A directors' contract said generative AI cannot replace the job

The shot

On 3 June 2023 the Directors Guild of America announced a tentative three-year agreement with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, covering the roughly 19,000 directors, assistant directors, unit production managers, associate directors, and stage managers the DGA represents. The guild's own tentative-agreement release named artificial intelligence as one of the deal's key issues, alongside wages, streaming residuals, and safety. Members ratified the contract by an 87 percent vote on 23 June, its term beginning 1 July 2023, before SAG-AFTRA's own strike began.

What the documents show

The DGA's tentative-agreement release states plainly: "Artificial Intelligence: Groundbreaking agreement confirming that AI is not a person and that generative AI cannot replace the duties performed by members." Negotiations Committee chair Jon Avnet is quoted describing protections "ensuring DGA members will not be replaced by technological advances." The guild's ratification announcement, published twenty days later, confirms the language survived into the signed contract, stating the deal "includes new provisions confirming that generative AI cannot replace the duties performed by members." Both are the union's own account of what it bargained; the DGA has not published the underlying clause language in either release.

The workflow

As the DGA's own materials frame it, a director, assistant director, or unit production manager working under this Basic Agreement is covered by a contract that names the specific person performing a duty, not a software process, as the party who did the work. A signatory production cannot point to an AI-generated shot list, schedule, or edit and treat it as having discharged the guild-covered duties of an AD or UPM; the person occupying that classification remains the party the contract recognizes. The guild frames this as a bargained floor, not a technical specification for any tool.

What the tool does not change

Neither release describes a mechanism for detecting AI use, an audit process, or a definition of generative AI for enforcement purposes; the documents state a principle, not a procedure. The releases do not address digital replicas of performers, audience disclosure, or crafts outside the DGA's jurisdiction. What the guild's account preserves is attribution: the duties of a director or assistant director remain duties a credited person performs, a distinction the contract's own language draws.

• Does a contract on a given production name a specific job classification as accountable for a task, or only describe a deliverable?
• Where AI is used to prepare scheduling or shot-planning material, who signs off on it in the credited role the guild's agreement protects?
• Has the guild since published the underlying contract language, and does it match the summary in these releases?

The DGA's own two releases, read together, establish a narrow but concrete fact: in June 2023 the guild says it secured contract language stating that generative AI cannot substitute for the duties its members perform, and that the deal was ratified on those terms before two allied unions reached their own settlements. What that language says line by line, and how it has been enforced since, are questions the guild's press materials alone do not answer.