Who Gets an Emmy If Your TV Show Is All AI?
Awards shows like the Emmys could be the reason AI doesn’t take over Hollywood.
Last night, the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (ATAS), the organization behind the Emmys, the leading television awards show, gave out its coveted accolades to the elite of the small screen. The show that pulled in the most awards, The Studio, which stars and is produced by Seth Rogen, brought home a total of 13 Emmys. The Apple TV+ series is unique in that it is a comedic take on the insider world of major film studios, the executives who run those businesses, and the actors and directors who are responsible for creating the worlds that populate our movie theaters and streaming services.
And because the show is a kind of Curb Your Enthusiasm faux cinéma vérité peek at how Hollywood works, one episode (featuring Ice Cube, of War of the Worlds infamy) offered the public one of the few instances of depicting how movie studios are grappling with AI and when (not if, but when) to use it.
Watching the annual spectacle of stars prompted me to consider: What happens to all this if Hollywood goes all-in on AI optimization and cost-cutting in much the same way corporate America is at least attempting to do currently? It’s already apparent that visual effects and animation will be two areas in which AI will likely change the industry by reducing costs and, probably, human worker headcount. But what about the human actors crying, laughing, and making grand statements on the Emmy stage?
From Red Carpets to Render Farms?
The last major Hollywood award show, the Oscars, took place on March 2. Back then, the race to deploy realistic AI humans in video was still finding its footing, and most of the best AI video involved landscapes and objects. But six months in the AI industry is like 1.5 years in the everyday world. So much has happened since March.
Nearly a month after the Oscars, on March 31, Runway released its Gen-4 model, which showed off significantly improved generative AI humans that can maintain consistency across scenes. In May, Google released the update Veo 3, which featured a noticeable improvement in AI-generated humans, along with native audio and the ability to lip sync dialogue. And in June, Midjourney (currently embroiled in legal fights with Disney, Warner Bros., and Universal) finally released its generative AI video tool as well. While some want AI to cure cancer or solve the physics hypothesis of the Grand Unified Theory, the leading AI companies seem to be making the most progress in creating tools that would allow producers and directors to create feature-length films for a fraction of today’s costs and minus most of the crew, including actors.
But sitting there watching the hopeful Emmy nominees, and the effusive winners, it hit me: No one wants this most human of ceremonies to end. These nights are about stars. Human stars. Even if they aren’t always like the show characters you’ve come to love, their peers and the more passionate fans love these awards shows. Yes, ratings for the Emmys have been down, but in 2024, the awards show rebounded from prior post-pandemic lows to hit 6.87 million viewers, on par with the pre-pandemic 2019 viewership of 6.9 million. Still, viewership has been trending down in the last decade (2018 drew 10.2 million, while 2017 and 2016 pulled in 11.3 million viewers). So yes, viewership has declined, but I believe that has more to do with viewers shifting to streaming and cable over network TV rather than an overall lack of interest in one of the biggest star-packed nights of the year.
The Emmys' “wheel deal” (in place since 1995), which gives a different traditional big four network (ABC, CBS, NBC, or Fox) the right to air the show on alternating years, ends next year with NBC, and then the show can go anywhere in 2027. Negotiations for the new deal are slated to be held this month. If the Emmys are smart, the new deal will involve some kind of major and live-streaming structure rather than agreeing to something that relegates streaming to an adjunct of some traditional broadcast network. YouTube seems like the obvious choice, but advertising deals with traditional networks could get in the way. Or, if traditional networks are a must, a deal to broadcast between several networks and a streaming platform they don’t necessarily own might help the show return to its 1986 glory of roughly 36 million live viewers. A larger audience equals larger ad rates for all networks involved.
Why Hollywood Can’t Quit Human Stars (Yet)
So let’s review. We have the actors, producers, and directors who all still want Emmy recognition. We have the hardcore fans and superfans, who are unpaid promoters of studio franchises. We have the studios, which still benefit from awards shows as superb marketing events for their catalogs. And we have the networks and streaming services, which all still want a piece of that succulent awards night advertising pie. Given all that, does it really seem like humans will suddenly vanish because some of the major studios decide to use AI humans in film and TV instead of real people? Will anyone want to watch an awards show beaming images of AI avatars accepting awards for “performances” guided by an unseen human?
We already know that the public (for better or worse) isn’t that interested in viewing the awards technical professionals get for working behind the scenes of TV shows. That’s what the Creative Arts Emmy Awards, which aren’t broadcast live and are held a week before, are for. Everyone still (so far) wants human stars. Human stars are the imperfect texture that makes the storytelling of Hollywood not only magical but also relatable. AI will absolutely become a bigger part of movies and television, but the Emmys are a giant clue that, at least for a good while longer, humans on screen will probably remain central to Hollywood. I can’t speak for 2075, but I think we’ll be watching humans on the Emmys for at least another few decades.
BONUS ONE 🤖
The Emmys' New AI Rules: The Emmys are keeping an eye on AI. ATAS recently revealed that it is planning to release a set of AI guidelines for members. The guidelines were developed after a survey was taken among the organization’s over 30,000 members. Christina Lee Storm led the Academy’s AI Task Force that came up with the idea to establish guidelines. Storm is also the co-founder of Playbook PLBK (an AI consultancy) and was recently a judge for Runway’s third AI Film Festival in June.
The guidelines, according to Deadline, which first reported them, are as follows:
1) Creative integrity for professionals, creators, performers and craftspeople: How does my decision to use GenAI support and respect the work of the artists and collaborators on this project, including writers, performers, directors, producers, and craftspeople? Have they been informed and are properly credited or compensated for their contributions?
2) Permissions, licenses, legal and commercial viability: Is the AI model I’m using trained on ethically sourced, properly licensed and clean data, and not pirated or publicly available content without prior consent or permission from copyright owners?
3) Accountability, transparency and sustainability: How will I disclose transparency to the production team, distributors, clients, or stakeholders about when, where, and how GenAI was used in the project?
So it’s clear that the Emmys are preparing for the inevitable arrival of AI on more TV programs, but for now, humans are still the stars of the show.
BONUS TWO 🤖 🤖
The Future of AI & Netflix Animation: Some AI video creators, as well as anti-AI traditional artists, expected Emmy-winning Love, Death + Robots Season 4 to feature at least a couple of AI entries. This expectation isn’t so much a result of Netflix’s apparent AI-positive stance as much as it is about Love, Death + Robots being known for employing the most cutting-edge animation techniques available. I checked the two Emmy-winning episodes from Season 4 (“400 Boys” and “How Zeke Got Religion”) and neither of them appears to have AI involved.
But with four more Emmys won (in addition to the 13 from previous seasons), and an almost guaranteed Season 5 coming, I suspect that the next batch of animated stories from the series will include AI. Based on comments last month from series creator Tim Miller, it is just a matter of time.
“For sure. Like a lot of people in the industry, I'm both terrified and excited about [AI],” said Miller last month when asked if Love Death + Robots would ever use AI. “The way I think about it as it affects the people that work for us here at Blur, and in the industry in general, is what I hope we take away from this is that we can tell bigger stories. Not that we can tell the same stories with fewer people. I don't want to replace the artists in the process. I want to empower the artists in the process so that we can do more things. It shouldn't take $100 million to make a movie that really is beautiful and high quality.”
That’s essentially a guarantee that AI is coming to Love Death + Robots, which sets up an interesting test for the Emmys whenever the next season drops.
“I'm hoping that, in the future, as things get more efficient through the use of AI—which is not a code word for cutting artists out of the process, it just means cutting out some of the grunt work, and there still is a lot of grunt work in the in the animation process—but if we can get a little bit of that out of the way and get closer to the art, I think it'll be better for everybody in the long run,” said Miller.