In what feels like an inevitable andterrible step forward for Artificial Intelligence in filmmaking, Korean Entertainment division CJ ENM will be premiering its first-ever fully AI-generatedanimatedseries. According to a report from Variety, the company unveiled a detailed plan for its AI content strategy at an industry event in Seoul, Korea. The announcement is a strange one, and will undoubtedly set a precedent for future projects that will be mainly AI-driven. TitledCat Biggie, the animated series, entirelycreated with AI software, is just the beginning for the media giant. However, it may not be the best news for future animated projects made by people rather than software.
In a 2025 culture talk titled K-Content Meets AI: How AI Technology is Transforming the Future of the K-Content Industry, chief strategy officer Shin Keun-sup would say of the media division that “We are applying AI across the entire content value chain — including planning, production, distribution, and marketing — to expand AI content production across genres and formats. This allows us to secure next-generation IP.” The goal of CJ ENM is to “revolutionize” the creation ofanimated content through AI technology.
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Cat Biggieis CJ ENM’s first and most important example of the kind of work they could create. The seriescenters around a catwho unexpectedly and unwillingly becomes the father to a baby chick.Cat Biggiefeatures no character dialogue, and the batch of 30 two-minute episodes is designed to showcase the power of Cinematic AI, whose production workflow is reportedly much more efficient than other AI software used for a similar creative purpose.
‘Cat Biggie’ Sets a Dangerous Precedent for Future AI-Driven Content
Baek Hyun-jung, head of AI business and production, led the production ofCat Biggie, and described the production process when using the Cinematic AI tool. Hyun-jung said: “The key challenge was controlling and expressing the dynamic movements unique to animation. We used our tool, Cinematic AI, to convert the characters into 3D data and train the production system accordingly. This allowed us to achieve a high level of completeness in the final output.”
For CJ ENM (and most who use various AI programs), the biggest draw to using the Cinematic AI tool for animated productions is its efficiency, allowing users to create several minutes of animated content in significantly less time. It’s a surreal and sad development for the media division, whose credits include such historic work asthe Oscar-winning 2019 filmParasite, directed by Bong Joon-ho. Choosing to invest in AI software instead of actual animators is a grim sign for the company’s future, whose use of AI won’t stop with theCat Biggieanimated shorts.
Cat Biggieisscheduled for release on YouTubein July, and while the short-form series is aimed at children, the idea of solely using AI tools for content as widely distributed as the series released by CJ ENM feels dangerous. Moreover, the monetization of AI-generated content could also encourage the unhealthy market trend of relying on anything but actual creatives, filmmakers, and animators (a.k.a. actual people). At this point, all that can be done is for leaders in the entertainment industry to continue taking a stand andfighting for the regulation of AIto discourage the development of projects likeCat Biggie.
Source:Variety
