Tech company TCL has produced five short films with AI, that it plans to turn into targeted advertising content on its TVs. In the long term, the company plans to produce original movies with the help of generative AI. Should this succeed, TCL may be the first tech company since Netflix to truly disrupt Hollywood.
TCL, the AI movie studio
Hollywood has been stuck for a while. The advent of the phone and home entertainment dealt a huge blow to the industry. In turn, it pushed all its chips into franchisable content and big-budget CGI spectacles that are harder for smaller studios to handle. The problem with these large projects is that they require exponentially larger box office hauls to be profitable, making this strategy even more risky.
TCL believes it has a solution. The Chinese tech maker plans to expand into original content using AI and big data. It plans to start with five AI-made short films, then later use those shorts in ads targeted to individual users. Should this prove successful, it plans to elevate to producing original movies “informed and funded by targeted advertising,” 404 Media reports.
All shorts are written, directed, and scored by humans. Some of the shorts feature real actors, others AI-generated. Some of the AI software used includes ComfyUI, Nuke, and Runway.
TCL Research America’s GM Haohong Wong, reportedly informed attendees that the movies and shows will “create a flywheel effect funded by two forces, advertising and AI.” If you know anything about tech companies and their addiction to advertising, it’s probably vice versa. More than likely, TCL will use the user data from the movies and shows to target ads and train AI, an even more dystopian concept.
VP of content services and partnerships Catherine Zhang admits as much, stating that the goal of its original content is to accustom people to passively watch these AI shows and movies so they can target them with more ads. This is similar to how Netflix is now reportedly producing movies and shows with the knowledge and intent that users will not be paying attention while watching them. This is not art produced as its own statement but as a companion piece to your TikTok doomscrolling.
So if you’re trying to kick a doomscrolling habit, forget about assistance from any tech companies like TCL. The tech firm would rather you doomscrolled on their TVs as much as Apple would on its iPhones. TCL plans to prominently “promote and feature” the short films on its free but ad-supported streaming platform TCLtv+.
TCL will certainly save millions on advertising budgets using AI. Profits are the only incentive powerful enough to drive the company to such a risky form of advertising. Whether the results can generate even more millions in return, is yet to be seen. But with Hollywood in such disarray, TCL may be offering the blueprint for what the movie studio of the future could look like.
