Animator and VFX artist — tasks, one by one

Character animation

The performance is still planned by people, and studios plan to hire for it. Toei Animation plans to raise production capacity by about 1.5 times by recruiting several hundred more employees, mostly for key occupations, citing a shortage of creators. In the French studio survey, 31.0% of animation studios using AI apply it to character animation, and animation studios are the least satisfied with the tools.

One company's plan and one country's survey of studios; neither measures how many animators are employed across the industry.

In-betweening and 2D clean-up

Research tools can now generate in-betweens, but in the lab and under a person's control. ToonCrafter handles large, non-linear cartoon motion and gives users a sketch encoder to steer the result; AnimeInbet describes line in-betweening as time-consuming and expensive work that can benefit from automation. No record here shows a studio using these tools in production.

Research results on the authors' own data; they do not show production use or employment effects.

Rigging and 3D modelling

Automatic rigging has advanced in research. UniRig reports a 215% improvement in rigging accuracy over earlier academic and commercial methods on challenging datasets, while its authors say it may struggle with highly stylised characters — the kind animation often uses.

A benchmark on the authors' own dataset, with an author from a company that sells AI 3D tools; not a measure of studio practice.

Rotoscoping and compositing

This is where studios report using AI most. In France's 2026 survey, 71.0% of visual effects studios that use AI apply it to rotoscoping and compositing assistance, as do 48.3% of animation studios that use it. Meta's SAM 2 reports better video segmentation accuracy with 3x fewer interactions than earlier approaches — segmentation being the core of rotoscoping.

Studio-reported use in one country and a benchmark; neither measures how many rotoscoping jobs remain.

Face work and environments

Generative tools are now in shipped work. Netflix says filmmakers used generative AI with machine learning and volumetric capture to de-age characters in Happy Gilmore 2. In the French survey, 74.2% of visual effects studios using AI apply it to landscapes and set extension, and 48.4% to capturing and modifying faces.

A streamer describing its own productions to investors and one country's studio survey; neither says how much artist time changed.

Storyboards and previsualisation

Generative tools are used here, but employment has not visibly moved. Netflix says a production used generative AI for pre-visualisation of wardrobe and set designs, and iQIYI says its in-house studio tool generates storyboard designs. French payroll data count 719 storyboarders in 2024, up 0.6% on the year, and the analysts find it difficult to conclude that AI tools have had any effect on their employment.

Company descriptions of their own work and one country's employment data; the employment series starts in 2018.

Rights, credit and contracts

Contracts and copyright guidance keep a person's contribution at the centre. The US animation union's agreement lets producers require AI use but bars requiring prompts in a way that displaces covered employees. Japan's copyright office says material generated only from a simple prompt is not a copyrighted work, while creative human additions or corrections generally are.

One US contract and non-binding Japanese guidance; other countries and studios differ.