The Russo Brothers

Directors

29years oldFormed 1997

Anthony and Joe Russo, directors of Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame and founders of AGBO — a studio that now employs a chief scientific officer to embed AI in its pipeline. Self-described technologists, they are among Hollywood’s most vocal AI optimists.

Director Filmmaker Entertainment

Collider Screen Rant Wikipedia

Why this score

How the formula works →

+3.1proBuilds AI professionally
+1.9proUses AI in their work
+1.9proHas published AI-made work
+1.2pro5 pro-AI statements (forceful)
−0.4anti1 anti-AI statement (measured)

Weights, statement counts, the ×1.25 multiplier for having a stake in an AI-impacted field, and the formula’s smoothing are already baked in — the points add up to the score, with evidence on the other side subtracting (direction-free evidence pulls toward the middle instead): Strongly Pro-AI · 7.7/10

In their words

But the value of it is the democratization of storytelling. That’s incredibly valuable. That means that anyone in this room could tell a story, or make a game at scale, with the help of a photoreal engine or an engine and AI tools. That, I think, is what excites me about it most.

— Joe Russo — Collider panel, April 2023

There’s a lot of finger-pointing and hyperbole because people are afraid. They don’t understand. But ultimately you’ll see AI used more significantly.

— Joe Russo — The Sunday Times (via Screen Rant), March 2025

We have to approach AI the same way we approach all technological innovations. It’s potentially a valuable tool, but it’s the kind of tool that artists always have to remain in control of, but there’s going to be some valuable role in the creative process and the filmmaking process.

— Anthony Russo — MovieWeb, March 2025

I think everyone should be scared of AI. I don’t know if you’ve heard any of the Drake ‘songs’ that have been dropping on social media, but it’s here. It’s not going anywhere.

— Joe Russo — Variety, 2023

We consider ourselves [to be] technologists. We like technology. We’re drawn to new technology. We love the potentials that it can unlock, both in our filmmaking and in life in general.

— Anthony Russo — TechRadar, 2025

It’s potentially a valuable tool, but it’s the kind of tool that artists always have to remain in control of, but there’s going to be some valuable role in the creative process and the filmmaking process.

— Anthony Russo — The Hollywood Reporter, 2025

Biography

Anthony Russo (born 1970) and Joe Russo (born 1971) are American filmmakers who direct as a duo. They are among the highest-grossing directors of all time, best known for four Marvel films — including Avengers: Infinity War and the record-breaking Endgame — and for founding the production company AGBO, which produced the Best Picture winner Everything Everywhere All at Once.

They are also among Hollywood’s most outspoken AI optimists. As early as 2023, Joe Russo predicted that AI would soon be able to generate full, personalized films on demand, framing the technology as a “democratization of storytelling” and disclosing that he sits on the boards of several AI companies. The brothers describe themselves as technologists drawn to new tools — optimists, in Anthony’s words — even as they acknowledge real dangers and insist artists must stay in control.

In 2025 they put the position into practice, using generative AI on their film The Electric State and publicly defending the choice. Their argument is that much of the backlash is driven by fear and misunderstanding, and that — for all its current limits and “hallucinations” — generative AI is best suited to exactly the kind of open-ended creative work that filmmaking demands.

Building an AI-native studio

The brothers have institutionalized the bet. In October 2024, AGBO hired the machine-learning and algorithms specialist Dominic Hughes, Ph.D., as its chief scientific officer, charged with guiding “the development and deployment of AI technologies to enrich the creative process,” and the studio has stood up an innovation unit to build proprietary creative tools for development, production, and post-production. Like James Cameron — who joined Stability AI’s board the same season — the Russos have moved from praising the technology to wiring it into their pipeline.

At SXSW London in June 2026, Joe Russo returned to the theme onstage with Fortnite creative chief Donald Mustard, arguing that in a fragmenting media landscape “storytelling is the last unifier we have” — and that the future they are building toward blends gaming and linear film, with the audience’s interplay with the story as the critical ingredient.