AI on the Lot: Culver City's Bet on Hollywood's AI Future

Culver City's city council voted on March 9, 2026 to formally back AI on the Lot, the annual conference tracking generative AI's role in film and television. The event returns to the city on May 27-28, its largest edition yet, with organizers expecting more than 1,800 attendees.

The City's Commitment

The March 9 vote formalized a partnership the city began in 2025, when Culver City first sponsored the event. Organizers are working with the Culver City Chamber of Commerce and the City Council to attract AI startups and media studios to the area permanently.

The goal is explicit. "What South by Southwest is to Austin, AI on the Lot will be to Culver City," organizers stated. The 2026 conference will occupy both the Culver Theater and Culver Studios.

Culver City already has deep roots in the entertainment industry. Sony Pictures maintains its headquarters there. Culver Studios, one of the two 2026 venues, traces its history to the silent film era and served as a filming location for Gone with the Wind and The Wizard of Oz. The organizers chose the city deliberately, and the chamber of commerce and city council have backed that choice with formal support.

What to Expect in May

The summit covers panels, presentations, demos, and interactive activities spread across two days and both venues. Organizers describe it as the world's largest physical concentration of AI media startups and creative talent working with AI tools.

The 2025 conference drew 1,250 people and sold out. The crowd broke down as 31% filmmakers and artists, 22% AI and tech startups, and 18% studio executives and agents. Attendance has grown every year since the first edition.

The 2026 edition will feature 50 or more workshops, screenings, and panels across the two venues, covering both the business and technical sides of generative AI production. Tickets are available through the AI on the Lot website.

Three Years, Three Times the Crowd

AI on the Lot launched in 2023, during the Writers Guild of America strike, drawing around 600 people to its first event. Founders Mike Gioia, Ian Eck, and Todd Terrazas built it into a sold out industry gathering within three years. Producer Fil Graniczny joined in the second year, bringing more than 500 events of production experience to the operation.

The 2023 launch happened during the WGA strike. Writers were picketing studio gates over AI provisions while the first AI on the Lot drew 600 attendees to examine the same technology. By 2025, the WGA had settled, AI provisions were negotiated into contracts, and conference attendance had more than doubled.

By the second year, at least 100 studios were represented. "It's a lot more people who are way more curious," said Todd Terrazas, executive director of AI LA. "You're having bigger names like James Cameron, Ben Affleck and Ted Sarandos from Netflix speaking publicly about it."

A Speaker List That Signals the Industry's Direction

Past speakers have included Amit Jain, CEO of Luma AI, Michael Lingelbach, CEO of Hedra, and Andrew Chen of Andreessen Horowitz. Rick Carter, Steven Spielberg's production designer, and Robert Legato, James Cameron's VFX lead, have appeared alongside director David Slade (Black Mirror: Bandersnatch) and showrunner Matt Nix (Burn Notice). Generative AI filmmakers Paul Trillo and Dave Clark have also presented, along with executives from OpenAI and NVIDIA.

Rick Carter designed production sets for James Cameron's Avatar and Steven Spielberg's Lincoln. Robert Legato pioneered digital effects on Titanic and The Jungle Book, winning four Academy Awards for visual effects. Director Davide Bianca, who cofounded the AI studio GRAiL, was direct about the industry's position: "The Hollywood model is broken."

Past sponsors include NVIDIA, Paramount, Dell, Amazon Web Services, Adobe, ByteDance, Kling, Luma Labs, and Hedra. Mike Gioia put the conference's purpose plainly: "Our idea is to make this the capital of AI film."

From Skepticism to Studio Panels

Video generation models currently run about two years behind text AI tools in capability, according to assessments shared at the conference. That gap has not stopped studios from acting. Amazon MGM Studios chose AI on the Lot to publicly discuss generative AI integration for the first time, presenting a panel on incorporating these tools into active production workflows. More than 200 companies now operate as AI studios, according to conference organizers. The broader Hollywood AI studio boom, backed by more than $3 billion in venture capital in 2025, has pushed the conversation from cautious observation to active deployment.

Daily shooting rates in Los Angeles can reach $200,000. That cost pressure has accelerated studio interest in AI workflows, though copyright remains a hard constraint. Rachel Joy-Victor, cofounder of FBRC AI, put the industry's calculus plainly: "We can't do anything unless we can prove that there's nothing copyrighted in our systems." The tools that meet that standard, including Google Veo 3 models available on AI FILMS Studio, are increasingly what attendees demonstrate on the conference floor.

Cofounder Ian Eck describes AI media as "dynamic, reactive, probabilistic" and "more like a game, more interactive" than traditional film. A Sundance 2026 panel organized by IndieWire covered related territory in January, with panelists from Disney's IP protection work and interactive AI narrative development. AI on the Lot brings that conversation to a larger room.

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Sources

CGTN | The Wrap | AI on the Lot