At Japan’s Fuji Television, a drama crew now needs up to 70 to 80% fewer work hours on some tasks when generative AI does part of the job, the network says. The network measured this in its own test lab, on specific production steps only. On November 5, 2026, it published the figure with a plan: by around October 2027, every drama it makes should be able to use AI.
Fuji TV is one of Japan’s main commercial networks and makes 16 drama series a year for its prime-time slots. The Japanese business newspaper Nikkei reported the same day that Fuji TV is the first of Japan’s major Tokyo-based commercial networks to bring AI fully into its drama production. The first results are already on air, in a hospital drama.
A hospital drama as the test bed
The show, Kyumei Byoto 24 Ji (Emergency Room 24 Hours), airs Mondays at 9 p.m. In episode 1, the aerial shot of an explosion scene is fictional scenery generated by AI, with smoke digitally layered on top. According to Nikkei, as relayed by South Korean broadcaster SBS, those shots were generated with AI instead of being filmed from a helicopter.
Fuji TV says its new AI lab, AI Sandbox, already works on several of its dramas, and it describes this one in detail. Before a shoot, the director’s planned shots are turned into AI images and shared with the crew, so everyone agrees on the finished look. AI is also used for detailed image work in medical scenes and for accident scenes that would be hard to film for real, the network says. Nikkei Asia, Nikkei’s English-language news site, reported that the technology simulated blood during surgery as well as the explosion.
Fuji TV’s staff give practical reasons for using AI. Daisuke Nagashima, a department head at the network’s drama and film production center, lists “location, weather, regulations and safety” among the limits that make some scenes hard to shoot. He says producers tell him that having more options “is a great help.”
Ryotaro Adachi, who produces the show, says its disaster scenes and scenes set abroad reached an image quality “beyond imagination.” (Quotes are translated from Fuji TV’s Japanese release.)
A lab inside the studio, and a timetable
Fuji TV set up the operation behind the show a few months ago. In a July reorganization, it created an AI Center inside its digital strategy office. The network’s test site, AI Sandbox, has been running since September at its Wangan Studio in Tokyo.
The AI Sandbox team brings together the network’s drama and film production center, its Tech Art Design bureau and ANDENT, an AI company, among others. Directors, producers and technical staff work alongside outside “AI producers” and “AI designers.”
The team chooses its tools scene by scene. Before shooting, it shares the script and the images it is aiming for, then picks among live filming, visual effects (digital work on filmed footage), computer graphics and generative AI. Fuji TV’s release names no AI model, but Nikkei reported that the tools include Google’s image generator Nano Banana.
Fuji TV’s timetable has three stages. From the October 2026 season, at least one drama each quarter airs in an “AI-enhanced slot,” meaning it is made with the lab. By around October 2027, Fuji TV wants every drama it makes to be able to use AI, scene by scene, where it suits the show.
After that, the approach is meant to spread to the video companies of Fuji TV’s parent group, Fuji Media Holdings. The goal is for the group’s AI capabilities to be on par with Japan’s leading vendors in fiscal 2029.
Why networks are moving now
Fuji TV’s release gives three aims: more room for creative choices, less strain on crews and safer shoots. Nikkei Asia’s reporting adds the financial motive. In a September 24 piece, it reported that Japan’s major commercial broadcasters are turning to AI to make up for falling advertising revenue through more efficient program production. They are also guarding against copyright and other risks, it wrote.
According to Nikkei, as summarized by SBS, five major commercial networks spent 12% less on program production in the year to March 2026 than nine years earlier.
Rivals have already tried AI on single scenes. TBS, another Tokyo network, used AI for some special effects in a scene of its drama Vivant showing explosions at hospitals across Japan, according to Nikkei Asia.
In July 2025, Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos told investors that generative AI had sped up a sequence in the series The Eternaut, VICE reported, citing the BBC. The team finished the sequence, which shows a building collapsing, 10 times faster than with traditional effects tools, he said.
Outside TV, smaller teams have gone further. In October, three people at a Tokyo marketing company released a two-hour animated film made with generative AI after about three months of work. On Steam, the PC game store run by Valve, almost half of the new games released in October disclosed some use of AI, most often for artwork.
What the 80% figure does not cover
Fuji TV’s release adds caveats to its own number in the same paragraph. The 70 to 80% comes from tests on specific steps, the release says. By its own account, the figure does not show how much the production cost of a whole drama falls, or the average saving across the production process. The release does not say how the savings were measured, which steps were tested or how many hours lie behind the percentages.
“Up to 80%” describes the best results in the lab’s tests. The figure comes from the organization that deployed the tool, like the Japanese government’s estimate that civil servants who use its AI tool weekly save about 110 minutes a week.
The release says nothing about jobs. It gives no figure for visual effects staff, crew sizes or pay. Nor does it say whether viewers will be told which shots were generated by AI.
Shinya Masaki, AI Sandbox’s technical lead at the Tech Art Design bureau, stresses that the team does not make everything with AI and combines it with conventional visual effects. Efficiency, he says, is only one of the aims.
Nikkei Asia states the plan more firmly than Fuji TV does. Its article opens by saying Fuji TV will use generative AI “in producing all live-action drama series starting in October 2027.” The network’s own release is more careful. It aims for a setup, around October 2027, in which AI can be used in every drama, depending on the show and the scene.
What it means
Fuji TV’s plan differs in scale. The Netflix and TBS examples were single sequences. Fuji TV is making AI a standard option in how it plans, shoots and finishes its 16 prime-time series a year, with a lab, named staff and a date. If it meets its target of around October 2027, AI-generated shots chosen scene by scene could become a normal part of its dramas.
For the people who make TV, a cut of up to 70 to 80% in the hours on a step can be read two ways. Fuji TV makes the case for a lighter load for crews, and fewer risky shoots for scenes like explosions or disasters. At networks facing falling advertising revenue, as Nikkei Asia reports, it also means fewer paid hours on those steps. The release does not say how that work will be shared among crews, visual effects companies and outside AI specialists.
The first thing to watch is each quarter’s lineup of AI-enhanced dramas. Other open questions are whether Fuji TV publishes how it measured the savings, whether AI-generated shots get any label on screen and whether rival networks follow, as Nikkei suggests they could. Fuji TV’s own target for AI to be available on every drama it makes is around October 2027.
Sources
- フジテレビがAI活用の実験場「AI Sandbox」を設置, Fuji Television, November 5, 2026
- フジテレビ、27年から全ドラマの制作にAI 民放キー局で初の全面導入, Nikkei (Nihon Keizai Shimbun), November 5, 2026
- Japan’s Fuji TV goes all in with AI for drama production, Nikkei Asia (Hiroki Sakuragi), November 6, 2026
- Japan broadcasters roll out AI for explosion effects, other uses to cut costs, Nikkei Asia, September 24, 2026
- Japan’s Fuji TV to Fully Integrate AI into Drama Production, SBS News (Kim Young-a), November 6, 2026
- Netflix Used Generative AI to Show a Building Collapse in a Hit Show, VICE (Matt Jancer), July 18, 2025
Header image: chart by MACCUS, from Fuji Television’s news release of November 5, 2026
