Netflix has released generative AI guidelines for its media-making partners, aiming to balance innovation with responsible practices. The guidelines, published on the Partner Help Center, outline both low-risk and high-risk scenarios for using AI tools or entirely AI-generated content in Netflix productions. The company emphasizes the importance of protecting personal data, upholding creative rights, ensuring legal compliance, respecting performers, and maintaining audience trust.
“At Netflix, we see these tools as valuable creative aids when used transparently and responsibly,” the company stated. The guidelines also address concerns raised by Hollywood’s unions, urging creatives to ensure that AI’s use “does not replace or materially impact work typically done by union-represented individuals, including actors, writers, or crew members, without proper approvals or agreements.”
The guidelines establish standards for determining when generative AI use needs to be escalated for review. These standards include:
- Ensuring that AI outputs do not replicate or substantially recreate identifiable characteristics of unowned or copyrighted material, or infringe on any copyright-protected works.
- Ensuring that the generative tools used do not store, reuse, or train on production data inputs or outputs.
- Using generative tools in an enterprise-secured environment to safeguard inputs, where possible.
- Treating generated material as temporary and not part of the final deliverables.
- Avoiding the use of GenAI to replace or generate new talent performances or union-covered work without consent.
Netflix faced criticism earlier in 2024 for its use of generative AI in the documentary *What Jennifer Did*. The platform also acknowledged using AI in *The Eternaut*, a post-apocalyptic series, where it replaced the work of a traditional VFX house with AI-powered tools. Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos commented that using AI in *The Eternaut* resulted in a ten-fold increase in speed compared to traditional methods. *The Eternaut* marked the first instance of generative AI final footage being incorporated into a Netflix original series or film.
In a related development, Netflix is considering adding AI-generated ads to its lowest-priced subscription tiers, a move that the company’s advertising president described as a convergence of Netflix’s entertainment and technological capabilities.
