South Korea’s CJ ENM has announced that it’s using AI across all of its productions, creating an animated series for kids to show off the tech’s capabilities. 

The studio behind Rainbow Ruby and Robot Trains made a splash at a local event today in one of its Seoul offices by announcing its ambitions to become what chief strategy officer Shin Keun-sup calls a “global AI studio”.

While some animation studios worldwide are rejecting AI wholesale, others are defining policies to govern its limited use. And some broadcasters are adding clauses to contracts mandating that content suppliers confirm that no AI was used in development because there are still open questions about who owns the copyright to creative materials made using AI. 

But it seems that CJ ENM is not concerned by these factors. In fact, during a policy discussion at its event, a South Korean lawyer argued that the rest of the world’s media industry needs to get a handle on AI so it can be used more. “It is crucial to establish a foundation to advance the global AI content market,” said Sang-Hyeok Im, a partner at Shim & Kim. “This includes clear industry guidelines, legal frameworks for copyright and data protection, and the dedicated government departments to support the field.”

CJ ENM is already using artificial intelligence in planning, production, distribution and marketing content across various genres and formats, Keun-sup said. It’s also training talent on using AI technology. 

The company used AI to create an animated preschool series called Cat Biggie to show what the tech can do. This no-dialogue CG-animated series (30 x two minutes) is about a cat who becomes the father of a baby chick. CJ ENM plans to start releasing the series globally on YouTube in July. 

It took a team of six people only five months to complete production on Cat Biggie, according to CJ ENM—this includes content planning and character development. This is quite fast, given that it typically takes the studio three to four months to produce just five minutes of CG animation the traditional way. 

To achieve these results, CJ ENM built its own proprietary AI production tool called Cinematic AI that handles image, video, sound and voice processes. The studio says its software is superior to other workflows that require separate tools for each of these pieces, adding that Cinematic AI can create CG characters and environments and provide a “consistent and coherent visual output,” something that AI-generated videos typically struggle with. 

The company also uses an AI Script tool that analyzes scripts for consumer demand and market trends to figure out if it’s a commercially viable IP. 

Next up, CJ ENM plans to expand its expertise and usage beyond animation to start making AI-generated films and drama series that appear to be live action.