Disruption Caused by GenAI: How Do We Respond in the Arts?

The rapid advancements in Generative AI (GenAI) are causing significant disruptions across lots of different industries. Companies are grappling with the transformative impact of these technologies, which are changing the landscape of business operations, creativity, and production. We’re seeing AI write music, tell stories, and generally eat our lunch in the media world.

Tyler Perry's Response to GenAI

Renowned filmmaker Tyler Perry has recently made headlines by indefinitely pausing an $800 million expansion of his Atlanta Studio. Reportedly, Perry saw a demonstration of OpenAI's new text-to-video tool, Sora, and decided to throw in the towel on the project. Sora, many feel, epitomizes the swift and profound changes that GenAI is bringing to the movie industry. Perry's reaction underscores the growing influence of GenAI, which is freaking people out: just look at the six-month writers' strike in Hollywood last year, that, by all accounts, was due to technologies like ChatGPT.

Perry's comments reveal his awe at the potential of GenAI.

"I no longer would have to travel to locations,” he said. “If I wanted to be in the snow in Colorado, it’s text. If I wanted to write a scene on the moon, it’s text, and this AI can generate it like nothing." Such capabilities promise to drastically reduce the need for physical locations, significantly cutting production costs and time. So it made sense to him not to build new for video footage production.

WINS Framework

To better understand the competitive threat posed by GenAI, the “WINS” framework—Words, Images, Numbers, and Sounds—has been developed. We like this framework for AI implementation, which evaluates the potential impact of GenAI on different industries, companies, or jobs, clearly and consistently. The entertainment industry is clearly at the forefront of this transformation, and all of us have front-row seats.

Industries Facing GenAI Pressure

Several other sectors are experiencing significant pressure due to GenAI advancements. In professional services, people are despairing, too, as are accounting and public admin, as AI tools become more adept at performing complex tasks. Educational curriculum development is also being revolutionized, with schools embracing the power of AI-generated content and AI becoming increasingly prevalent. Then there’s the creation of blogs and newsletters: that’s being transformed by AI tools that are capable of producing high-quality written material on a dime.

Chegg's Example

Chegg, a publicly traded company in the educational services sector, serves as a cautionary tale of operating without AI strategy. The company's market capitalization was cut in half due to the impact of GenAI, and its stock has yet to recover, with so many investors jumping ship, after seeing the writing on the wall.  This stark example highlights the critical need for executives and boards to thoroughly assess the competitive threats posed by current and emerging GenAI technologies.

Investor Considerations

Investors who are serious have to recognize that company valuations for some firms are likely to decline over the next two years, as more advanced GenAI technologies emerge, and we adapt. This underscores the importance of understanding and adapting to everything in the evolving technological landscape that’s happening around us. Companies that fail to innovate and integrate GenAI insights into their operations might get left in the dust.

GenAI's Rapid Impact

The acceleration of GenAI capabilities is reshaping industries and fostering AI business transformation at an extraordinary pace. It can generate complex video scenes through simple text commands, and this could revolutionize filmmaking and other creative sectors. The legal profession is at risk, too, which should be obvious. On the ed front, educational content creators must adapt to new tools that can perform tasks traditionally requiring extensive human effort. These creepy implications of GenAI are vast and varied, and people have to react.

Newsletter Sponsorship

This newsletter is sponsored by CustomGPT, a no-code LLM for GenAI solutions that allows you to create your own CustomGPT using your own data without fabrications. Leading organizations such as Adobe, Dropbox, Medtronic, and MIT are already leveraging this technology to stay ahead in the GenAI-driven landscape. CustomGPT offers a reliable and customizable AI solution for businesses looking to harness the power of GenAI while ensuring accuracy and relevance.