In a its growing reliance on artificial intelligence, Netflix has confirmed the use of generative AI to create visual effects in its original series The Eternaut. The move, intended to cut costs and accelerate production, has stirred controversy within the entertainment industry, where artists and unions are already fighting for protection from automation technologies.
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Generative AI Footage On Netflix-Screen
During its quarterly earnings call on July 17, Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos revealed that AI was used to render a VFX sequence in The Eternaut, an Argentine sci-fi series that debuted in April 2025. According to Sarandos, the creators had envisioned a complex shot of a collapsing building in Buenos Aires, which proved financially impractical using traditional methods. Instead, the company turned to AI tools to generate the scene.
Sarandos claimed the resulting footage was “10 times faster” to produce than with conventional visual effects workflows. “The cost of it just wouldn’t have been feasible for a show on that budget,” he explained. “That sequence is the very first GenAI final footage to appear on screen in a Netflix original series or film.”The specific shot appears briefly in episode six of The Eternaut, around the 59-minute mark during a sequence of flashbacks. While easy to overlook due to its short duration, its significance lies in its symbolism: a streaming giant leaning into generative AI for production-quality visual effects.
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‘Incredible Opportunity,’ or Industry Flashpoint?
Sarandos emphasized that AI wasn’t simply about cutting expenses. “We remain convinced that AI represents an incredible opportunity to help creators make films and series better, not just cheaper,” he stated. Framing AI tools as enhancers rather than replacements, he added, “These are AI-powered creator tools. This is real people doing real work with better tools.”
Despite this, many within the entertainment industry view such shifts with growing concern. Artist unions and creatives have long warned that generative AI could be used to circumvent fair compensation. Netflix’s decision to implement the technology in a live production—especially without contracting VFX artists—has only amplified those fears.
Labor groups like IATSE, which represents behind-the-scenes entertainment workers including VFX teams, have pushed for stronger protections. Their concerns are echoed by artists at companies such as Marvel and Disney, and more recently, the visual effects crew at Saturday Night Live, who are seeking explicit contractual safeguards against AI-driven job displacement.
Netflix's Broader AI Strategy Comes into Focus
The deployment of AI in The Eternaut isn’t an isolated case but part of Netflix’s larger strategy to integrate artificial intelligence across its services. In May 2025, the company announced that AI-generated advertisements would start rolling out in 2026 as part of its ad-supported subscription tier. It is also piloting a new search feature powered by OpenAI models.Netflix’s efforts to normalize AI within production pipelines reflect a broader ambition to stay ahead of a highly competitive content economy.
By leveraging generative tools, the company hopes to reduce turnaround times, minimize budget overheads, and increase creative flexibility—though not without cost to its workforce dynamics.This technological pivot also follows a string of similar moves across the industry. The Oscar-nominated film The Brutalist faced backlash in 2024 for using AI-generated visuals during its production. Meanwhile, Adobe’s Firefly platform continues adding generative video and sound features, like the ability to create effects from user-recorded audio prompts and reference images.
Industry Pushback Mounts as AI Integration Accelerates
Industry Resistance Is Swelling to Increased Integration of AI Whereas supporters suggest that AI devices are more efficient when accelerating the production process and provide creative choices in quantities, critics claim that there is one worrying trend, and it is to use AI as an alternative to human workers. Like in the case of The Eternaut the tools are not just helping the artists, they are already replacing them, and this is happening more and more in projects with strict budgetary considerations.
The move by Netflix occurs when there is increased inequality between labor in Hollywood and elsewhere. In late 2024 and the early part of 2025, the SAG-AFTRA union and other entertainment guilds took part in strikes which featured the prominent issue of using AI. There were concerns such as whether AI will impersonate actors through their voices and create their scripts and destroy job categories.The moral dilemma is not solved as well. Critics have noted that a vast majority of generative AI models have been trained on copyrighted content without necessarily seeking express permission and this poses legal and ethical concerns. Although Netflix might act appropriately when it comes to licensing and transparency laws, the wider implications of this on the creative economy are not so obvious.
The Humanity of High-Speed and Pocket Costs
The fact that Netflix has implemented AI-generated VFX in The Eternaut highlights an emerging problem within the field of digital content creation: what can be done in the face of innovations to strike the necessary balance between innovation and fair wages. Even as the technology has its merits in terms of efficiency, the unrestrained use of technology threatens to cannibalize the same communities that developed the entertainment industry.
With AI perpetually transforming the film and television art of work, companies such as Netflix will have to pay more attention with respect to labour unions and the regulatory agencies, as well as viewers. The destiny of AI might be in the hands of the next move of the company, a collaboration device, or a point at which creative industries will never be able to recover.
