Amazon Throws Money at ‘Netflix of AI’

Amazon poured more than $1 billion into its streaming series The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, only for it to get a pretty tepid reception. So Amazon appears to be going for a new approach to streaming content: If you think you can do better, prove it. According to a report from Business Insider, the company is funding an AI streaming platform called Showrunner that, in theory, will let people create their own shows using generative AI tools.

Showrunner is the creation of Fable Studio, a virtual reality-turned AI-powered media company that blew up in 2023 after it released an AI version of South Park (which it happened to drop smack dab in the middle of the ongoing writers’ strike that sought to secure protections against the encroachment of AI on the livelihood of creatives). A limited version of the service launched last year, dubbed the “Netflix of AI,” with some AI-generated content that viewers could iterate on to create custom episodes and storylines.

Now, with Amazon’s backing, it seems Showrunner is going wide. Per Variety, it is expanding beyond its closed alpha test of 10,000 users and launching widely this Thursday. The service will be free to use at first, but will eventually allow users to buy credits to create their own content using the platform’s built-in content and generative AI tools. Those credits will cost between $10 and $40 per month, according to a pitch deck obtained by Business Insider. Viewing the content will be first, and users can share the content via YouTube and other third-party platforms.

Gizmodo reached out to Amazon for comment on its reported funding of Showrunner, as well as any potential content partnerships the company may enter into with Fable Studio. Amazon has not responded at the time of publication.

For now, it seems that Fable will be limited primarily to the company’s own content, which is apparently AI-generated to begin with (and frankly not that well received by audiences who have been subjected to it). But the company certainly has its eyes set on bigger brands. According to Variety, Fable is in talks with Disney and other Hollywood studios about potentially licensing IP for Showrunner, which would allow users to use that material to create their own versions of familiar movies and shows.

Showrunner has some interesting ideas, which is ironic since creating your own version of an existing property is pretty uninteresting and glorified fan fiction. For instance, if a person creates a show on Showrunner that another person remixes, 40% of the revenue of the remix goes to the original creator, according to Business Insider. But, again, the fact that this is AI-generated content at the outset means there is likely a pretty low ceiling on the level of quality those shows will achieve.

Fable Studio founder Edward Saatchi, to his credit, seems fully aware that this might suck. “Maybe nobody wants this and it won’t work,” he told Variety. Probably! But hey, if you can burn someone else’s money to find out for sure, who can really blame you?