Google has reportedly been reaching out to several of Hollywood’s biggest studios, hoping to strike licensing agreements that would allow it to train its AI models on copyrighted material in exchange for substantial sums of money. In theory, such deals would benefit both sides: a significant financial boost for the studios, and a meaningful advantage for Google as it competes with rival AI firms. Yet while there is little downside for Google, these arrangements pose a distinct set of risks for each of the studios weighing whether to commit fully to AI.
Although Google has not yet secured an official agreement with Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery, or Universal, its executives have reportedly approached multiple studio representatives with pitches centred on its AI technology. Google wants permission to train its AI models on the studios’ vast libraries of copyrighted content, and it is willing to spend hundreds of millions of pounds to obtain them.
What the deals could be worth
Google could pay a studio such as Disney or Pixar around £30 million simply for the rights to generate outputs featuring a single copyrighted character. That figure could rise into the billions as more characters are covered by any agreement. Studios might also be able to secure a share of whatever advertising revenue Google earns from AI-generated content featuring that intellectual property on platforms such as YouTube.
As costly as these partnerships would be for Google, they would also serve as an invaluable tool as the company works to cement its position as one of the most prominent players in the AI sector. Gemini producing studio-approved images of characters such as Darth Vader and Snow White might seem minor at first glance, but it is precisely the sort of feature that could encourage ordinary people to view generative AI in a more positive light.
Shifting public sentiment on AI
After years of AI companies boasting about plans to disrupt society and eliminate jobs, public sentiment about the technology, especially among young people, has turned increasingly negative. Even with tools such as ChatGPT remaining popular, the wider AI industry has been mired in controversy and dogged by concerns about its real-world harms, making it difficult to release products that immediately win broad goodwill. Striking deals with film and television studios would give Google a convenient way to reshape the narrative around its AI ambitions.
The content developed through these partnerships would presumably look better than material produced by models trained on questionable source data. Having Google’s name and logos attached to official AI-generated studio content would help legitimise the technology in people’s minds. Even if it did not, the partnership would signal to the public that the entertainment industry regards generative AI as a tool worth embracing. So far, none of the major studios have agreed to any deal.
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