The entertainment industry is no stranger to disruption. But few forces have struck Hollywood with the same level of anxiety—and promise—as artificial intelligence. For Renard T. Jenkins, President and CEO of I2A2 Technologies, Studios, and Labs, the rise of AI isn't a doomsday scenario—it's a creative renaissance waiting to happen.

Scott Ross doesn’t pull punches. The Oscar-winning VFX pioneer and co-founder of Digital Domain (alongside James Cameron and Stan Winston) has lived through multiple waves of cinematic innovation—and disruption. But even for a man who ushered in the digital revolution on films like Titanic, What Dreams May Come, and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, artificial intelligence hits different.

There’s a quiet revolution underway in Hollywood—and it’s not coming from inside the studio gates. It’s coming from creators with laptops, open-source AI tools, and zero interest in playing the old game. As Joshua Otten told me in our recent RealmIQ: Sessions interview, “Let’s stop trying to get our movie made by the studios and start making our own movies using these tools”.

Welcome to the era where your co-worker isn't just using AI—they are AI. But don’t panic (yet). As Andy Beach, former CTO of Media & Entertainment at Microsoft, puts it, “AI won’t replace you, but a person using AI will”.

When you invite Evan Shapiro—the “official cartographer of the media universe”—onto your podcast, expect to be simultaneously entertained and warned. Shapiro, with his Emmy, Peabody, and a few battle scars from the media trenches, came ready with truth bombs. And many of them were aimed at the accelerating, destabilizing force we call artificial intelligence.