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Amazon MGM Studios greenlit three AI-generated animated series for Prime Video, launching the GenAI Creators’ Fund and a new platform called Project Nara.
Amazon MGM Studios and Amazon Web Services announced a new GenAI Creators’ Fund on Wednesday and greenlit its first three animated series for Prime Video, marking the most aggressive Hollywood studio push yet into AI-generated production.
The three series ordered: Cupcake & Friends from BuzzFeed Studios, Love, Diana Music Hunters from Albie Hecht’s pocket.watch, and Punky Duck from Jorge R. Gutierrez, the director of The Book of Life. All three will premiere on Prime Video at undisclosed dates.
The fund’s mechanics are the news underneath the news. Variety’s exclusive on the GenAI Creators’ Fund and its Project Nara production platform details how the program works: grants for proof-of-concept pilots and shorts, with the studio then deciding which to greenlight into full series.
Project Nara is the bigger story. Described as Amazon MGM’s purpose-built AI production platform for cinematic storytelling, the system is built on AWS infrastructure and integrates with industry-standard tools including Maya, Blender, Nuke, Unreal Engine, and Adobe’s suite.
The platform is model-agnostic. It combines third-party generative video models with Amazon’s proprietary models, and includes provenance tracking designed to protect intellectual property. Albert Cheng, Amazon MGM Studios’ chief operating officer and head of AI Studios, framed the platform’s purpose around solving creator frustration with current generative video.
“One of the biggest complaints we hear from creators is: AI will not do what you want it to do,” Cheng said. “Generative-AI video systems today are geared toward social media. We are turning those models into usable tools for the industry.”
The Wednesday announcement happened at the 2026 AI on the Lot conference at Culver Studios. Deadline’s coverage of the fund’s launch and the loglines for the three ordered series notes that the initiative arrives at a moment when AI adoption has accelerated across visual effects and animation, with last year’s WGA and SAG-AFTRA contracts having reduced strike risk.
The loglines themselves suggest the playing field. Punky Duck follows a lovable punk duck and his best friend Smiley Cat through a wildly exaggerated Los Angeles of alien invasions, giant monsters, and telenovela-style family drama. Love, Diana Music Hunters is a K-pop space-traveling band racing to Planet Goo. Cupcake & Friends is a sleepover story.
The creator pedigree is mixed. Gutierrez is an Emmy winner whose credits include Maya and the Three for Netflix and El Tigre for Nickelodeon. Albie Hecht, the former Nickelodeon president behind the original SpongeBob SquarePants development, runs pocket.watch.
The creators are human, working with human voice actors. Amazon emphasized that the AI tools are meant to empower, not replace, the creative talent. Cheng’s framing: the studio is human-centric.
The production timeline is built for speed. The three pilot projects were given a five-week deadline, meant to demonstrate that AI-assisted production can move materially faster than traditional animation.
The strategic positioning is unique. Samira Panah Bakhtiar, AWS’s GM for media and entertainment, games and sports, told Variety that Amazon has quietly and methodically assembled the only end-to-end AI content creation ecosystem in the industry, spanning from infrastructure to creative tools to distribution and funding.
Variety’s social broadcast of the announcement circulated widely across the entertainment-trade feed Wednesday evening, with reactions split between excitement and concern from animation industry workers.
A live-action short is also in development under the fund. Cheng declined to identify the creator working on it.
Production has begun on the three animated series. Premiere dates have not been announced.
