AMC Networks has inked a deal with AI startup Runway to use its generative tech for marketing assets and previsualization — a move first reported by The Hollywood Reporter (you may need to scroll past five auto-play ads and a sponsored skincare quiz to find it). The partnership makes AMC the first cable company to go public with Runway, joining Lionsgate and Harmony Korine’s EDGELRD in what’s shaping up to be a growing club of AI-curious mid-tier players.
On paper, it’s about “helping creatives” — AMC plans to use Runway’s models to speed up concept development and produce promotional imagery without costly shoots. In practice? It’s the latest step in what’s becoming Hollywood’s new normal: cost-cutting disguised as innovation.
“As we explore the transformative potential of AI across our business, we see powerful opportunities to enhance both how we market and how we create,” said Stephanie Mitchko, AMC’s EVP of Global Media Operations & Technology.
That’s the official line. But behind the scenes, the motivation is clearer: AMC’s profits were nearly halved in its last earnings report, and like every other studio, they’re staring down the same brutal equation — too much content, not enough margin, and an aging cable model that continues to bleed.
This isn’t about “empowering storytellers.” This is about doing the same job — faster, cheaper, and with fewer humans. As Skip put it in this week’s column, “AI is not a palette, it’s a patch.” It’s pre-vis without the mood board team, marketing materials without the shoot, story development without the staff. “Studios are calling it efficiency,” Skip writes. “Assistants are calling it unemployment.”
AMC isn’t using AI-generated images in its shows (yet). For now, this is strictly back-office: previews, pitch support, marketing decks. But once those tools are integrated into the workflow — and once the financial upside becomes impossible to ignore — what’s off-limits starts to shrink.
Runway’s tools, particularly its Gen-4 model, are already generating near-broadcast-quality video. That’s great news if you’re a CFO. Less so if you’re a freelancer or mid-level creative hoping for job security in a VFX pipeline that already runs hot and underpaid.
And while companies love to tout “AI partnerships” as progressive and forward-thinking, the subtext is unmistakable: the Great Compression is here. AMC’s deal is another data point in a broader industry pattern. Cost pressure is driving adoption. Guild friction is keeping it quiet. And the promise of AI-led reinvention is still being used to sell what’s really a pivot to austerity — just with better branding.
Skip called it: “This isn’t the next golden age of storytelling. It’s triage.”
