With a endless wave of slop content produced in 2025 I feel like (looking at pitch requests and jobs we have ongoing etc) that the novelty of genAi stuff has worn off super fast.
Consumers hate it and apparently these types of ads are not testing well either
anyone else noticing that the wave is going down or you all “drowning” in genAI requests?
our 3D dept is busy as ever i am buying rendernodes left and right, clients do love the control they have .
(i am not talking about using it as a “tool” but rather as a replacement for 3D as it was praised to be)
just wondering how world-wide the job market is churning in that regard.
I’m curious about the market too in that regard. One thing I think about is Jurassic Park and the T-Rex. Spaz Williams was sooo into making that T-Rex, it dominated his life. Obviously in terms of CG and what he did on the Abyss and T2, here was a man that was fanatical about this burgeoning world of CG. And then, the T-Rex drops and people love the dang thing. People watch the movie and its amazing. You got people that want to do THAT when they grow up (same as the star wars effect on VFX) but also people that are just casual movie watchers that are blown away and awed and you know the rest!
The difference I’ve seen with AI is I know people that are super super into it in terms of the creation aspect, but I don’t meet many people who aren’t themselves looking to get into the world of AI content creation, just your average viewers lets say with a 9-5 and all the streaming subscriptions who don’t actively wince or roll their eyes a little bit or seem a bit disappointed when finding out something was made with genAI. I think that’s the hurdle and I guess time will tell if its a surmountable obstacle to adoption.
In some ways I wonder if part of it is being told daily that AI wants to take your job. Or being forced at your job to spend time learning some new software that may or may not be useful but being called a luddite if you don’t jump on the wagon. Or constantly having to navigate the frustratingly idiotic virtual chatbot customer support systems that every single corporation employs now. Or seeing media purporting to be new media or first hand footage of some event (mostly meant to outrage you in some way) only to question if its real or not. Again, don’t forget that looming aspect of the messaging from the AI companies themselves that this is all meant to take your job. So maybe its fatigue? And escapism (the perpetual bedrock of the entertainment industry) doesn’t feel so much like an escape when its a subtle reminder of the grinding gears all around you, swirling in hype cycles and media reports and in your office meetings, that’s making you feel so claustrophobic.
To be clear, I can get around ComfyUI if I need to and I’ve used nano-banana yada yada. I know how to keep up with the times. This isn’t about that. Its just a question of broader societal embrace of media created this way.
Internally at a top indie agency it’s never been busier. Early client adopters are figuring out the landscape, and the hesitant clients are finally coming around.
Electricity bill is up 40% and we are now scaling hard within GCP for certain shows to develop and meet ai policies.
The business affair types are figuring it out with all the counsel and creatives are winning work because of it and it’s a huge advantage.
Jurassic Park and the CG revolution is interesting. It was a sea change, but that glut of CG cemented the idea that CG is bad, a notion we still struggle against today, a time when our video games look better than the CG that caused the issue. (for what it’s worth, I love all that early CG.)
Similarly, machine learning (I’m not calling it artificial intelligence. it’s not.) has arrived at that slop phase. Unlike CG, which was expensive to produce and required talented people, machine learning is accessible to everyone; Anyone can do it. That’s gonna fuck with the perception. Some people won’t care, some will, but it’s gonna carry that weight.