Hollywood Was Cooked Before AI, and Now It's Only Getting Worse

Los Angeles production was already in steep decline before AI had taken over any writing work. Shoot days peaked at about 40,000 in 2016 and stayed near 37,000 through 2019, as streaming growth offset falling network and cable production. After a pandemic collapse, they rebounded to about 37,000 in 2022, then dropped to 25,000 in 2023 and 23,000 in 2024. After the industry’s “survived till 25” mantra, the total fell below 20,000—less than half the 2016 peak, Hayes Davenport said.

That contraction has stranded workers who entered the business during its late-2010s expansion. Writers Guild membership grew as new shows created jobs, but production cuts have left many writers without opportunities; some have moved home or taken survival jobs, while podcasting has offered a safe harbor for some. Davenport noted that Comedy Central, where he had early writing jobs, now produces few new shows. The squeeze reaches beyond writers: fewer productions mean less work for the many people whose jobs depend on each shoot.

The decline is not simply a consequence of AI or a lack of studio capacity. Tax incentives have pushed states and countries to compete for productions in what Davenport called a race to the bottom. Eastbound and Down moved from North Carolina to South Carolina after North Carolina ended its tax break, while Vancouver and Dublin attract productions with tax and labor advantages. Joe Wiesenthal pointed to Netflix’s announced $1 billion studio in New Jersey while asking why Los Angeles is losing production. At the same time, studio construction that followed the 2016 peak has left the market with new space and weakening demand, including a large Santa Monica-area complex completed after construction began around 2019.

AI is an additional threat, not the original cause of Hollywood’s employment crisis. One speaker said they had not heard of a show written by AI and that AI has not taken over writers’ rooms, though studios may want it to. Generative AI is already used widely like a search engine, but in Los Angeles it carries stigma because workers see it as a job threat. The immediate exposure may be especially serious for below-the-line workers, including hair and makeup artists, set designers, and grips; losses in those jobs could spread through the local economy. AI can already produce outlines and handle some genres more easily than comedy, but its progress in writing is not a distant-future concern.

The scale and economics of writing rooms have also changed. Family Guy had 30 writers when one speaker worked on it, while a seven-writer room is now considered large; the speaker said a 30-person room “does not exist anymore and never ever will again.” Joke-dense comedy depends on writers pitching ideas together and hearing how they land, making it difficult to reproduce alone. Yet studios favor cheaper single-writer models for some prestige shows, such as Mike White writing The White Lotus. Post-strike minimum room sizes and weeks have also changed the economics of starting a room. Comedy production is shrinking as horror remains active, in part because horror can support commercially viable mid-budget films while studios see less theatrical upside in comedy.

The effects reach beyond production companies. Hollywood accounts for roughly 20% of the Los Angeles economy, according to the source notes, and reduced production has hurt local businesses, including restaurants that depended on studio workers’ spending. Fewer productions have also weakened tourism and the city’s cultural profile; shows such as Insecure brought attention to parts of Los Angeles. Davenport said the monoculture has gone away and that Los Angeles no longer exports its identity through social media as it once did through film and television. He contrasted that with New York street-interview content that exports a story about that city, while distinguishing the influencer economy from the traditional studio-and-network business. Subscribers around the world still bring money into Los Angeles through that influencer economy, but it does not replace the old production engine.