwin, director of the Biblical series, had used AI combined with live-action footage to create battle scenes in the second season.