Netflix used AI to make 17 minutes of a documentary ‘twice as fast and at half the cost’—as streaming competition drives up content spending to $20 billion

*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-enhan
ced 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.

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i feel Netflix has peaked, might be a good short. Users are going to notice the next leg down in quality.

We’re going to get more of these little AI tests. That weird faith-based George Washington movie that came out a while back was a total slop fest. It didn’t do bad, but also didn’t set the world on fire. Now, Netflix is playing around with it on a niche-ish documentary series. I think they’re working on getting the backlash out on safe targets. Things will get really icky when a popular and widely seen show/movie made by a relevant director uses AI and makes lots of money. At that point, the flood gate will open (and I don’t look forward to what comes after).