{"id":627203,"date":"2026-10-11T09:26:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-11T09:26:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/627203\/"},"modified":"2026-10-11T09:26:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-11T09:26:09","slug":"netflix-used-ai-on-300-titles-but-human-touch-critical-exec-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/627203\/","title":{"rendered":"Netflix Used AI on 300 Titles, but ‘Human Touch Critical,’ Exec Says"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tNetflix<\/a> has already used AI<\/a> in various capacities on about 300 titles, one of its senior production executives said Saturday during an industry discussion at the Busan International Film Festival<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tSung Q Lee, Netflix\u2019s senior director of production for Asia-Pacific, said the technology was being deployed across the filmmaking process, but stressed the importance of preserving human creativity.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201c[AI] is being used in previsualization, production design, working out set-dressing concepts ahead of time, in editing and of course in VFX,\u201d Lee said. \u201cBut the question that matters to me isn\u2019t, \u2018How much AI can we put into this title?\u2019 but, \u2018What more can this title do with AI\u2019s help?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tLee was speaking at Netflix\u2019s annual Creative Asia event, presented in partnership with the Busan International<\/a> Film Festival. The panel, co-hosted with the Motion Picture Association, also featured Korean filmmaker Kang Yun-sung, the director of The Outlaws and an enthusiastic adopter of AI tools, and Kimball Thurston, chief technology officer at W\u0113t\u0101 FX.<\/p>\n

\n\tMuch of the discussion focused on the opportunities AI could create for filmmakers working with limited budgets, although the speakers repeatedly emphasized the need to preserve human creative judgment. The occasion also highlighted just how differently the Hollywood creative community and Asian content sector tend to perceive the potential perils and promise of the technology, with the former profoundly wary and the latter seeing it mostly as an opportunity<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tKang partnered with self-described AI filmmaker Kwon Han-seul last year to co-direct Run to the West, billed as Korea\u2019s first fully AI-assisted feature. The project struggled at the box office amid bad buzz over its AI visuals, earning about $100,000. Kang said the pace of AI\u2019s advancement meant the film already looked somewhat dated by the time of its release, but he remains undeterred about the technology\u2019s potential for screen storytelling.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe director is now in production on an action film called The Gulf of Aden, which heavily utilizes generative AI tools from China\u2019s Kling AI. He said the technology has enabled him to realize myriad scenes that otherwise wouldn\u2019t have been possible due to the budgetary constraints \u201cthat have held the Korean industry back from growing to its full potential.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tKang estimated that the AI-assisted approach could reduce the film\u2019s production costs by around 40 percent.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWhen we calculated how much we\u2019d save on The Gulf of Aden for financing, it came to a reduction of around 40 percent,\u201d Kang said. \u201cThat\u2019s not just from replacing CG and VFX. The shoot itself was streamlined, and that cut down our production time to some extent.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHe added: \u201cWhat has been buried due to budgetary issues was able to be put back on the table.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tNetflix\u2019s Sung tried to place AI within the context of the constant technological revolutions that have characterized the film industry since its earliest days. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cTechnological changes and new tools have helped a great deal with the \u2018how,\u2019 or how we make what we make better,\u201d he said. \u201cBut they never decided the \u2018why\u2019 \u2014 why we have to tell this story.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cBut when it comes to conveying emotion,\u201d he later added, \u201cultimately, a human has to touch it. AI can get many jobs done, but does it touch human emotion? The human touch is critical and necessary.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThurston similarly described W\u0113t\u0101 FX\u2019s use of the technology, so far, as \u201cassistive AI,\u201d rather than something that\u2019s \u201callowed to change the creative intent in any way.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt provides us \u2014 very fast \u2014 with the visual images and visualization. So from the director\u2019s perspective or the cinematographer\u2019s perspective, it\u2019s very easy to identify the errors and correct them,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cOur goal is to reduce simple, repetitive tasks,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Netflix has already used AI in various capacities on about 300 titles, one of its senior production executives…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":627204,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[365,21911,363,364,27449,1019,1094,111,139,69,145],"class_list":["post-627203","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artifical-intelligence","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-busan-international-film-festival","tag-international","tag-netflix","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627203","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=627203"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627203\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/627204"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=627203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=627203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=627203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}