Sony Pictures is embracing generative artificial intelligence to cut costs.

Chief executive Tony Vinciquerra, at an investor conference in Japan, said on Thursday that the company is “very focused on AI” and mobilizing to adopt the technology into the moviemaking process to streamline production.

“We’ll be looking at ways to use AI to produce films for theaters and television in more efficient ways, using AI primarily,” Vinciquerra said.

In the backdrop of the comments: Ongoing negotiations between Hollywood’s major crew union and top studios on a new contract, which is set to expire on July 31. Like the actors and writers strikes, guardrails on the use of AI have emerged as a key negotiating point.

Since the resolutions of the work stoppages last year, buzzy AI tools like OpenAI’s text-to-video model Sora have created anxiety in Hollywood that they could undermine labor from crewmembers and talent. Union protections...