If you spend your days on set or in post, you have probably noticed that AI is no longer knocking on the door. It has walked in, grabbed a seat at the editing console, and is already suggesting color grades.
So what happens to traditional production jobs
First the good news. Storytelling does not go away. Clients still need creative direction, a compelling narrative, and someone to decide whether the CEO should be lit from the left or the right. AI can help but it cannot read the room, manage a nervous talent, or know when the director just got the perfect take.
Editing and post production are changing faster. Rotoscoping, captioning, color balancing, even first cut assemblies can now be handled in minutes. That means fewer late nights with too much coffee and more time to spend on creative choices. Instead of replacing editors, AI shifts the role toward curator and supervisor. The tools do the grunt work, the human decides what sings.
On set, automation will continue to creep in. Virtual production walls, automated lighting, and robotic cameras are reducing the need for crew sizes. However, they also enable smaller teams to achieve big studio results. The gaffer is not gone. The gaffer just has to know how to talk to software as well as lamps.
For producers, this is both thrilling and unnerving. Budgets will stretch further. Deadlines will shrink. And competition will become tougher as more creators can deliver broadcast-quality content from their bedrooms. What separates the pros will be taste, judgment, and the ability to steer clients through a dizzying new landscape.
So, the future is not the end of traditional jobs, but rather their evolution. Think less about job loss and more about job remix. The camera operator becomes a camera operator plus motion capture wrangler. The editor becomes an editor plus AI conductor. The producer becomes the one who explains to the client why the AI version still needs a human touch.”
