Roku’s CEO thinks we’ll see a 100% AI-generated hit movie “within the next three years”
Perhaps it could wind up on Howdy, the $3-per-month ad-free streamer the platform’s pushing.
In April 2023, a disturbing clip of actor Will Smith greedily shoveling mountains of spaghetti into his contorted mouth was doing the rounds on social media, with users disgusted by the “demonic” scene. The janky video was, as everyone could tell at the time, AI-generated.
In the less than three years since, many have fed the same “Fresh Prince” pasta scenario to various text-to-video generators and it’s become a bit of a benchmark within the AI world, with some scarily accurate renderings last year showing just how far many of the platforms have come.
So, what could the tech look like in another three years? In an interview at the Consumer Electronics Show last week, Anthony Wood, the founder and CEO of streaming tech and TV giant Roku, predicted that we’ll see the first “100% AI-generated hit movie” within that time frame.
Like so many business leaders in 2026, Wood is looking to AI to boost Roku’s fortunes, with the company’s stock still down 77% from its 2021 peak.
From a voice-activated AI assistant on its TVs to integrating the tech to serve recommendations and personalized ads (those Roku City billboards might get a little more appealing), Roku is investing in AI-powered tools across its business, having finally reemerged into profitable territory for the first time since the pandemic as its “platform” business (which is mostly advertising) continues to grow.
Contented
Though Variety’s recent description of Roku as “the world’s largest streaming platform” might not tally with everyone’s definition of that particular accolade, there’s no denying that the company Wood launched in 2008 has become a behemoth in the TV tech and streaming software game. According to Roku’s most recent letter to shareholders, its streaming devices are now present in over 50% of broadband homes across the US, cementing it as the go-to aggregated hub for finding the platforms that you actually watch stuff on.
Perhaps AI’s promise to lower content production expenses could be a boon for Roku’s own streamer, however. Howdy — the $3-per-month streamer it acquired last year, designed to occupy the cheaper, ad-free part of the market where things “actually started,” per Wood — could certainly benefit from the lower-cost hit content Wood backs AI to bring.
