Amazon has given the green light to three animation projects created with generative artificial intelligence that will soon premiere on Prime Video, its streaming platform. The move is an example of the way the company is integrating technology into all aspects of its business, including production and entertainment.

The projects arise from the GenAI Creators’ Fund, a fund backed by Amazon MGM Studios – resulting from the purchase of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 2021 – and Amazon Web Services (AWS), its cloud computing services division. As he explains, the initiative gives creators of all styles and backgrounds access to professional-level AI tools and funding. The intention is to bring togetherto established filmmakers, digital creators and technology startups to produce high-quality cinematic entertainment”.

Specifically, it aims to help creators include generative AI in their workflows. It will offer subsidies, the amount of which has not been revealed, to develop proofs of concept and short films, and from among those the company will choose which ones become full projects. And for startups developing production solutions it will provide access to the expertise of Studios and AWS.

Thus, the first round of projects approved by the fund is made up of three series:

• “Cupcake & Friends” from Buzzfeed Studios, which will follow an adorable cupcake and her friends as they face fun and exciting challenges.

• “Love, Diana Music Hunters,” created by Albie Hecht, current Chief Content Officer at Pocket Watch and former president of entertainment at Nickelodeon. The series takes Diana, protagonist of the YouTube series “Love, Diana,” and makes her a member of a K-pop group, who must travel through space and restore music to Planet Goo.

• “Punky Duck”: will follow the footsteps of a punk duck and his best friend, Smiley Cat, in Los Angeles, where they will encounter alien invasions, giant monsters or robot conspiracies. It is created by Jorge R. Gutiérrez, screenwriter and director of the animated feature film “The Book of Life”, for 20th Century Studios, and creator of animated series for Nickelodeon and Netflix.

All of this will be developed through “Project Nara”, an artificial intelligence production platform designed specifically by Amazon MGM Studios for cinematic storytelling, built on Amazon Web Services. It will be used exclusively by the studio and the creators selected for the fund and under the philosophy that ““Human creativity leads and AI complements it”.

As Amazon explains in a statement, the platform offers a collaborative workspace where creative teams can generate video, edit, provide feedback and track progress in real time, for both animation and live-action projects.

“Project Nara” integrates AI agents for AI production with popular creator tools such as Maya, Blender, Nuke, Unreal Engine, and the Adobe suite. It also combines third-party video models with proprietary models trained using existing Amazon MGM Studios intellectual property. The company ensures that this guarantees the resolution of complex cinematographic challenges, such as the coherence of the characters, the fluidity of movement between shots and the continuity between shots.

“Creative breakthroughs occur when visionary storytellers have access to transformative tools“said Albert Cheng, Director of AI Studios at Amazon MGM Studios. “The fund and Project Nara put human creativity at the center of our efforts to integrate generative AI into our production processes at Amazon MGM Studios”.

Amazon’s initiative is an example of how entertainment companies, both traditional and streaming giants, are trying to integrate this technology into their workflows to produce content faster and at a lower cost. For example, earlier this year, Netflix acquired InterPositive, an AI production company, with the intention of offering the technology to the creatives of its films and series.