Netflix Has Used AI on 300 Titles, Streamer Says at Busan

Netflix has deployed AI in one form or another on around 300 of its titles, the streamer's senior director of APAC production, Lee Sung-gyun, revealed at the Busan International Film Festival. On the same panel, "The Outlaws" director Kang Yoon-sung said AI workflows can strip 30% to 40% from a feature film's production budget — and that his own project "The Gulf of Aden" calculated an actual saving of around 40%.

"Across around 300 Netflix titles, AI has actually been put to use in various ways," Lee said. "It's being used in previs, in production design, in working out set-dressing concepts ahead of time, in editorial, and of course in VFX."

The two spoke at "Film Production and AI: New Tools, New Possibilities," co-hosted by Netflix and the MPA as part of Creative Asia, the Netflix and BIFF program for emerging Asian talent. Kimball Thurston, chief technology officer at Wētā FX, joined them on stage. Film critic Yun Sung-eun moderated.

Where has Netflix already used AI?

Lee screened a reel from Eyeline, Netflix's VFX studio, showcasing what the company calls hybrid production — a mix of live-action photography, VFX and generative tools. A second clip showed AI and VFX working together to produce large crowd scenes for the Netflix India title "Glory." Under tight budgets and schedules, Lee said, those scenes would normally have had to be dropped.

Lee framed AI as a continuation of a familiar pattern. "All these technological changes and new tools have helped a great deal with the 'how,' how we make what we make better, but they never decided the 'why,' why we have to tell this story," he said. "AI is the same."

What did the 40% saving actually cover?

Kang co-directed "Run to the West" with AI filmmaker Kwon Han-seul. The film opened in Korean cinemas last October, billed as Korea's first feature to use AI across its entire production. Kang used AI there as a substitute for CG.

"At the time, AI technology was at a really rudimentary, low level, so we mainly used it for compositing and making creatures," he said. "And back then, even the creatures didn't blend well with the footage we'd shot." In just a year, he said, AI's quality has reached the point where using it commercially is no problem at all.

His test clip for "The Gulf of Aden," a film built around military operations at sea, was made entirely with AI earlier this year using Kling, the Chinese software, and rendered at reduced quality. Current tools, Kang said, can output 4K at 10-bit color or higher — enough for cinemas.

The savings went beyond replacing CG and VFX. "When we calculated how much we'd save on 'The Gulf of Aden' for fundraising, it came to an actual reduction of around 40%," Kang said. "That's not just from replacing CG and VFX. The shoot itself got simpler, and it cut the overall production period to some extent."

Kang said AI has put projects that collapsed at the budget stage back on the table, opening the door to genre and sci-fi films at a time when the Korean industry is struggling to grow.

Is anyone worried about the creative cost?

Kang is. Because AI handles so much of the creative work, he said, it cuts out the discussion, effort and experience of the many people filmmaking has always relied on, leaving images made from one person's ideas alone.

"So the quality of the footage AI makes is very high, but when it comes to delivering emotion and moving audiences, I think we're in a period where it has actually gotten worse," he said.

Lee said he related strongly to the point. Some things now come out with a single click, he said, "but when it comes to conveying emotion, ultimately a human has to touch it once more. I strongly agree that a human touch is absolutely essential."

Thurston described the deep learning denoiser behind his second Academy Scientific and Technical Award as "assistive AI." "It is basically not allowed to change the creative intent in any way," he said. "It touches pixels, but it only fixes them."

He noted Wētā has used machine learning for at least a decade — or 20 to 25 years counting early forms of Massive, the system built for "The Lord of the Rings." He also flagged color accuracy gaps: "If all your AI models have been trained on video images, you're not getting the right red for a Coca-Cola can. You get Netflix red, but not Coca-Cola."

Can AI replace actors?

Kang doubts it. "No matter how much AI technology advances, actors are creators who deliver emotion and move the audience," he said. "Even if AI acting becomes very sophisticated and imitates very precisely, emotion doesn't come through because of its mechanical coldness." He sees AI's role in stunt and stand-in work instead.

Thurston agreed. "The point is not to replace actors, right? No way," he said. "We are audiovisual storytellers, and storytelling is studying the human condition."

On oversight, Lee said Netflix works under strict internal guidelines and tests new tools before adopting them. "If you're asking about speed, I'd like to say that we're not wildly obsessed with it," he said. Thurston said Wētā is building an open-source tool through the Academy Software Foundation to track AI use and provenance, designed to link with initiatives such as C2PA.

On sustainability, Thurston said Wētā's Wellington data center, which uses closed-loop cooling, now draws "zero liters of water per year." Lee said Netflix looks at sustainability company-wide, including its 2030 goal to cut carbon emissions, and does not study AI's impact separately.

Kang expects AI use to split in two directions: short-form content focused on productivity — he pointed to China, where some short-form projects are made entirely with AI from planning to distribution — and film and drama focused on credibility. He showed footage from a feature animation he is developing, with photoreal backgrounds and animated characters he wants to move like live-action actors.

Lee closed the session by saying technology will keep changing, and surprising, even shocking, videos will keep coming out. "But in the end, it's humans who will write, and what we want more of is stories told by humans," he said.