Netflix is making a rare acquisition — and placing a major Hollywood filmmaker at the center of its next phase of technological experimentation.

The streaming giant has acquired InterPositive, an AI-powered filmmaking technology company quietly founded by actor-director Ben Affleck, bringing the startup’s 16-person team of engineers, researchers and creatives into Netflix. As part of the deal, Affleck will also join the company as a senior adviser, offering guidance as Netflix expands its use of AI-driven production tools.

Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

The deal signals a notable shift for Netflix, which historically has preferred to build its own technology rather than acquire outside firms. But the company says InterPositive’s approach to artificial intelligence — designed specifically for filmmakers rather than as a general-purpose generative tool — made it a natural fit.

“Our relationship with artists has always been grounded in trust: supporting the full range of their creativity and ensuring they have the power to decide how their films and shows are made,” said Netflix chief content officer Bela Bajaria in a statement. “We believe new tools should expand creative freedom, not constrain it or replace the work of writers, directors, actors and crews. Ben and his team at InterPositive are part of a long tradition in our industry of artists leading the way in how innovation is used in storytelling.”

Unlike widely discussed generative AI systems that can create video from text prompts, InterPositive’s technology is designed to integrate into existing filmmaking workflows.

“It’s not about text-prompting or generating something from nothing,” Affleck said in a video released by Netflix announcing the deal. “AI, people mostly think of it as making something from nothing: ‘I’m gonna type something into a computer and it’s gonna give me a movie.’ That’s not what this is.”

Instead, InterPositive builds an AI model based on a film or series’ existing production dailies, allowing filmmakers to introduce the system during postproduction to perform tasks such as relighting scenes, adjusting color and integrating visual effects — while maintaining editorial continuity and the creative intent of the production.

Affleck founded the company in 2022, assembling a team of engineers and creative executives to explore how AI could be applied to filmmaking in a way that respects traditional production practices.

“In 2022, I spent a lot of time observing the early rise of AI in production,” Affleck said. “As a filmmaker, I could see how these models came up short. For artists to apply these tools toward telling the stories we dedicate our lives to, they need to be purpose-built to represent and protect all the qualities that make a great story.”

To train its models, InterPositive captured a proprietary dataset on a controlled soundstage designed to replicate the realities of a working film set.

The company’s first model, according to Affleck, was trained to understand “visual logic and editorial consistency,” while preserving the cinematic rules filmmakers rely on — including the way light behaves across a scene, the distortion of lenses, and the unpredictable variables that arise during production.

“We also need to preserve what makes storytelling human, which is judgment,” Affleck said. “The kind that takes decades to build, experience to hone and that only people can have.”

Netflix executives emphasized that the technology is intended to support filmmakers rather than replace them — a key message in an industry where artificial intelligence has become a deeply contentious issue following recent labor negotiations and ongoing debates about the role of automation in creative work.

“Our approach to AI has always been focused on meaningfully serving the needs of the creative community and our members,” said Elizabeth Stone, Netflix’s chief product and technology officer. “The InterPositive team is joining Netflix because of our shared belief that innovation should empower storytellers, not replace them.”

The company says it plans to make the technology available to its creative partners and filmmakers, but does not intend to commercialize the tools as a standalone product in the broader marketplace.

The acquisition also deepens Affleck’s relationship with Netflix. Just last week, his production company Artists Equity signed a first-look film deal with the streamer, and his upcoming directorial feature Animals, starring Affleck alongside Kerry Washington and Gillian Anderson, is set to debut on the platform later this year.

Still, the InterPositive deal positions Affleck in an unusual role within the streaming ecosystem — not just as a filmmaker but also as a technology adviser helping shape how artificial intelligence is integrated into production.

Affleck has previously argued that AI will likely have its biggest impact on the more labor-intensive and expensive aspects of filmmaking, rather than replacing the creative decision-making of directors and performers.

“What AI is going to do is disintermediate the more laborious, less creative and more costly aspects of filmmaking,” Affleck said during a 2024 CNBC conference. “That will allow costs to be brought down, that will lower the barrier to entry, and that will allow more voices to be heard.”

For Netflix, the acquisition represents another step in a broader strategy to explore how new technologies can be applied to the production process without fundamentally altering the creative structure of filmmaking.

As Bajaria put it, the goal is to ensure that “technology plays a part in how stories are made, but people — and their ideas, craft and judgment — remain at the core of great storytelling.”