Netflix showed how big of a bet it is on artificial intelligence by shelling out more than half a billion dollars for one of Hollywood’s first artificial intelligence developers.
In March, the Los Gatos-based company announced it would acquire Ben Affleck’s artificial intelligence technology company InterPositive. New securities filings reveal the streaming giant paid $587 million for the Good Will Hunting actor’s company. Netflix made the announcement last week in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
InterPositive was founded in 2022 when Affleck began to worry about how AI could impact the film industry.
According to Netflix’s March press release, the company is focused on developing “AI-powered tools built by and for filmmakers” and using new technologies to “protect and expand creative choice.” The streamer said it is “investing in creator-led innovation that puts filmmakers at the center of the experience” and that the technology will be exclusive to Netflix.
Netflix declined to comment on the cost of its acquisition.
Last week, during the company’s earnings conference call, Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos said its work with InterPositive was just getting started.
“InterPositive is just starting to take off, but we’re generally seeing (generative artificial intelligence) starting to have an impact on hundreds of our projects,” Sarandos said.
He said about 300 productions currently use AI in their processes. The company uses the technology primarily in post-production processes and uses generative AI for “really complex shots and scenes,” Sarandos said during the call.
“We make higher quality products faster and more efficiently than we could using traditional methods,” he said.
As an example, he cited the historical documentary “The American Experiment,” which was executive produced by Tom Hanks.
According to Sarandos, the docuseries included 17 minutes of footage “enhanced by artificial intelligence” that was produced “in half the time and half the cost of previous versions.”
As part of the acquisition, Netflix said it would bring on the entire InterPositive team and retain Affleck as a senior advisor.
The company’s investment in artificial intelligence comes at a time when Netflix faces uncertainty.
Since Netflix released its second-quarter earnings report, its stock price has fallen sharply. Its shares fell 2% to $67.60 on Monday.
The second-quarter results renewed concerns among investors and analysts about the streamer’s future growth.
Netflix also narrowed its 2026 forecast to a range of $51 billion to $51.4 billion, from $50.7 billion to $51.7 billion.
In launching InterPositive, Affleck said he wanted to continue to “tell stories in a human way.” So he teamed up with a group of engineers to develop his own soundstage dataset and create the first artificial intelligence model.
He said the model is “trained to understand visual logic and editorial consistency while maintaining cinematic conventions in the face of real-life production challenges such as dropped frames, background replacements or poor lighting” while still “leaving creative decisions in the hands of the artists.”
Much of Hollywood is critical of technology and skeptical of larger companies in the field.
The Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, the actors union of which Affleck is a member, recently reached a new contract with major studios that provided new guardrails for artificial intelligence. The new guidelines outline how studios should use generative artificial intelligence and strongly favor “human agency.”
On the other hand, controversial AI creation Tilly Norwood landed her first official role this month. A bot created by Particle 6 will star in the comedy-drama Mismatch.
Time staff writer Wendy Lee contributed to this report.