LOS ANGELES, Feb 4, 2026, 09:13 (PST)
- Amazon MGM Studios plans a closed beta of new AI tools in March, with results expected by May.
- Studio executive Albert Cheng is leading the effort and says humans will stay involved at every step.
- Amazon aims to cut costs and speed workflows as production budgets rise and job fears persist in Hollywood.
Amazon plans to deploy new artificial intelligence tools at Amazon MGM Studios to speed up the process of making movies and TV shows, led by veteran executive Albert Cheng. The company plans to start a closed beta — a limited test with selected partners — in March and expects to share results by May. Reuters
The push lands as studios and streamers face swelling production bills that can choke off the number of projects they greenlight. At the same time, AI has become a live wire in Hollywood, with workers wary that automation could thin crews and reshape creative jobs.
Amazon has been pressing teams across the company to find places to use AI, and the company has cited gains from the technology as among the reasons it has cut about 30,000 corporate jobs since October. The reductions included job cuts at Prime Video.
Cheng is running the effort through an “AI Studio” he described as a small, startup-style team inside Amazon, using founder Jeff Bezos’ two-pizza team approach — keep it small enough that two pizzas can feed the group. The unit is staffed mainly with product engineers and scientists, with a smaller creative and business contingent.
Amazon is trying to bridge what Cheng called the “last mile” between consumer AI tools and the kind of fine control directors expect for cinematic work. Early targets include keeping characters consistent from shot to shot and integrating with industry-standard production software.
Amazon is leaning on its cloud division, Amazon Web Services, to support the initiative and said it plans to work with multiple large language model providers. Large language models are AI systems trained on huge amounts of text that can generate and analyze language, and they can be used in pre-production and post-production — from planning to editing.
Cheng said rising costs make it harder to take creative risks, and he sees AI as a way to move faster without removing people from the process. “AI can accelerate, but it won’t replace,” he said in an interview.
Amazon has stressed that writers, directors, actors and character designers will stay involved at every stage, framing AI as support rather than substitution. Some performers, including Emily Blunt, have warned that synthetic talent — such as AI actress Tilly Norwood — could make parts of the profession obsolete.
The studio is working with producer Robert Stromberg and his company Secret City, actor Kunal Nayyar and his company Good Karma Productions, and former Pixar and Industrial Light & Magic animator Colin Brady as it tests new tools and looks at how they fit into production.
The AI Studio effort began last August and has been experimenting within Amazon MGM Studios, the company said. It has pointed to the series “House of David” as an early example of how AI could be used in the future.
For the second season of the biblical epic, director Jon Erwin used AI alongside live-action footage to create battle scenes, editing the two together to expand the scope of sequences at lower cost.
But the plan still faces a basic test: Amazon needs to convince creators that intellectual property will stay protected and that AI-generated material will not be absorbed into other models, while easing fears that faster workflows mean fewer jobs. The March trial could also show whether the tools deliver real savings or just new friction.
Amazon expects to have early findings to share by May, after the closed beta with partners in March. Marketscreener
