I said this would happen…

Disney just released its first AI-produced animated series. Ozzy Fox, a Disney Junior preschool show made by AI-focused animation studio Animaj, debuted on YouTube and YouTube Kids and pulled over 800,000 views in two days. Some are framing this as Disney doing it quietly. It wasn’t quiet at all. They explicitly said they were going to do this, and I covered it on this channel when they first invested in Animaj.

This goes back to something I’ve been saying since the AI craze picked up. People acted confused when billion dollar companies leaned on AI, asking why a corporation with those resources would do that. But we knew they were always going to be the main ones using it. They have the capital to invest in it at scale, and they already get preferential treatment from the platforms this content lives on. Even if a smaller creator makes something comparable with the same tools, the corporate version wins because their name is stamped on it and they can funnel viewership to their content. That’s why I never treated AI as the great equalizer so many people assumed it would be.

A lot of creators, especially the progressive ones who’ve been so protective of the mainstream, assumed the big studios would keep doing things the traditional way while smaller and mid-tier creators used AI to compete. That was naive. Those creators never seemed to understand that they were a means to an end. And yes, if this catches on, it means fewer jobs. Even if the tools end up in the hands of the animators, that means fewer assistants, fewer people per production, and fewer contractors overall. That’s just the reality.

I’m not here to argue whether they should or shouldn’t do this. I can only control what I control with my own company, and the animation work we’ve done was not AI generated. But everybody should prepare for more of this. Over the next year you’re going to see the big studios test the waters, much of it with kids’ content churned out on YouTube, and the market will decide how it feels about it. The big dogs were always going to give it a shot and see what they could get away with.