Media and entertainment has had the most public fights over AI — actors’ and writers’ strikes, musician backlash, ongoing lawsuits over training data. It’s also quietly adopting AI in the parts of production audiences never see.
Where AI is already routine
Visual effects studios use AI for de-aging, background cleanup, and upscaling old footage. Game studios use it for procedural level generation and dynamic NPC dialogue. Music producers use AI mastering tools and stem separation as standard parts of the workflow — largely uncontroversial because they’re tools assisting a human creator, not replacing one.
Where the fights are
The flashpoints are almost always about replacing creative labor or using someone’s likeness or voice without consent — AI-generated voice performances, synthetic actors, and training models on copyrighted work without a license. Actors’ and musicians’ unions have negotiated specific contract language requiring consent and compensation for AI use of a performer’s likeness or voice.
Disclosure is becoming standard
A growing number of platforms and productions now label AI-generated or AI-assisted content explicitly, partly in response to audience demand and partly ahead of regulation that’s moving in that direction in several markets.
What’s next
- Licensed training data deals between AI companies and studios/labels becoming more common as the legal landscape around unlicensed training data settles.
- AI dubbing and localization expanding rapidly — cheaper, faster foreign-language versions of film and TV.
- Clearer union contract language on AI becoming standard across the industry, not just at major studios.
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