Let’s take one step back and reflect.
There was a time when storytelling had soul. When directors obsessed over light for hours, writers spent weeks polishing a line, editors waited for the perfect breath before a cut. That time isn’t gone entirely but it’s fading fast.
What’s replacing it isn’t some evil robot uprising. It’s worse: indifference. A slow shift from craft to convenience, from depth to output. At the center of this fallout are the real creators: the filmmakers, writers, editors, actors, who lived and breathed this work not as a job, but as their passion, as their identity. I learned Prompt Engineering in 2023 and been trying various tools since then. Just observing. Making AI films, believe me, it’s like we jumped 50 years ahead! This blog isn’t a rant. It’s a reality check.
AI Isn’t Hype. It’s Already Happening.
AI isn’t just changing how content is made. It’s slowly redrawing the map of what content even means. Stories, aesthetics, tone, humor everything is shaped by GenAI (Generative AI) and we are happy with what we see. There’s no hunger for quality. Just a rush for content. Quantity over craft. Volume over vision. Clicks over craft. Cheap over depth. That’s the new game. I had to voice it out. Let’s accept it. The nuance of human storytelling is being flattened into templates and keywords.
What’s rising is two kinds of content:
Hyper-polished, high-budget AI-assisted productions from giants with scale. (Hybrid Workflow: Generative AI + Traditional tools )
Mass-generated, passable work built for the scroll, by solo prompt engineers or plug-and-play AI tools. (Templatized)
Freelancers that once crafted award winning work are now being asked to work at the cost of the newcomers. Ah! Let’s not talk about newcomers. Studios who once took pride in their timeline finesse or sharp writing are now fixing the mess created by newcomers. I personally know some studios which have shut down. Spoke to the couple of owners who once billed in lakhs, had only one thing to say, “It is what it is. Kya kar sakte hai? (What can we do about it?)“. Even the best artists I know, are working under a billing ceiling they’ve hit long ago. It’s about time.
What we’re seeing is not a creative evolution. It’s a creative compression. This isn’t just a shift in tools. It’s a shift in values. AI isn’t just affecting how we create it’s affecting what we value in creation.
Next time when you consume a reel / visit any OTT home page, ask yourself:
Was content always a commodity?
What happens when stories are shaped by data, not desire?
Everything we watch, read, and scroll is optimized for performance? not connection?
Are we consuming by choice, or are we being nudged by patterns?
Because when stories stop coming from people and start coming from machines, something subtle but powerful gets lost. Our collective memory starts getting shaped by predictive patterns instead of lived experiences. There’s a big difference between a story told to move you vs a story generated to entertain you.
Long Live Analog… You wish!
Every agency is setting up internal AI talent, not to experiment, but to replace. Not as a tool, but as a system. The new generation of clients are happy with “good enough.” And that phrase “good enough” is death to creativity.
The industry is slowly squeezing out the very artists who once defined it. And here’s the real question: (rhetorical)
“When no original artists are left to co-exist, where will AI learn from?”
