A central question facing all media industries has been what role generative AI should have in content creation. Yet business decisions about AI use aren’t insulated from public opinion. As generative AI begins to enter aspects of content creation, media industry leaders, producers and creatives increasingly need to understand how audiences will respond to its use in the content they consume.
In AI & Media: Audience Attitudes, Luminate Intelligence examines the latest Luminate U.S. Entertainment 365 survey data to assess the state of consumers’ own use of generative AI applications — and if and how distinct uses of AI in creative processes for songs, movies and TV shows affects their acceptance and willingness to engage.
Overall, consumer attitudes are mixed. Consumers are more wary than willing to engage with AI-assisted media content, while some of those surveyed are ambivalent as to whether AI was used in its creation.
Views are roughly consistent across different media types. Even so, consumers are most opposed to reading news written with gen AI. They’re least opposed to playing a video game that contains AI assets because consumers are more likely to be ambivalent, with 40% neither more or less interested in playing a video game with characters, environments or dialogue created with AI, compared with about a third ambivalent toward the AI uses specified in other media.
Net interest (those more interested minus those less interested) in engaging with AI-assisted content differs significantly by age. Media consumers 55 and older are the most deeply negative on engaging with AI-assisted content, which applies across movies, TV shows, music, social media and video games. By contrast, the 13-17 age cohort is net positive across all media types.
The starkest divides appear among young people. Positive views within the 13-17 cohort are especially striking given how severely the 18-24 cohort diverges, with 58-point gaps for AI-scripted movies and TV and AI-generated social media content. Meanwhile, cohorts spanning elder Gen Z, Millennials and Gen X tend to be more moderate, with views hovering around breakeven.
At a minimum, this suggests it would be a mistake to regard Gen Z as a monolith in its attitudes toward AI content, and it may be increasingly important to understand intragenerational faultlines.
