Netflix is buying Ben Affleck’s AI startup
The streaming giant buys a specialized AI company focused on ingesting raw footage to streamline post-production.
Netflix has made a strategic move into AI-powered film production by acquiring InterPositive, the startup founded by actor-director Ben Affleck. Announced today, the deal sees the streaming service bring aboard InterPositive's entire 16-person team of engineers and researchers, with Affleck himself joining as a senior adviser. This acquisition follows Netflix's failed bid for Warner Bros. and represents a significant investment in proprietary production technology. Affleck stated he founded the company in 2022 after observing early AI tools in production and wanting to build solutions that protected human creativity while streamlining technical workflows.
Unlike general-purpose generative AI models, InterPositive's technology is specifically designed to ingest 'dailies'—the raw footage from active film sets—and create customized assets for the post-production pipeline. According to Affleck, the models help filmmakers with tasks like color correction, visual effects development, background manipulation, and removing elements like stunt wires, all using a vocabulary familiar to cinematographers and directors. A key selling point is that each model is trained on the specific visual language of an individual project, ensuring outputs are unique and aligned with the director's vision. Netflix's CTO Elizabeth Stone and head of content Bela Bajaria highlighted the potential for faster, more efficient production cycles. The streamer has not yet announced a rollout timeline for integrating InterPositive's tools into its own projects, but the acquisition signals a major push toward AI-assisted content creation at scale.
- Netflix acquires InterPositive, Ben Affleck's AI startup founded in 2022, bringing all 16 team members onboard.
- The technology ingests project-specific 'dailies' (raw footage) to create tailored assets for color correction, VFX, and editing.
- Affleck joins as a senior adviser, emphasizing tools built for filmmakers' existing workflows to protect human creativity.
Why It Matters
Signals a major shift toward AI-integrated film production at scale, potentially accelerating content creation for streaming platforms.