AI is hitting entertainment like a sledgehammer … from algorithmic gatekeepers and AI-written scripts to digital actors and entire movies generated from a prompt.
In this episode of TechFirst, host John Koetsier sits down with Larry Namer, founder of E! Entertainment Television and chairman of the World Film Institute, to unpack what AI really means for Hollywood, creators, and the global media economy.
Larry explains why AI is best understood as a productivity amplifier rather than a creativity killer, collapsing months of work into hours while freeing creators to focus on what only humans can do. He shares how AI is lowering barriers to entry, enabling underserved niches, and accelerating new formats like vertical drama, interactive storytelling, and global-first content.
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And, watch our conversation here:
The conversation also dives into:
- Why AI-generated actors still lack true human empathy
- How studios and IP owners will be forced to license their content to AI companies
- The future of deepfakes, guardrails, and regulation
- Why market fragmentation isn’t a threat — it’s an opportunity
- How China, Korea, and global platforms are shaping what comes next • Why writers and storytellers may be entering their best era yet
Transcript: generative Hollywood … AI and entertainment with Larry Namer
Note: this is a partially AI-generated transcript. It may not be 100% correct. Check the video for exact quotations.
Larry Namer:
These AI twins—I kind of liken them to psychopaths. They’re born without emotion. They’re born without empathy. They’re born without feelings to react.
John Koetsier:
Are the machines in charge of culture now? Hello and welcome to Tech First. My name is John Koetsier. AI is hitting entertainment like a sledgehammer—whether it’s algorithmic gatekeepers deciding what content you’ll see from billions of creators, digital actors, AI-written scripts, or movies that someday you might just prompt into existence.
Studios are scrambling to adapt and to buy each other to build the biggest moats. What’s that future going to look like? We have the founder of E! Entertainment Television, the first global 24-hour entertainment news network. He’s also the creator of the Metan Global Entertainment Group, chairman of the World Film Institute, and a lifelong builder of global media ecosystems.
His name is Larry Namer. Welcome, Larry. How are you doing?
Larry Namer:
Hi. Good. All good. Thanks for having me here.
John Koetsier:
So much is happening. I wanted to say, you know, what’s happening in entertainment today, but honestly, it’s more about what’s not happening. It’s a crazy world. You just mentioned Disney’s licensing with Sora. We’re talking about Warner Brothers, Paramount, Netflix—the world’s crazy.
Larry Namer:
Yeah, it is. But it’s fun. It’s exciting times. It’s fun to try and figure out. I’ve always had this thing: if it was easy, the big guys would be doing everything, and there’d be no room for folks like me.
John Koetsier:
Well, I guess the big question is AI. Is it the future of everything happening in entertainment?
Larry Namer:
AI is a big part of it. I’ve been around long enough to see so many doomsdays. Cable was going to replace regular television. Pay TV was going to replace movie theaters. On and on.
AI is part of the mix. I try to explain it this way: if you go way back, when I had to write a script, I used a typewriter and a little bottle of White-Out. It used to take me about three months to get a script to the point where someone could actually read it. Then laptops and word processing came along, and what used to take three months now took five days.
Now with AI, people ask me, “Larry, can you do an analysis of starting a TV service based on whatever the subject is?” It used to take me five days to do the research, build a PowerPoint, and do rough budgeting. Now it takes me about 30 seconds.
After that, I still spend two or three hours putting the human element into it. So in three hours, I’m getting done what used to take five days, and what used to take three months. As long as there’s a system in place where I can still get paid the same amount for that work, how could I not love it?
I get more time. I can do more projects and make more money. I can spend more time with my grandbaby. I can learn to speak Spanish. You reclaim the most valuable thing we have as human beings, which is time on this planet.
Now, I do think guardrails need to be put in place. Right now, regulators have their heads in the sand. They say, “We don’t understand this, so if we ignore it, it’ll go away.” It’s not going away.
There need to be deterrents so bad people know there are consequences for bad actions. We don’t really have that yet. Some states are beginning to take it seriously. California is probably a little ahead of the rest of the country.
But as a storyteller, AI is a great tool. It takes down the cost of entry. It puts tools in the hands of creative people anywhere on the planet. Long term, prices will come down, and we’ll see more people creating more content—especially niche content for audiences not currently being served because the costs were too high.
John Koetsier:
That’s really interesting. On one hand, it’s easier and faster to do things, so you think there will be fewer jobs. On the other hand, there are underserved niches, underserved segments, and more diverse content. But that also means dividing the same pot of money across more elements.
Instead of making a thousand movies a year, maybe we’re making 20,000. Instead of each movie making $50 or $100 million, maybe it’s $2 million or $10 million.
Larry Namer:
Yes, that’s going to happen—but that’s happened over and over again. Every new medium fragments the market. And yet, we’re still here. The business is thriving. It’s never been bigger.
People said streaming would kill television. But as a creator, there’s nothing in the last decade that’s been better than what streaming has done for writers. Serial dramas and miniseries let you create deep, rich characters.
Yes, it fragments the audience, but for people who weren’t being served well before, it’s a gift.
John Koetsier:
You mentioned Disney and Sora as we were prepping. Talk about that and how you see it.
Larry Namer:
I thought it was inevitable. It happened a bit sooner than I expected. Everyone who owns IP is going to need to make deals with AI companies. You can’t take my book and train your LLM without compensating me.
People worry about actors being reused endlessly, but there are laws against that. Contracts are specific. If you have a good lawyer, there’s a clause saying you can’t reuse that performance without express permission.
Our laws need to catch up. Our lawyers need to catch up. This is coming whether we like it or not. I give people a simple example: in the late 1800s, we were a country of horse ranchers. When cars came along, people tried to stop them. Look outside now—how many cars do you see versus horses and buggies?
We need systems that are economically fair and protect people from things like deepfakes. The technology itself can help detect fakes. It all has to become part of the ecosystem.
John Koetsier:
It’s fascinating when you think about deepfakes and AI avatars. A major celebrity—maybe The Rock—had an AI avatar created in China that could send personalized messages. That’s going to happen more and more.
There’s licensing characters, and then there’s creating actors entirely from scratch. How do you see that playing out?
Larry Namer:
We’ve already seen the start of that. In the UK, they created a female AI actress who’s doing quite well. We need to identify what’s AI-generated versus real actors.
To me, these AI twins lack human traits. They’re born without emotion or empathy. Even now, I can tell the difference. Over time, people will get better at filtering out the nonsense.
AI will continue to improve, no question. But it’s still not human. I wrote a book after being pushed to do it for 20 years. Everything is self-published now. Within four days, it hit the bestseller list. The publisher called and asked if I bought all the books.
I told them I used GPT to create the marketing plan and followed it exactly. Four days later, we were on the list. I love that kind of stuff.
John Koetsier:
Meanwhile, the multi-billion-dollar giants—Netflix, Warner Brothers, Paramount—are all doing M&A. How do those worlds collide with AI?
Larry Namer:
We’ll continue to see consolidation. We’ve seen it for decades. It hasn’t wiped out the business. It’s changed it.
We’re entering an era of lower-cost production. Some jobs will be eliminated, but many more will be created because there will be more content. AI helps with research and marketing, but it doesn’t replace creativity.
Writers are in a great place. There are more opportunities than ever. I had a project about the only woman to rule China. We initially thought it was a feature film, but streamers told us it needed to be a miniseries. The characters were too rich.
That’s the opportunity streaming creates. Now you see things like vertical drama. Everyone thinks it’s new, but soap opera writers have been doing two-minute arcs for decades. It’s old techniques applied to new media.
We’ve been doing verticals in China for years. Americans are just discovering it. Keep your hands in frame, because we’re shooting vertically.
Soon, AI will let you convert verticals into horizontals by generating the missing frame edges. It’s all coming, and it’s coming fast.
John Koetsier:
You’ve bridged Western and Eastern markets. Is this global or segmented?
Larry Namer:
It’s global. Korea is a great example. The government supported the industry, and it paid off. China is probably two years ahead in terms of technology adoption.
We use China as a learning lab. What we see there tells us where things are headed in the U.S. We’re doing a China-based story in English with American- and Canadian-born Chinese actors so it can go global.
Think about Game of Thrones. What we’re doing is basically Game of Thrones set in China 1,200 years ago.
We just launched a vertical platform and already have 80 licensed movies from China, all in English. My fear is Hollywood could ruin verticals the way it ruined Quibi by throwing money at it.
This requires creativity and entrepreneurship, not old Hollywood thinking.
John Koetsier:
With shorts, it’s about the platform as much as the content. Infinite scroll matters. Looking ahead, can we predict the future?
Larry Namer:
Technology will keep enabling new forms—immersive entertainment, interactive content, branched storytelling. These things are finally economically viable.
As a creative, life has never been more fun. There are no barriers to entry.
John Koetsier:
We’ll always want the sit-back experience on a big screen, but on smaller screens, we might want to direct the story. Maybe one day with glasses or something else. We’re not at Ready Player One yet.
Larry Namer:
Exactly. New formats don’t replace old ones. They normalize and become part of the mix. We just have more options at lower cost.
I love it.
John Koetsier:
Larry, this has been fantastic. Thanks so much for taking the time.
Larry Namer:
All right. Take care. Thanks for having me.