Amazon Exec Advocates for “AI Assisted” Tax Incentives, Reveals Greenlit Projects
'Cupcake & Friends,' 'Love, Diana Music Hunters,' and 'Punky Duck' were announced Wednesday at AI on the Lot.
UPDATE: On 5/29 Jorge Gutierrez announced on social media that he was dropping out of the Amazon program. His statement reads: “I have decided to drop out of the AI program at Amazon. I will not be making a Punky Duck series. Actions speak louder than words. My intent was to showcase artists, both new and seasoned, both inside and outside the studios, driving this new tech. My sincerest apology to those I upset. I promise to do better moving forward. Thanks you for your patience with me. I will try harder.”
Albert Cheng, head of AI Studios at Amazon MGM Studios, asserted that AI is a “model that can bring production back to L.A.” while urging the community to advocate for “AI assisted tax incentives,” during a session that opened the annual AI on the Lot conference in Los Angeles. He elaborated that current production incentives tend to favor funding for large productions, and he argued that AI can lead to a greater numbers of projects, with leaner crews. “We have to think of a more nimble model—how can we get incentives for smaller crews,” he said.
Cheng’s message may spark debate in Hollywood, but before the crowd of largely AI enthusiasts and stakeholders, his remarks were greeted with enthusiastic applause.
Also kicking off Al on the Lot, Amazon MGM Studios and Amazon Web Services announced its GenAI Creators’ Fund and first greenlit projects. They are Cupcake & Friends from BuzzFeed Studios; Love, Diana Music Hunters from creator Albie Hecht, CCO at pocket.watch; and Punky Duck from Emmy winning animation vet Jorge Gutierrez. All three kids series will premiere on Prime Video. (Release dates were not announced.)
The Creators’ Fund provides funding and AI tools for filmmaking, including Amazon’s Project Nara, an end-to-end platform that integrates AI production agents with applications such as Maya, Blender, Nuke, Unreal Engine, and Adobe Suite. Project Nara was trained on Amazon MGM Studios’ existing IP and uses AWS’s cloud infrastructure. Cheng discussed its development and beta test period, while emphasizing that part of Project Nara involves tracking human input and provenance to ensure that content is copyrightable and monetizable.
“The GenAI Creators’ Fund and Project Nara position human creativity at the center of our efforts to integrate generative AI into our production processes at Amazon MGM Studios,” Cheng said.
Cupcake & Friends follows the titular characters during a sleepover. Love, Diana Music Hunters tells the story of a young band of K-pop space-traveling musicians. And Punky Duck is an L.A. adventure that involves alien invasions and giant monsters.
Creators of these projects took the stage, urging artists to learn to use AI and lean into new creative ideas. “The secret sauce is humans,” said Gutierrez. “crappy AI slop will make original things look more original.”