Jeffrey Katzenberg: AI Will Expand Creativity, but Artists Must Set the Terms

Summary

In an essay about AI and creative work, Jeffrey Katzenberg argues that new tools could expand film and animation while forcing Hollywood to renegotiate how creative labor is valued. He recalls predicting in 2023 that AI could reduce the time and cost of producing world-class animation by as much as 90% within three years, a forecast that intensified anxiety among artists. Katzenberg says that fear is understandable because technological change has previously eliminated real jobs, including theater musicians whose work disappeared after recorded sound arrived. He also points to the expansion that followed: sound enabled the musical, modern scoring, sound design, and other forms of filmmaking. Drawing on his experience leading Disney animation and co-developing the Computer Animation Production System with Pixar, he argues that tools should be judged by whether they help audiences believe in characters, not by whether they preserve a particular production method. He distinguishes reasoning from creating, describing current AI as strong at analysis, optimization, and pattern matching but not yet capable of human empathy, taste, intention, or the desire to communicate something personal. In his view, AI may eventually narrow that gap, but no clear scientific path to doing so exists today. Katzenberg calls for AI companies to build with storytellers, using their work with credit, consent, and compensation, while asking Hollywood to accept that AI will remain and focus on the terms of its use. He predicts lower barriers will allow more films and new storytelling forms, but says the best outcome depends on combining Silicon Valley’s tools with Hollywood’s creative judgment.