Technically Creative

Weekly AI news for Hollywood, Advertising, and the creative industries. This week, Technically Creative looks at a major shift in generative AI: filmmakers, studios, musicians, publishers and advertisers are starting to talk publicly about how they are actually using AI.

Jeffrey Katzenberg is developing plans for an AI-focused animation venture. The Lion King director Rob Minkoff is developing Storm Dogs using human performances combined with generative technology. Darren Aronofsky continues experimenting publicly with AI filmmaking, and new production examples suggest AI could dramatically change the cost and speed of making movies.

That raises one of the biggest questions facing Hollywood: will AI replace creative jobs, or could lower production costs allow more films to get made?

We look at what happens when a film sequence that once required ten shooting days can be completed in two, and whether those savings mean fewer jobs, greater creative ambition, or projects getting financed that otherwise would never exist.

The same shift is happening across the rest of the creative industries.

Penguin Random House now has guidance for authors and illustrators using AI. Universal Music Group and ElevenLabs are developing a licensed AI music platform, pushing the music industry toward a model built around permission, licensing, compensation and creative control rather than a simple choice between being “pro-AI” or “anti-AI.”

In advertising, generative AI is making competent creative execution cheaper and easier to scale. But if average work becomes abundant, the things that remain scarce may be ideas, taste, judgment, storytelling and cultural instinct. There is also a longer-term problem: if AI automates the junior work through which creative people learn, how does the industry train its next generation of senior talent?

YouTube is bringing Gemini-powered conversational AI editing into its creator tools, allowing users to build a first edit using natural language before returning to a traditional timeline.

AI security remains a concern too. An OpenAI agent reportedly crossed into an Australian government system while completing a research task, while Anthropic has accused rival AI companies of using Claude outputs to help train competing models. For businesses using enterprise AI, the question of where your data actually goes is becoming increasingly important.

And finally, Paramount’s Warner Bros. Discovery acquisition settlement includes requirements to release at least 30 films a year, creating a real-world test of one of the arguments we’ve been making on this show:

If AI and new production technology can make filmmaking cheaper, perhaps the opportunity is not making the same movies with fewer people.

Perhaps it is making more movies.

The creative industries have not suddenly decided that AI is good. Copyright, consent, compensation, labor and artist rights remain unresolved. But the conversation is becoming more useful because people are finally willing to say:

Yes, I used AI. Here’s what I used it for. Here’s what it cost. And here’s what happened.

That’s the conversation Technically Creative wants to have.

AI is forcing one of the biggest copyright debates in decades. So what does copyright law actually say about training AI on creative work?

This episode is paid for by the Future of Life Institute.

In this episode of Technically Creative, Orlando Wood sits down with Keith Kupferschmid, CEO of the Copyright Alliance, to unpack the increasingly complicated relationship between artificial intelligence, copyright, fair use, creators and the companies building generative AI.

Keith represents a coalition that includes individual creators as well as organizations across film, television, music, publishing, photography, journalism and other copyright industries. He argues that generative AI presents a fundamentally different challenge because AI models can be trained on copyrighted works and then produce material that competes in the same markets as the people who created the original work.

But what does copyright law actually say about that?

Keith explains an important distinction that often gets lost in the AI copyright debate: the legal question surrounding the copying of copyrighted material during AI training is separate from the question of whether an AI-generated output is substantially similar to an original work. From there, Orlando and Keith dig into fair use, licensing, market harm, training data, pirated material and the growing number of AI copyright lawsuits working their way through US courts.

They discuss why different types of creative work may produce very different legal outcomes. A language model trained on books but used to write résumés presents a different fair-use question from an AI music system trained on music to generate more music. Keith explains why he believes cases involving music, journalism and some visual imagery may provide particularly strong tests of the fair-use argument.

The conversation also looks beyond the lawsuits to the question that matters for the future: if AI isn't going away, how do we build a system that works for creators and technology companies?

Keith proposes three essential ingredients: licensing, transparency and safeguards.

And while Keith is forceful about protecting copyright, this isn't a conversation about rejecting AI. He believes creators can use artificial intelligence productively and responsibly while remaining in control of their creative work.

As he puts it: “Don't put AI in the control room.”

We explore:

• How copyright law applies to generative AI and AI training data
• The difference between input infringement and output infringement
• Whether training AI on copyrighted material can qualify as fair use
• Why permission, compensation and licensing matter to creators
• The major AI copyright lawsuits moving through US courts
• Why different courts are reaching different conclusions about AI and fair use
• How market harm affects the fair-use analysis
• Why AI-generated music presents a particularly interesting copyright case
• Copyright issues affecting writers, musicians, filmmakers, photographers and software developers
• Why Keith believes licensing, transparency and safeguards could provide a path forward
• How creators can use AI without surrendering creative control
• Why AI copyright law may take years to become clearer

For artists, filmmakers, writers, musicians, photographers, publishers, creative companies and anyone trying to understand the fight over AI training data and copyright, this is a practical explanation of what the law says today, where the uncertainty remains, and what a workable future could look like.

Technically Creative is a technology podcast for people who don't necessarily think of themselves as tech people, exploring how AI and technology are changing film, television, advertising, publishing, media and the creative industries.

This episode is sponsored by the Future of Life Institute.

Weekly AI news for the creative industries. This week, Technically Creative asks a much harder question: can increasingly capable AI systems actually be contained?

The main story is the growing concern around autonomous AI agents. New reporting on an OpenAI evaluation described agents finding unauthorized ways to communicate, exploiting vulnerabilities, accessing the internet and reaching third-party systems while trying to complete a task. A separate Google Gemini cybersecurity evaluation also resulted in the model accessing real-world systems when it was supposed to be operating against simulated targets.

The important point is not that AI suddenly became conscious or “wanted” to escape. It is that highly capable systems can misunderstand a boundary, pursue an objective and create real-world consequences without any malicious intent at all.

That changes the AI safety debate.

We look at Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei’s calls to slow the pace of frontier AI development, why governance and independent model evaluation are becoming more urgent, and whether safety should really depend on trusting the CEOs running the world’s most powerful AI companies.

Elsewhere this week, Disney appoints its first enterprise-wide CTO as it pulls AI, streaming, games, data and consumer technology closer together. OpenAI’s projected compute spending pushes the economics of AI further into heavy-industry territory. Newly unsealed materials in AI copyright litigation raise uncomfortable questions about training data, fair use and whether AI products could eventually substitute for the publishers whose work helped train them.

We also look at California’s new disclosure rules for synthetic performers in advertising and the launch of Super Cinema, a new Burbank studio betting on vertically integrated, lower-cost filmmaking and new production technology.

The bigger question running through all of it is no longer simply whether AI is powerful.

It is whether our governance, safety systems and institutions can keep up with what these systems are becoming capable of doing..

Can AI and traditional film production actually coexist?

Technically Creative is brought to you by KoobrikLabs, the IT and AI partner for creative companies.

In this episode of Technically Creative, Orlando Wood sits down with Toby Walsham, founder of Imagine This and Made By Humans, to explore what happens when an experienced live-action producer builds an AI creative studio from inside the advertising and commercial production industry.

Toby started his career at Framestore and built his career producing ambitious live-action work before founding Imagine This. Then generative AI arrived, and he saw an opportunity to build something new.

The result was Made By Humans, an AI creative studio built around experienced production talent and a belief that artificial intelligence doesn't have to exist separately from traditional filmmaking, advertising production and creative craft.

Toby talks openly about the decision to launch an AI roster at a time when parts of the creative industry were deeply skeptical of generative AI, the response from agencies and clients, and what he's learned from actually putting AI production into practice.

This is a conversation about AI in advertising, generative AI, commercial production, filmmaking, creative technology and the changing production industry, grounded in the experience of someone who still loves being on a physical film set.

Because Toby isn't trying to choose between AI and live action.

He's building a business around both.

We explore how AI is changing commercial production, where generative AI fits into existing production workflows, what clients actually want from AI studios, and why experienced producers and craftspeople still matter when the tools themselves can generate extraordinary amounts of content.

Toby also reflects on the larger ecosystem he's building around Imagine This and Made By Humans, why innovation was one of the founding principles of the company, and why he ultimately decided that experimenting with AI was worth the risk.

As he puts it, he would have regretted not trying.

In this episode:

• How Toby Walsham went from live-action production to building an AI creative studio
• The story behind Imagine This and Made By Humans
• What an AI creative studio actually does
• Generative AI in advertising and commercial production
• Why Toby was initially concerned about launching an AI roster
• How agencies, brands and the production industry are responding to AI
• AI production versus traditional live-action production
• Why experienced producers and creative craftspeople still matter
• How AI can become part of existing creative and production workflows
• The opportunities and challenges facing AI production companies
• Why innovation doesn't have to mean abandoning traditional filmmaking
• How Imagine This and Made By Humans can grow alongside each other
• Why Toby believes he would have regretted not taking the risk

For filmmakers, producers, advertising creatives, agencies, brands and anyone trying to understand how generative AI is actually changing creative production, this is a practical look at what happens when the people who already know how to make the work start experimenting seriously with new tools.

Technically Creative is a technology podcast for people who don't necessarily think of themselves as tech people, exploring how AI and technology are changing film, television, advertising, media and the creative industries.

Weekly AI news for the creative industries. This week, Technically Creative looks at the growing fight over who gets to make advertising, how AI is disappearing into professional creative workflows, and why the rules around technology, work and authorship are changing faster than the institutions around them.

The biggest story is advertising production.

WPP is pushing more commercial production through its own 10,000-person production operation, challenging the traditional triple-bid system that has long connected agencies, clients and independent production companies. With traditional agency revenues under pressure, production growing, clients demanding exponentially more content and generative AI making internal production increasingly viable, this may be less about one controversial procurement policy and more about the future structure of the entire advertising industry.

We also look at Omnicom, IPG and the extraordinary movement of major client accounts across the holding companies, including PepsiCo’s reported $1.7 billion shift of media, data and technology business.

Then there’s Adobe, which is embedding generative video and audio directly inside Premiere rather than asking professional creatives to abandon their existing workflows. Adobe also reported record quarterly revenue, providing an interesting signal that putting AI inside the tools people already use may be a more powerful strategy than simply launching another model.

Reuters and ITN are using AI to make more than 70 years of historic broadcast footage easier to find and license, showing how AI can create value from existing human work rather than replacing it.

And finally, the AI safety debate gets considerably more uncomfortable. OpenAI and Anthropic are exploring investment-grade credit ratings while current and former AI researchers publicly warn about potentially catastrophic risks from frontier models. When even some of the people building the technology are calling for slower development and stronger governance, the obvious question becomes: when should government actually step in?

The thread connecting all of it is that technology doesn’t just change what we can do. It changes the agreements around who does the work, who owns the opportunity, where talent goes, and what rules everybody is expected to follow.

And right now, those contracts are being rewritten very quickly.

Why are we using AI?

This episode of Technically Creative is brought to you by The Future of Life Insitute, an independent nonprofit working to steer transformative technologies toward benefiting humanity. https://futureoflife.org/

In this episode of Technically Creative, Orlando Wood sits down with Oonagh Murphy, Director of the Responsible AI Academy at Arts Council England, Senior Lecturer at Goldsmiths, University of London, and former Turing Fellow at the Alan Turing Institute, to explore what responsible AI actually looks like for artists, museums, cultural institutions and the creative industries.

As generative AI becomes embedded across creative work, Oonagh argues that organizations need to start with a deceptively simple question: not “How can we use AI?” but “Why would we use AI?”

That distinction opens up a much bigger conversation about AI ethics, copyright, intellectual property, data, trust, governance and the responsibility creative organizations have to the artists, audiences and communities they serve.

Oonagh explains why responsible AI governance can actually make organizations more effective, how Arts Council England developed its approach to AI policy, and why there is no single AI policy that every creative organization should simply copy. Responsible AI requires understanding your purpose, consulting the people affected, establishing your own red lines and making deliberate choices about where AI belongs.

The conversation also explores the unique role of arts and cultural institutions in the age of artificial intelligence. Museums, galleries, libraries and artists can provide spaces to slow technology down, question it, make its impact tangible and help society understand what AI means beyond the hype.

We explore:

• Why responsible AI starts with “why,” not “how”

• AI ethics and governance for creative organizations

• How Arts Council England developed its approach to artificial intelligence

• Why organizations need their own AI policies and ethical red lines

• Copyright, intellectual property and AI training data

• Why trust and transparency matter when adopting AI

• Whether artists should use generative AI

• How AI is changing museums, galleries and cultural institutions

• The MUNCH Museum's experiments with AI, data and its collection

• Why museums may become data custodians in the AI era

• AI-generated grant applications and Arts Council England's approach to assessing them

• The role of human expertise in an increasingly automated world

• Why responsible AI can be good project management rather than simply compliance

• How artists can help society understand the impact of emerging technology

• Why culture provides a space to slow down and ask better questions

• The difference between purposeful AI adoption and simply using AI because everyone else is

This is a conversation about moving beyond the binary debate around whether AI is good or bad and asking more useful questions about how we choose to build, govern and use these technologies.

For creative companies, artists and cultural organizations, Oonagh's message is refreshingly practical: understand who you are, who you serve and what you're trying to accomplish. Then decide whether AI actually helps you get there.

Because responsible AI isn't just about what the technology can do.

It's about what we decide it should do.

Technically Creative is a technology podcast for people who don't necessarily think of themselves as tech people, exploring how AI and technology are changing film, television, advertising, publishing, arts, media and the creative industries.

This episode of Technically Creative is sponsored by the Future of Life Institute.

Hi, and welcome to the Technically Creative Week in Review, where every Monday I look back at the biggest stories in AI, technology and the creative industries from the week just gone, and try to figure out what they actually mean for the week ahead.

Technically Creative is sponsored by KoobrikLabs, the AI and IT partner for creative companies. If you’re trying to figure out how AI, data and technology should actually work inside your business, visit us at KoobrikLabs.com.

And this week, I’m going to do something slightly alarming.

I’m going to be optimistic.

Because a bunch of seemingly unrelated stories in filmmaking all seem to be pointing in the same direction. California is finally taking post-production incentives seriously. There’s suddenly bipartisan support for bringing more film and television production back to America. Tom Cruise thinks Paramount and Warner Bros. can make 30 movies a year. New production technology is making entirely different kinds of filmmaking economically possible. And AMC is getting into distribution.

And all of that has me asking a question that feels almost embarrassingly simple:

What if we just made more movies?

Not more $250 million movies that have to make a billion dollars to survive. More $2 million movies. More strange movies. More first-time filmmakers. More scripts coming out of drawers. More stages working. More jobs.

We’ve spent the last few years talking about an industry in contraction.

Maybe the more interesting possibility is that technology, incentives and new ways of reaching audiences could help us build one that expands again.

So, let’s get into it.

In this episode of Technically Creative, Orlando Wood sits down with Justine Armour, Chief Creative Officer of 72andSunny International, for a conversation about AI, advertising, creativity, taste, originality and the future of creative work.

As generative AI makes it possible to produce more ideas, images, advertising and content than ever before, Justine argues that the most valuable creative skill may no longer be the ability to make more. It may be knowing what not to make.

Her argument is fascinating: AI is already very good at producing work that is acceptable. Work that is pretty good. Work that lives in the middle. But culture has never moved forward from the middle. It moves because of outliers, divergent thinkers and people with enough conviction to pursue ideas that initially make everyone else uncomfortable.

And that means taste may become more valuable in the age of AI, not less.

After nearly 30 years in advertising, including leadership roles at some of the world's most celebrated creative agencies, Justine believes experience, discernment and the ability to recognize an extraordinary idea are becoming increasingly important. In a world of infinite creative possibility, the advantage belongs to people who can tell the difference between something that's merely good and something genuinely original.

But this conversation goes well beyond AI.

Justine talks candidly about creative leadership, agency culture, collaboration, burnout, failure and the importance of remaining human inside an industry becoming increasingly automated.

We explore how 72andSunny builds a collaborative creative culture, why consensus can sometimes push advertising toward mediocrity, and why creative leaders need to create environments where unusual ideas have enough space to survive.

Justine also reflects on stepping away from advertising after more than two decades of pushing herself relentlessly, what that experience taught her about creativity and leadership, and why reconnecting with instinct and creative energy changed the way she works.

And for the next generation of creatives entering advertising during the AI revolution, her advice is surprisingly clear.

Learn the tools.

But don't let the tools define your taste.

“Reject the algorithm, reject the averaging of yourself.”

Because if AI can increasingly reproduce what's already familiar, originality, obsession, cultural curiosity and a genuinely individual point of view become the things that separate one creative from everyone else.

In this episode:

• AI and the future of advertising and creative agencies

• Why generative AI makes taste and discernment more valuable

• Why “the middle” may lose value as AI-generated content increases

• How creative leaders identify truly original ideas

• AI tools including Midjourney, Runway and Luma

• Why AI-generated advertising can still fail at craft

• Creativity, collaboration and consensus inside advertising agencies

• The changing role of copywriters, art directors and creative departments

• Why young creatives need to develop taste beyond social media algorithms

• 72andSunny's approach to creative culture and collaboration

• Independent agencies and the changing economics of advertising

• Burnout, creative leadership and Justine's decision to step away

• Why failure can make creative leaders better

• What the next generation of advertising talent should learn about AI

• Why originality may become the ultimate creative advantage

If you're interested in artificial intelligence, advertising, generative AI, creative leadership, agency culture, branding, marketing, creative careers or the future of creativity, this is a conversation about what becomes valuable when the ability to simply make things is no longer scarce.

Technically Creative is a technology podcast for people who don't necessarily think of themselves as tech people, exploring how AI and technology are changing film, television, advertising, publishing, media and the creative industries.

Visit KoobrikLabs:
https://koobriklabs.com

Connect with Orlando Wood:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/orlando-wood/

#ArtificialIntelligence #Advertising #GenerativeAI #Creativity #CreativeLeadership #72andSunny #JustineArmour #FutureOfAdvertising #AIAdvertising #TechnicallyCreative

Weekly AI news for the creative industries. Every Monday, Technically Creative brings you a fast, opinionated recap of the biggest stories in artificial intelligence, entertainment, media and technology from the week just gone, and what they mean for the week ahead.

This is a new kind of episode for Technically Creative. Alongside our usual interviews with leaders across film, television, advertising, technology and the creative industries, Orlando Wood will now start each week with a short AI Week in Review, designed for anyone trying to keep up with an industry that seems to change every five minutes.

For the week ending August 28, 2026, the AI debate is getting considerably more complicated.

Hollywood leaders including Kathleen Kennedy have been quietly discussing how the industry should distinguish between generative AI, machine-learning tools and genuinely human-controlled creative workflows.

Meanwhile, the music industry is simultaneously investing in AI and fighting it in court. Universal Music Group, Sony Music and Warner Music are backing Stability AI, while music publishers pursue copyright litigation against Anthropic. The emerging dividing line may not be AI versus artists, but licensed AI versus unlicensed AI.

We also look at why Luminate’s new system for identifying AI-generated music could make metadata, attribution and provenance some of the most important infrastructure in the creative economy, and what Nvidia’s reported interest in acquiring Hugging Face could mean for open-source AI and the wider technology ecosystem.

The bigger question connecting all of these stories is whether “AI: good or bad?” has stopped being a particularly useful debate.

What kind of AI is being used? Who controls it? What was it trained on? Was the material licensed? Is it augmenting creative people or replacing them? Who owns the output? And who gets paid?

Technically Creative: Week in Review is a weekly guide to the AI news, arguments and technology shaping Hollywood, entertainment and the creative industries.

AI news, weekly AI news, generative AI, artificial intelligence, AI in Hollywood, AI entertainment, AI and creativity, creative industries, AI copyright, AI ethics, AI backlash, AI criticism, artists vs AI, AI replacing jobs, AI job loss, creator rights, artist rights, AI regulation, AI filmmaking, AI music, future of work, future of entertainment, media technology, Technically Creative

This episode is part of a special series presented in partnership with the Future of Life Institute (FLI).

Throughout Season 4 of Technically Creative, we're exploring some of the biggest questions surrounding artificial intelligence, creativity, copyright, performer rights, AI safety, and responsible innovation.

Learn more about the Future of Life Institute:

📺 YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/@futureoflifeinstitute/

🌐 Website
https://futureoflife.org/

In this episode of Technically Creative, Orlando Wood sits down with Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, National Executive Director and Chief Negotiator of SAG-AFTRA, to explore one of the biggest questions facing the creative industries today:

Who owns your face, your voice, and your performance in the age of AI?

As artificial intelligence transforms filmmaking, television, advertising, gaming and digital media, performers are facing entirely new questions around AI actors, digital replicas, voice cloning, copyright, consent, likeness rights and ownership.

Duncan has been at the center of those conversations, leading SAG-AFTRA's negotiations on AI protections and helping shape one of Hollywood's most important agreements for the future of creative work.

But what makes this conversation so interesting is that it isn't about stopping AI.

It's about making sure AI develops in a way that respects creators, protects human performance, and gives performers meaningful control over their identity.

Throughout the discussion, Duncan shares a refreshingly pragmatic perspective. Technology isn't the enemy. The challenge is building the legal, ethical and commercial frameworks that allow innovation to flourish while ensuring the people whose creativity powers this industry remain in control of how they're represented.

• How SAG-AFTRA negotiated landmark AI protections for performers

• Who owns your face, voice and digital likeness in the age of AI?

• Why consent is becoming the foundation of AI creativity

• How voice cloning and digital replicas are changing Hollywood

• What actors, filmmakers and studios need to understand about AI contracts

• Why Duncan believes AI should augment human creativity, not replace it

• The future of acting, entertainment and storytelling in an AI-powered world

Whether you're an actor, filmmaker, producer, creative director, entertainment executive, lawyer, or anyone interested in AI, Hollywood, copyright, performer rights and creative technology, this conversation offers one of the clearest and most balanced discussions you'll hear anywhere on where the industry is heading.

This conversation is part of our ongoing series with the Future of Life Institute exploring the ethical, legal, and creative questions shaping the future of artificial intelligence.

👉 Subscribe for more conversations about AI, creativity, entertainment, filmmaking and the future of creative work.

Visit KoobrikLabs
https://koobriklabs.com

Connect with Orlando
https://www.linkedin.com/in/orlando-wood/

[00:00] Who Owns Your Face?

[04:10] Why SAG-AFTRA Didn't Try to Stop AI

[11:20] Digital Replicas, Voice Cloning & Consent

[21:15] Negotiating Hollywood's AI Agreement

[33:40] Copyright, Contracts & Human Performance

[46:30] The Future of Acting in an AI World

[58:10] Why Human Creativity Still Matters

#ArtificialIntelligence #SAGAFTRA #AIActors #Hollywood #VoiceCloning #DigitalReplica #Copyright #AIEthics #FutureOfLifeInstitute #TechnicallyCreative #KoobrikLabs