UPDATE: Add Skydance to it. The new owner of Warner Bros. and DC committed to embracing AI in its Day One memo to employees.
Kathleen Kennedy just told the story behind Hollywood’s secret AI meetings on stage, and she didn’t sugarcoat where things are headed.
Speaking with Bloomberg Businessweek’s Brad Stone at the opening night of Bloomberg’s Screentime conference in Los Angeles on September 30, the former Lucasfilm boss said work is already being identified for automation.
“Things that are just tasks are probably going to become automated,” Kennedy said. “And there’s certainly areas within special effects right away that we’re looking at that will likely become automated.”
Back in August, we covered how Kennedy had been quietly convening Hollywood’s most powerful people for AI talks since 2023. Now she’s telling the story herself.
‘We Weren’t Trying To Necessarily Be Secret’
Kennedy said the conversations started after she tracked down AI artist Refik Anadol, whose installation at the Museum of Modern Art had caught her attention, and visited his Los Angeles studio.
“There’s such fear and anxiety around any discussion with these new tools,” Kennedy recalled saying. “What if I were to gather a group of filmmakers and storytellers, and then we could try to find an equal number of people on the technology side?”
That became a series of salons mixing creatives and technologists, about 20 to 25 people at a time. Stone noted the group has included Silicon Valley players, producers, and actors such as Ben Affleck.
“All off the record,” Kennedy said. “We weren’t trying to necessarily be secret. It’s just that there was a lot of anxiety around anybody talking about this very publicly.”
Kennedy dates the first discussions back almost five years, even earlier than previously reported. The Ankler put the first session in November 2023.
The group eventually wrote it all down.
“We put together a document that we called HGW, which is a bit of a mouthful, but it’s human generative workflow versus machine generative,” Kennedy explained.
She said the document breaks down “why precision and human intention was so important to the creative process” and “how we frankly protect the craft.”
Kennedy, who has chaired the American Film Institute’s (AFI) board of trustees for the last two to three years, then asked AFI boss Bob Gazzale about moving the talks there because the institute is “essentially kind of neutral territory.”
“We carefully curated that group and got people together. We put the paper in front of everybody,” Kennedy continued, “and it began a discussion that has really started to kind of catch on inside the industry.”
‘Are People Being Displaced? Are They Being Replaced?’
Asked whether the process reassured her about job losses, Kennedy didn’t pretend it had.
“I don’t think it’s about reassurance. There’s a huge amount of anxiety around all of this because there’s so much we don’t know,” she said.
So the AFI is going after real numbers.
“We’re actually working alongside some people at Harvard right now to put some real data behind what actually is happening,” Kennedy revealed. “Are people being displaced? Are they being replaced? Are there new jobs being created?”
That’s where the special effects line came in, and Kennedy said it’s on the industry and filmmakers to build new paths for the next generation.
She pointed out that much of Hollywood learned on the job through “mentorship and apprenticeship, which is what we’ve all gone through.”
“How do you continue to do that? How do you create an infrastructure that allows for that?” Kennedy asked.
‘A Bit Of A Leadership Void’
Kennedy made clear she’s not against the technology.
“I’m optimistic,” she said, noting every movie she’s made in the last 15 to 20 years “has been pushing technology to the next level.”
She said the new tools let filmmakers test ideas in pre-production “before you have to commit massive amounts of money, time, people.”
But she said nobody is steering the ship.
“We have a bit of a leadership void in the industry right now. Everybody’s looking for guidance as to how we’re going to go about using these tools,” Kennedy said.
“Rather than just accepting the fact that this is going to happen to us inside the industry, I think what many of us are trying to do now is to find a way to be more proactive,” she continued.
The studios aren’t waiting for guidance.
Our insiders said back in June that Disney is restructuring around AI to make more content with fewer people, and last week Disney’s own top lawyer put it in writing.
The same sources say Mike De Luca and Pam Abdy plan to maximize AI on tentpoles at the merged Paramount-Warner Bros.
Kennedy also revealed that George Lucas left her just “a couple of paragraphs” when she took over Star Wars.
As for what’s next for Kennedy, she told Stone she’s spending her time trying to “absorb and meet as many people that are involved in the new technology,” adding, “I can’t wait to start making things again.”
She ran Lucasfilm for 14 years. Her first stop on the way out: the rooms where the next version of Hollywood is being built.
