At the Academy Awards this year, a short segment included AI-generated versions of Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise, rendered with enough realism that the moment acted as an uncannily futuristic demonstration of what is already possible within current production tools. Soon after, actor and comedian Will Arnett remarked that the night was meant to celebrate people rather than AI, a statement that fits comfortably within the language of award shows that strive mostly to separate human artistry from developing technologies increasingly embedded (intrusively) in it. That separation is unfortunately harder to maintain once attention swings away from the stage and into the systems that actually produce modern film, television, music and online content generally, especially where artificial intelligence is already functioning as a layer within standard workflows that exemplify how creative work is assembled from beginning to end.

In film and television production specifically, AI appears across multiple stages of development, from early planning processes where scripts are broken down and scenes are structured, to post-production work where visual effects are refined, and editing decisions are accelerated through new technology (McKinsey & Company).

What matters here is not at all dramatic replacement of human roles when certain technical or repetitive tasks are handled by systems that can execute them faster and at scale. The remaining human contribution should shift toward oversight and creative direction, which changes what the work itself feels like even if job titles remain the same.

Cost and efficiency pressures accelerate that shift in ways that are difficult to ignore, regardless of how the entertainment industry attempts to limit AI interference in creative work, especially because AI-assisted production has been linked to meaningful reductions in time and expense across media workflows (Morgan Stanley). Once that kind of efficiency enters a competitive industry, it tends not to remain optional for long and becomes part of the baseline expectation for how quickly content should be produced and delivered, especially in a fast-paced business environment.

From here, the discussion leans to an overly simplified question of whether AI will replace creative workers entirely, when the more immediate and more visible change is actually occurring at the level of how creative labor is structured, given that portions of work that once required manual execution are increasingly handled through automated systems. A similar pattern has appeared in music, where AI-generated tracks that imitate the sound, tone, or stylistic patterns of existing artists have already circulated widely online, sometimes reaching audiences before questions of origin or authorship are fully addressed, and while the first reaction is often curiosity or novelty, that reaction tends to shift once it becomes clear that voice and style, two elements long treated as central to artistic identity, can now be reproduced without the original performer’s participation in the process.

The views in this column do not necessarily reflect the views of the HiLite staff. Reach Amy Xu at [email protected].