Directors Guild of America

Founded in 1936, the Directors Guild of America represents roughly 19,000 directors and members of directorial teams — assistant directors, unit production managers and stage managers — across film, television and new media. In 2023 it became the first Hollywood guild to write generative AI limits into a ratified contract.

“AI is not a person”

The DGA reached its tentative deal with the studios’ alliance, the AMPTP, on June 3, 2023 — one month into the writers’ strike and weeks before actors joined the picket lines. Alongside gains on wages and streaming residuals, the three-year agreement carried what the guild called a groundbreaking AI provision: generative AI is not a person, work performed by DGA members must be assigned to a person, and employers may not use generative AI in connection with creative elements without consulting the director or other covered employees. The contract also established twice-yearly meetings with the AMPTP to track the technology. Negotiations chair Jon Avnet said the deal ensured members “will not be replaced by technological advances.”

The agreement drew criticism as well as praise. Some striking writers argued the DGA settled too quickly and softly, blunting labor’s collective leverage mid-strike, and analysts at the Harvard Journal of Sports and Entertainment Law noted the directors’ consultation-based approach was lighter-touch than the hard prohibitions the Writers Guild of America later won. Directing is also the Hollywood craft least immediately threatened by generative tools — a fact both sides of that argument cite.