From the moment someone crushed up some iron oxide and got some visceral new colours for their cave wall daubings, humans have used the materials, and later, technologies at hand, to express themselves creatively.

(Mozart might not have approved of this EDM album made out of malware samples, but computer-mediated though it is, there’s clear human agency behind such leftfield creative endeavours, even if earlier generations might not have recognised them as palatable art forms or laudable High Culture.)

The extent to which generative AI can almost entirely automate modes of creative expression is proving one of the most disruptive aspects of its existence. AI has already spawned an entire uncanny valley full of unreal bands, hallucinated music, and “art” spewed out by LLMs amid a backdrop of growing, if largely overlooked, debate around the nature of authenticity, exploitation of intellectual property and broader industry inequities. 

(In November 2025,"Walk my Walk" by AI band Breaking Rust hit No. 1 on Billboard's Country Digital Song Sales chart – many listeners of the track seemingly unaware that the band and song alike were AI-generated.)

Warner Music CEO? “Interactivity” is king.

Amid this disruptive backdrop, the strategies of some of the creative industry’s biggest firms across music, film, and gaming is starting to be discernible; often most immediately through earnings calls with investors.

Warner Music Group (WMG), for example, started meaningfully spelling out its approach in late 2025, with its CEO Robert Kyncl  particularly highlighting the opportunities around "interactivity" (the ability of music buyers to radically rework songs with AI, for example swapping out the vocals in a track with that of another artist), whilst emphasising that WMG would be robustly using “licensing as the most powerful way to shape the future.”

A concrete example? A brace of agreements with AI music startups, which will let their subscribers use AI to remix Warner-signed artists who have agreed to participate – whilst also “ensuring artists and songwriters are credited and paid,” as WMG told investors on a November 19 call.  

Sony President: “A catalyst for new possibilities”

To Sony Group President Hiroki Totoki, speaking this month about the Japanese firm’s approach to AI use across anime, gaming or music , “AI is a powerful tool, but it's not a replacement for artists or creators.”

“It is an amplifier of human imagination and catalyst for new possibilities. Great content comes from deep personal experiences, unique perspectives and a strong inner motivation to express something meaningful,” he said.

Totoki, who took on the President and CEO role at Sony in a 2025 shakeup, was making the right noises for creatives, as Sony spelled out its AI strategy in the most detail yet on a May 8 earnings call. But like everyone else, it is looking for the right opportunities to add value for investors and users.

Fine-tuned models and proprietary data

AI, said Totoki, is “one of the most important themes for us to consider.”

It can “unlock new value creation… not only in terms of efficiency, but in empowering creators to expand their creativity,” he added. An example? 

Sony is running a pilot with entertainment conglomerate Bandai Namco Holdings “to explore how generative AI… can most effectively contribute to realizing a creator's vision in the realm of video production,” he explained.

Sony has identified “massive gains in speed and productivity per person.”

See also: Sony turns to Kubernetes, eyes deeper back-end integration

It’s also had to tackle the entrenched shortcomings of generative AI for disciplined creative studio use, like a “lack of consistency and controllability, which is demanded by creators and those involved in production.”

Sony has started tackling that by deploying different models for different tasks, he suggested, as well as fine-tuning models with “proprietary data to consistently generate output of intended style with accuracy and cost…”

The vision, Totoki added, is a fine balance that combines “Sony's expertise in audio, video processing, spatial and 3G technology with generative AI – to create a creative-first production environment that is safe and secure to use while maximizing their [creatives’] artistic sensitivity and output.”

Playstation chief cites “Mockingbird” platform

Also newly in charge at Sony is Hideaki Nishino – who was put in charge of Sony Interactive Entertainment, the company behind PlayStation, in 2025. 

Giving some more explicit examples, he said that the company’s game developers are automating repetitive workflows; for example by creating a tool dubbed Mockingbird that quickly animates 3D facial models.

 “We're not replacing human performers, but rather optimizing how we process the data from these live captures,” he hastened to add.

“With Mockingbird, animation work that would have taken hours can now be completed in a fraction of a second” Nishino added. 

Animating hair

“Another example is a tool we built for animating hair. This is often a labor intensive process given the volume of strands that must be created. Our teams have accelerated this process by taking videos of real hair styles and having an AI tool output a 3D model with hundreds of strand models. 

“These practical applications,” said the PlayStation unit chief, “allow our teams to spend less time on manual, high effort task and to instead invest their time into building richer worlds and game play for our players.”

How so? “Amazing prototypes” are in the works at Sony’s gaming machine “where NPCs [non-player characters] with their own personalities can create a living dynamic world for the players to explore,” he told analysts.

Pressed on underwhelming share performance, CEO Group's CEO Totoki concluded: "There might be anxiety [in the market] that the entertainment business cannot grow as before. What we have explained today explained our stance towards the situation and what we are working on and what we have achieved so far..."

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