During the late summer of 2024, C21 and New Forest collaborated on a survey titled AI And The Future Of Production to chart the views of more than 100 producers regarding the arrival of AI in the sector.
The results show there is extreme caution around AI, yet cautious optimism around its managed use in the business.
Producers and executives remain largely open to AI’s potential across film and TV, particularly for well-trodden areas like crowd simulation, virtual sets and light ray-tracing, as well as newer tasks such as storyboarding and lip-syncing.
But the line in the sand begins to emerge for some when AI is used to generate ideas, soundtracks, video, and – most significantly – entire screenplays, where maintaining both human control and quality is paramount. However, AI’s ability to save time and money is overwhelmingly welcomed, and if it can deliver faster, cheaper solutions while preserving creative control and quality, the incentive to use the technology will be incredibly strong.
Industry leaders see contradictions ahead. On one hand, they see AI as an engine of creative revolution, with the potential to diversify voices and be embraced by audiences. On the other, they fear a flood of derivative, low-quality content and inevitable cost-cutting at the expense of jobs. Can AI create truly meaningful, innovative work? The jury is split. What’s particularly striking is that while most agree content originators deserve fair compensation for AI training, there’s notable ambivalence about whether human-created content will maintain its special status.
Three-quarters of our respondents expect to see a fully AI-generated, broadcast-quality show or film within just three years. The most common prediction? Two years. Even more striking is that the same proportion believe audiences will embrace this content. The industry, in many ways, is bracing for inevitability: viewers will be “very accepting” of AI-made content, even if some in the creative community remain reluctant.
The writing’s on the wall for industry employment and infrastructure: our respondents predict significant downsizing in both areas over the next five years. While there’s strong resistance to AI replacing writers, actors and directors, that protection doesn’t extend to VFX and animation roles. Most telling is that even for the most protected creative jobs, there’s still meaningful debate about AI’s future role – suggesting no position is entirely safe from disruption.
Over the next five years, producers anticipate fewer jobs and less reliance on physical production infrastructure – a concerning forecast for a sector recently buoyed by significant infrastructure investment. There is significant disagreement over which industry roles should never be replaced by AI, but while producers and executives are in general less protective over VFX, animation and post-production jobs and more protective over cinematography and design and most particularly writer, actor and director roles, their responses suggest no job is fully safe.
While asking producers and executives about the future of production, we also asked about their needs in the present to understand which are most important and which are the least satisfied, and where the two diverge reveals where their needs are underserved.
New Forest’s Simon David Miller said of the report: The key finding is that the majority of producer and executive needs are currently underserved, suggesting – regardless of the future impact of AI – a highly dissatisfied industry that requires change. It’s no surprise that access to funding is the highest unmet need, as it has ever been.
“That time and cost issues predominate suggests that where AI can help save either, there will be a strong incentive to use it.
“In the context of an industry losing young and now older audience attention to TikTok and YouTube, it’s not surprising, perhaps, that producers have an unmet need around understanding and meeting audience needs (above talent and even commissioner needs), though producers are not yet seeing (or perhaps realising) the need to have a direct distribution or marketing relationship with audiences as creators would naturally do in the creator economy.”
The results of the survey are below.
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Attitude to using AI in the TV/film industry
Attitudinally, producers and executives are neutral or positive in their attitude to the use of AI in the majority of film and TV cases, including areas where AI has been in use for years such as creating realistic crowds and sets and enabling face/body capture and light ray-tracing, but also newer capabilities such as generating storyboards, character and concept design and lip-syncing.
More negative sentiment begins to appear for cases where AI is used to generate ideas, video, sound and entire screenplays, though only the latter has very significantly negative sentiment. This sentiment is likely to be linked to maintaining human-led creative control and delivering high quality.
There is very significant positive sentiment around using AI to save time and money. In future, with sufficient human-led creative control and quality, if generative video, sound and writing are cheaper and faster, the incentive to use the technology will be incredibly strong.
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Impact of AI on the TV/film industry
On the one hand, producers and executives strongly agree there is a danger that generative AI will flood the market with unoriginal or low-quality content and that it will lead to studios cutting costs and staff. But on the other, they also strongly agree that AI will revolutionise the industry and deliver new creativity, and that AI content will be accepted by audiences.
There’s a split over the degree to which AI can create truly innovative, meaningful content, and the extent to which AI will democratise and diversify creation and enable top creators to make more content.
While there’s broad agreement that content originators ought to receive fair payment for use of their work in training AIs, there’s a notable split as to whether audiences will always prefer human-made stories and whether AI copies the creativity of others any more than humans do.
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Speed to broadcast-quality AI film/TV and audience acceptance
75.3% of producers and executives expect a fully AI-generated, broadcast-quality TV show or feature film will be made within three years; the most common response is two years (32.4%) and there are as many respondents who expect this will happen within one year as those who believe it will take five-plus years
The vast majority (73.4%) expect the audience will be moderately or very accepting of AI-generated content at broadcast quality, with the average and most common response being “very accepting.”
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Industry change
Over the next five years, producers and executives expect there to be a net decrease in TV/film industry employment, and that the need for physical production infrastructure will decline – the latter a warning sign, given the significant investment in physical infrastructure over recent years.
There is disagreement over which industry roles should never be replaced by AI, though producers and executives are less protective over VFX, animation and post-production jobs and more protective over cinematography and design, and most particularly writer, actor and director roles. Producers and executives are, on average, telling us that no role is safe.
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Producer and creator needs
As we asked producers and executives about the impact of the AI age, we also asked them about their needs as the industry stands, in particular trying to understand which needs are most important and which are least satisfied – where the two diverge revealing where their needs are underserved.
The key finding is that the majority of producer and executive needs are currently underserved, suggesting – regardless of the future impact of AI – a highly dissatisfied industry that both requires change and is ripe for innovation.
It’s no surprise that access to funding is the highest unmet need (as perhaps it has ever been) for producers and executives. The fact time and cost issues predominate suggests that where AI can help save either, it is likely to be used.
In the context of an industry losing young and now older audience attention to TikTok and YouTube, it’s not surprising, perhaps, that producers have unmet needs around understanding and meeting audience needs (above talent and even commissioner needs), though producers are not yet seeing (or perhaps realising) the need to have a direct distribution or marketing relationship with audiences as creators would naturally do in the creator economy.
