AI is No Longer a Dirty Little Secret | Week In Review Sept 28th, 2026

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.