Google invests in A24 to build AI movie tools
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- Google is investing ~$75 million in A24, the first time the search giant has taken a stake in a film studio, with the partnership anchored by its DeepMind AI lab.
- The multiyear, non-exclusive deal covers "multiple projects over time" focused on building new tools for movie production and distribution, but explicitly does not grant Google access to A24's film and television library.
- A24 and Google are aiming to bring the studio's existing roster of artists into the partnership, including YouTube creator and Backrooms director Kane Parsons, who has publicly called generative AI "a symptom of a broader cultural and economic rot."
- A24 partner Scott Belsky, formerly Adobe's chief strategy officer, told the WSJ the tools "won't look anything like the prompted generation type of AI that people feel uncomfortable with" and will "preserve creative control."
- The deal lands as Disney, Universal, and Warner Bros have "ferociously" fought AI companies in court over alleged copyright violations — a tension Google acknowledges, since its own models are trained on publicly available internet data.
- Google framed the collaboration as pairing "a world-leading research lab with the industry's most filmmaker-forward studio" to ensure future tools "are shaped by the creators who use them."
Why it matters: This is Google's first equity check into a film studio, signaling that Hollywood's AI fight is no longer just courtroom-vs-coder — a Big Tech incumbent is now buying into the creative side directly. With Disney, Universal, and Warner Bros actively suing AI companies over training data, the non-exclusive, no-library-access structure looks like a deliberate firewall: Google gets Hollywood legitimacy and creator buy-in while A24 keeps its IP untouchable and its artists (including an AI skeptic like Kane Parsons) involved in shaping the tools.
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