Will AI eliminate Hollywood casting agencies?

While some refuse to believe that AI could ever truly replace writers and actors in Hollywood, it may only be a matter of time before it evolves into being a full-on threat. After all, that’s what both the (mostly) out-of-work SAG-AFTRA and WGA think, as they made it a focal point of their strikes. But there might be something else going on right under the industry’s nose, as Angel and Charmed actress Charisma Carpenter has come across an initiative that could also be costing agencies across the industry work.

Enter the “100 Actors Program” from Largo.ai, which makes the claim that they “accelerate your filmmaking with AI-power insights!” How? For starters, their About Us page claims they team with “highly recognized scientists from EPFL to provide next-generation storytelling tools for the audiovisual industry using artificial intelligence.” And what does that mean exactly? Well, it’s about as scary as it sounds, as it may force Hollywood names we’re not familiar with to consider the threat of aI.

In an email that Carpenter received from Largo.ai, the company says that will cut out any “intermediaries” between the actor and their next dream project — and that’s quite a few jobs at stake. As Carpenter put it, “Welp, AI is coming for Casting Directors, Agents and Managers too.” She added, “They may take data and statistics and spit out a formula that says this person is right for this part, but there’s no foresight…AI doesn’t know me, they don’t know the richness of my soul. They don’t know my life experiences. They don’t know the books I’ve read. They’ve never had those conversations with me to glean how right I am for a part that maybe data would not foresee.”

Deadline reached out to Largo.ai CEO Sami Arpa, who disputed Carpenter’s claims that his company’s use of AI would have a negative impact on Hollywood. He stated, in part: “Our system is not destroying any jobs as claimed in some of those Instagram posts, which are people who do not have any idea on the platform…For the casting part, the system has proposed more than 100K actors to the producers completely free of charge during past 4 years. Our new system for Actors is just an additional system that we released for actors, after getting the demand from many actors…we were getting requests if we could provide option for them to connect with the producers directly in such a connection done by the AI.” Yeah, that’s definitely not written by artificial intelligence…Kidding aside, objectively, the entire staff does all kind of look AI-generated…

Aside from writers and actors — who are at the forefront of the discussion — how do you think AI will affect others in Hollywood? Give us your insights — and not ChatGPT’s — in the comments section below.