When Netflix informed shareholders in a letter alongside its quarterly report that generative AI was used in approximately 300 projects since the beginning of 2026, it was more than just statistics. A year ago, the company confirmed its use in a single title — the Argentine series The Eternauts. A jump of two orders of magnitude in twelve months is already a structural decision, not an experiment.
Where exactly and why
The largest concentration is in post-production. Netflix provided three examples: the Indian thriller Glory, the Brazilian mini-series Brasil 70: A Saga do Tri, and the American documentary series The American Experiment. The latter is particularly telling: as Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos explained on a call with investors, 17 minutes of the series contain AI-enhanced frames — material that would simply not have made it to screen without this tool due to technical complexity or production costs.
«In some cases, productions would have been forced to remove key frames and scenes in the absence of GenAI technology».
Netflix letter to shareholders, Q2 2026
Sarandos deliberately chose a creative argument rather than an economic one: «10% better» — that's how he described the result. Although the letter simultaneously notes something more prosaic: «higher quality, faster and cheaper than traditional methods».
Where the real conflict lies
The public figure emerged at a moment when Hollywood trade unions are engaged in new negotiations. SAG-AFTRA and WGA, after the 2023 strikes, secured commitments from studios regarding transparency in AI use and actor consent — but the compensation mechanism remains a vulnerable point. The WGA, in particular, did not obtain the right to payment if scripts are used to train AI models.
Netflix, meanwhile, insists that tools are used by human creators, not instead of them. But 300 projects is already a scale at which rhetoric about an «assistant» requires concrete evidence: who receives credits, who receives compensation, how many post-production positions have disappeared or failed to materialize.
What will ultimately decide everything
Netflix raised its annual revenue forecast to $44.8–45.2 billion. Advertising remains the main growth driver. AI in content is currently a tool for protecting margins, not collapsing them. But a precedent has already been set:
- AI is present at all stages — from concept to content delivery
- the company publicly disclosed the scale for the first time in an official document
- trade unions are conducting negotiations in parallel, without access to details of production decisions
If SAG-AFTRA and WGA do not secure the right to audit AI use in specific projects by the end of the current negotiation cycle, the figure of 300 will become 600 by year's end, and the discussion about «assistant or replacement» will remain unanswered for another three years.
