Jeffrey Katzenberg’s new AI essay has been read as another warning that Hollywood must embrace the technology.
In a 2,377-word essay posted to X on September 23, 2026, Katzenberg said “Hollywood needs to accept that AI is not going away.” He also argued that “the terms are everything,” a line that shifts the discussion from whether generative systems exist to who sets the rules around their use.
The DreamWorks co-founder and former Walt Disney Studios chair compared the current AI anxiety to earlier technology shifts in entertainment, including sound and computer animation. He also acknowledged that those shifts displaced workers, including movie-house musicians and artists who did not move with the transition from hand-drawn to computer animation.
The framing is significant because Katzenberg is not presenting AI only as a substitute for taste. His argument asks technology companies to bring artists into the process. Cartoon Brew reported that he called for creative workers to be included “with credit, with consent, and with compensation.”
The leverage cuts both ways
The standard AI narrative gives the power to model builders: they have compute, capital and speed. Katzenberg’s strongest point runs in the other direction. Entertainment companies, guilds and working artists control many of the ingredients AI developers need if these tools are going to be accepted inside professional production: recognizable characters, film libraries, performers’ likenesses, writers’ material, production expertise and the audience trust attached to human-made stories.
Runway and Lionsgate show why that leverage matters. Runway said in June 2026 that the companies expanded their collaboration, with Lionsgate taking an equity interest in Runway and the two planning a joint development program involving new IP, existing Lionsgate IP and Runway’s generative models. It points toward deal terms, not just tool adoption.
Copyright litigation points the same way. A federal docket tracked by Justia shows Warner Bros. entities sued Midjourney in September 2025 and that case was later consolidated with Disney Enterprises Inc. et al. v. Midjourney. Whether those claims succeed is for the court; the business signal is that studios are using copyright ownership as leverage while AI companies pursue usable training material, characters and production partnerships.
Hollywood already has a framework for bargaining
The writer and performer unions have already pushed the debate toward specific rights. The WGA’s 2023 deal terms say companies cannot require writers to use AI software, must disclose AI-generated material given to writers and preserve the guild’s position that training on writers’ material may be prohibited under the MBA or other law.
SAG-AFTRA’s AI resource page says its 2023 TV/Theatrical/Streaming agreement included digital replica terms and AI protections. The union also says its June 2026 TV/Theatrical Agreement built on those protections with new terms restricting synthetics and protecting members against AI replacement.
That makes the bargaining agenda clear: consent before use, compensation when value is created, disclosure when AI material enters the process and control over likeness, voice and performance.
Katzenberg is also selling a future he plans to enter
Katzenberg’s argument should be read with his incentives attached. Two days after the X essay, TheWrap reported that he plans to launch an AI-focused animation studio for film and television. He told TheWrap he wants artists and storytellers to use the new tools, and argued that lower barriers and costs could mean more films, more jobs and new forms of storytelling.
That makes his intervention both a warning and a pitch. His history gives the argument weight: he led through the move from hand-drawn animation toward computer animation and spent years at the intersection of Hollywood and Silicon Valley. His Quibi history also shows that being early, wealthy and convinced is not the same as being right.
The next fight is control
Katzenberg’s essay does not settle whether AI-generated scenes will improve film or television. It does not answer how many jobs will change, which tasks will disappear or how lower production costs would translate into better work. Those are the questions creative workers keep raising.
What it does clarify is where the fight is heading. The question is no longer only whether AI belongs in Hollywood. It is whether artists, performers, writers, studios and AI companies can put enforceable terms around training, licensing, credit, digital replicas, disclosure, residuals and creative control.
If Hollywood treats AI as something happening only to it, the industry risks letting Silicon Valley set default terms. If Hollywood treats AI as a negotiation, its leverage becomes harder to ignore. The creative industry has something AI companies cannot simply manufacture: the rights, talent and cultural authority that make generated output worth watching.
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