Directors guild ratifies four-year contract with AI safeguards amid production slump
The Directors Guild of America ratified a four-year agreement with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, with members voting overwhelmingly in favor. DGA president Christopher Nolan and national executive director Russell Hollander announced the result.
On artificial intelligence, the deal keeps directors in control of AI-generated footage, requires studios to meet with the guild before licensing material for AI training and to bargain over compensation, and sets up an employer-funded program to train members in AI tools. Other terms raise health-plan contributions from 11.25% to 14% of compensation, add wage and residual increases, cap non-director actors at directing two TV episodes per season, and commit the studios to lobby for federal production tax incentives.
The agreement was reached without the strike brinkmanship that marked Hollywood’s last bargaining cycle, and it is framed around a steep, continuing downturn in film and television production — a sign that job preservation, rather than gains, is the priority as work contracts across the industry.