AI Film Studios Are Setting Up Shop in Culver City Next to Sony and Amazon MGM

The neighborhood that has hosted Hollywood studio lots for about a century is gaining a new kind of tenant. A growing group of AI filmmaking startups is moving into Culver City, setting up next to Sony Pictures Entertainment, Amazon MGM Studios and Apple, the Los Angeles Times reported this week.

The story is less about any one film than about where the business of making screen entertainment is heading, and who will own the tools.

A job fair on the Culver Steps

On Wednesday, the open plaza at Culver Steps, usually home to community events and movie nights, became a recruiting floor for AI studios, according to the Times. The event was part of LA Tech Week, organized by the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz.

Companies showed off lifelike AI generated video and pitched emerging talent and out of work creatives on joining them. The Times named Promise, TrueShort, Native Foreign and PhantomX among the AI studios expanding in the area.

The organizers of AI on the Lot, a conference that began in Culver City in 2023, sponsored the fair. The group estimates that AI media companies with about $2 billion in backing have converged on the city, the Times reported.

Why these companies want to be here

The startups told the paper they are drawn by the legacy studios they hope to compete with. There is also a blunter reason: office space in the area is available and affordable, which the Times tied to the general decline of the entertainment business in Los Angeles.

Luma AI, a Palo Alto company the paper valued at $4 billion, opened a facility in Culver City last year. Its Dream Lab occupies about 7,000 square feet and employs a team of 13, the Times said.

TrueShort, which outgrew a Santa Monica office and now sits near the Culver Theater, runs an app of short form true crime audio and video shows that are fully AI generated. According to the Times, a 10 minute episode costs about $10,000 and takes around 10 days to go from idea to release.

Two business models side by side

Not every company is selling fully synthetic content. Promise, which is backed by Google, favors hybrid productions in which human actors perform on soundstages around Los Angeles while AI is used for backgrounds, visual effects and synthetic characters, the Times reported. The company acquired the online AI school Curious Refuge in late 2024 and moved closer to Culver City from Venice in June.

That split matters for investors and for crews. A hybrid model still books stages, hires actors and pays local vendors. A fully synthetic model mostly needs servers and a small team.

The labour question hanging over it

The timing is awkward for Hollywood workers. A report commissioned by several industry unions and released earlier this month found that the share of production spending by major U.S. studios on films shot mainly or partly in the country fell from 74% to 42% between 1999 and 2024, Deadline reported. Many crew members already feel squeezed.

The Times noted that unions and many people in the industry are suspicious of AI, worried that it draws on the work of human creatives and replaces paid jobs. SAG-AFTRA secured protections against fully synthetic performers in the contract signed this year, according to the paper.

Culver City officials, for their part, told the Times the city sees itself as a hub for a creative economy that keeps evolving.

What to watch next

The Culver City cluster is a test of whether AI studios can turn cheap production into audiences and revenue. A $10,000 episode is only a bargain if people watch it, and the business case for synthetic shows remains largely unproven at scale.

It is also a test for the traditional lots down the street. Amazon MGM Studios already runs an AI Studios division, the Times reported, which suggests the big players are hedging rather than ignoring the shift.

For now, the verified picture is a real estate and hiring story: startups moving in, money flowing, and a workforce watching closely. Whether Culver City becomes the capital of AI media, as its boosters hope, will depend on what these companies actually ship. Hollywood Magazine will keep following how the business side of this story develops.