Google Is Reportedly Investing $75 Million in A24 to Build AI Filmmaking Tools With Its Directors

Google is putting a reported $75 million into A24 and pairing the studio with Google DeepMind to develop AI filmmaking tools, according to the companies' research partnership announcement. Google's own post confirms the partnership and the investment in A24, but does not name the dollar figure.

The $75 million figure comes from Wall Street Journal reporting, relayed by Variety and other outlets. The size matters, but the structure matters more: the next generation of filmmaking tools will be shaped inside a working studio, with directors in the room while the tools are still being built, rather than handed down as a finished model.

Google describes the arrangement as "a deep research and development collaboration between A24 and Google DeepMind spanning multiple projects over time." Reports add that the deal is multiyear and nonexclusive. This is a research relationship, not a model release or a film slate. A24's filmmakers get hands-on input into tools in development, and DeepMind gets feedback from working artists before those tools reach a wider market. Google says the specific goals, technical outputs, and creative milestones will evolve as the work continues.

The first project reportedly underway runs through A24 Labs, the studio's technology group, and uses AI to generate storyboards, the rough visual sketches directors use to block out scenes before a shoot. Scott Belsky, who leads A24 Labs, framed the aim as tools that "preserve creative control and support risk-taking" and that "won't look anything like the prompted generation type of AI that people feel uncomfortable with," according to Variety's reporting. That points the early work at assistive pre-production for directors rather than one-prompt scene generation.

One reported detail matters for anyone tracking the fight over AI training material: the deal does not give Google access to A24's film and television library or its underlying content data. Studio catalogs are exactly the kind of high-value material AI companies have pursued, and the reporting frames this as funding and research alignment around tools, not a content-licensing arrangement.

Google has not addressed the data question in its public announcement, so treat that carve-out as reported rather than officially stated. It is one of the few concrete boundaries the coverage has established so far.

The A24 deal extends a run of filmmaker collaborations DeepMind has built around its generative tools. We covered the lab's work with Darren Aronofsky and his Primordial Soup banner on the AI-hybrid film Ancestra, which gave DeepMind a visible creative partner for testing generative tools inside a real production.

That experimentation has spanned formats. We also covered DeepMind's Sundance animated short, where the emphasis fell on workflow and creative control rather than raw model output. The A24 partnership scales that approach from a single filmmaker or one-off project to a standing relationship with a studio brand.

A24 is not a random partner for this. We reported on the studio's feature deal with Backrooms creator Kane Parsons, a sign of how far A24 will reach into internet-native creator culture and younger production pipelines.

Tying that brand to DeepMind gives Google tools co-developed with a studio filmmakers respect, which is part of what the reported $75 million buys.

For crews, editors, and production teams, there is nothing to adopt today. What the partnership offers instead is a statement of intent about how the next wave of filmmaking tools gets made and who gets a say in shaping them. Google's broader push already spans research demos, filmmaker collaborations, and shipping products such as Flow, and the A24 deal wires artist feedback into that pipeline at the studio level.

"We believe the best way to develop tools that empower artists is to work directly with them," Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis said in announcing the partnership.