The American Experiment is a five-episode documentary that features Apocalypse Now actor Martin Sheen as the voice of George Washington along with a panoply of contemporary figures from U.S. politics including ex-vice presidents Kamala Harris and Mike Pence. It also included 17 minutes of AI-enhanced footage that was produced “twice as fast and at half the cost,” said Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos.
Faster and less expensive could potentially become central to the way Netflix plans to spend what could be up to $20 billion this year on content creation, a line item number that has grown from $16.2 billion in 2024 to $17.1 billion in 2025. Meanwhile, investors appear to be losing patience with the streaming giant as some of the tide appears to be moving in the opposite direction, with revenue growth decelerating from 16% in the first quarter of 2026, to 13% this quarter, and 12% guided for Q3. After earnings results were released, the stock price fell as much as 9% after hours, despite posting results that were generally in line with expectations.
Sarandos said generative AI could help creative teams—particularly during the post-production process—get more juice out of every squeeze. So far this year, Netflix said, its creative partners have used GenAI workflows in 300 of its titles, with the bulk of it in post-production. In some cases, productions would have had to scale back key shots and sequences in the absence of AI because they couldn’t have afforded them or crews wouldn’t have been able to pull them off on the timeline they had, he said. Post teams used AI to enhance crowd scenes, world building opening shots, and historical battle scenes, Netflix leaders told shareholders in an investor letter on Thursday.
