The Animation Guild

The Animation Guild (TAG), IATSE Local 839, has represented Hollywood’s animation artists, writers and technicians since 1952. With more than 5,000 members working across studios and streamers, it sits at the point of the industry many consider most exposed to generative AI — image generation striking directly at the craft of drawing, boarding and designing for the screen.

The 2024 contract fight

Ahead of its 2024 negotiations with the AMPTP, guild surveys showed generative AI and outsourcing were members’ top concerns, and the union convened a task force that published a lengthy GenAI report. On August 10, 2024, thousands of members and allies filled the IATSE Local 80 lot for the Stand With Animation rally — billed as the largest animation labor rally in history — before talks opened two days later. Negotiators sought the right to opt out of using AI tools on the job and to refuse having their work train AI systems.

The deal that emerged in late November 2024 won written notification when studios assign GenAI tools, the right to consult on non-AI alternatives, and language that AI use cannot undermine pay or credit — but not the opt-outs, and no bar on studios using AI at all. Members ratified it in December 2024 with 76.1 percent in favor amid open discontent: “The Mitchells vs. the Machines” director Mike Rianda said the AI terms were “far from what we were going for,” and “Inside Job” creator Shion Takeuchi argued there were no substantive protections to stop studios from gutting staffs.

Guild leadership has framed the contract as one front in a longer war, pledging to fight GenAI through legislation, tax incentives for human-made work, and grievances against abuses. A guild-commissioned 2024 study projecting that tens of thousands of entertainment jobs would be disrupted by AI within a few years remains a touchstone of the union’s case.