Jeffrey Katzenberg says Hollywood must accept AI

Jeffrey Katzenberg is urging the entertainment industry to stop resisting artificial intelligence and instead focus on shaping how it's used. 

In a lengthy, 2,377-word essay posted to X on Wednesday, the veteran Hollywood producer and former Walt Disney Studios chair argued that AI should be embraced as a creative tool, comparing it to past technological shifts the industry has weathered, from Thomas Edison's inventions to the tools Charlie Chaplin adopted in his era. 

"Hollywood needs to accept that AI is not going away," Katzenberg wrote.

"The energy they are spending trying to make it disappear is energy they are not spending deciding the terms on which it will exist. And the terms are everything."

Katzenberg framed human creativity as the industry's enduring advantage over AI, describing it as something that "takes a blank page and conjures a single right answer where there was none and has held audiences for a century", a quality he argued AI cannot replicate or replace on its own. 

He acknowledged he doesn't have every answer for how the transition should unfold, writing, "How we come through this is a choice," but expressed optimism that once creative stakeholders agree on terms for AI's use, the technology could expand opportunities rather than shrink them. 

"As the barriers and the costs come down, more films will get made, not fewer. Studios will get to take more risks. There will be more seats at the table, and very soon entirely new forms of storytelling." 

He pointed to prior shifts, synchronised sound, color, computer animation, as evidence that major technological changes have historically "redefined the boundaries of the medium and grown larger in the process."

Katzenberg's essay draws on years of firsthand experience straddling both Hollywood and Silicon Valley, in a companion piece for The Wrap, he noted he'd spent much of the past decade working in Silicon Valley while maintaining deep ties to Hollywood, giving him what he described as "a responsibility to speak honestly to both" industries. 

He also referenced a 2023 prediction that AI tools could eventually cut the time and cost of producing world-class animation by as much as 90% within three years. 

His venture firm, WndrCo, has continued investing in AI-related companies, including a recent stake in Reactor, a real-time AI video startup founded by former Apple engineers.