Everyone’s Using AI

(They’re Just Not Telling You)

Recently, Vulture published a piece titled “Hollywood Already Uses Generative AI (And Is Hiding It)”. You should read it. Seriously, go read it now, I’ll wait.

What drew me to it so much is I believe it captures what the industry is still often pretending isn’t happening: generative AI is already baked into Hollywood’s creative process. It’s being used to design costumes, generate storyboards, simulate trailers, and sell greenlights. Not in the future. Not in some hyped-up public R&D lab. Right now. Quietly. Invisibly. And usually without acknowledgment.

Lila Shapiro’s piece lays it out clearly. Studio execs are asking for AI-generated pitch decks. Artists are being asked to “clean up” AI imagery so it looks handmade. Some studios are experimenting with scene generation based on unshot scripts. And very few of any of these are putting any of it on the record.

So maybe the real headline should be “AI technology isn’t a secret, but silence about it is.”

So, here’s what I want to explore:

• What does it mean when powerful tools shape a project, but go uncredited?

• How can we talk about authorship when the process is fragmented, and the tools used are invisible?

• And if we don’t start being honest about where AI fits into our creative systems, who ends up with the voice, the leverage, and the residuals?

Let’s unpack it a little...