Good Disruption: AI + Entertainment

The proliferation of AI has given rise to fear of job replacement across many industries, including entertainment. Technologies like Chat GPT and AI-facilitated computer-generated imagery (CGI) threaten the livelihoods of tens of thousands of writers and actors. In April 2023, the Writers Guild of America (WGA) went on strike against the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. Months later, the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) followed suit. In their list of demands: protection from the use of AI by studios. Is this a real or perceived threat, and what is the potential impact on the consumer experience?

Darden Professors Mike Lenox and Yael Grushka-Cockayne speak with Professor Anthony Palomba, who teaches leadership communication and storytelling with data at Darden. His research explores how technology innovation influences competition among entertainment and media firms and the deployment of these technologies to better understand consumer and firm behaviors.

About the Expert

Anthony Palomba

Assistant Professor of Business Administration

Anthony Palomba is fascinated by the media and entertainment industries and the strategic forces reshaping them. As a media scholar specializing in machine learning, causal inference, and applied econometrics, his research examines how audiences engage with content and how technology transforms competition across the media, advertising, and gaming industries. His work explores the behavioral and economic mechanisms behind entertainment consumption and develops empirical models to understand and predict audience patterns.

Before joining academia, Palomba served as a research manager at Ipsos, leading projects for clients including HBO, Facebook, CNN, Fox Sports 1, and NBCUniversal/Comcast. During his doctoral studies, he collaborated with Nielsen to study how millennials consume and engage with media products and services.

B.A., Manhattanville College; M.A., Syracuse University; Ph.D., University of Florida; M.S., Purdue University (in progress)

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About the Expert

Yael Grushka-Cockayne

Vice Dean; Senior Associate Dean for Professional Degree Programs; Altec Styslinger Foundation Bicentennial Professor of Business Administration

Grushka-Cockayne’s research and teaching activities focus on decision analysis, forecasting, project management and behavioral decision-making.

As an expert in the area of project management, she has served as a consultant to international firms in the aerospace and transportation industries. She is the secretary/treasurer of INFORMS Decision Analysis Society, a U.Va. Excellence in Diversity fellow and member the Project Management Institute.

B.Sc., Ben-Gurion University; M.Sc., London School of Economics; M.Res., Ph.D., London Business School

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About the Expert

Michael Lenox

Interim Dean; Tayloe Murphy Professor of Business Administration

Lenox’s expertise is in the domain of technology strategy and policy. He studies the role of innovation in helping a business succeed. In particular, he explores the sourcing of external knowledge by firms and this practice’s impact on a company’s innovation strategy. Lenox has a longstanding interest in the interface between business strategy and public policy as it relates to the natural environment; his work explores firm strategies and nontraditional public policies that have the potential to drive green innovation and entrepreneurship.

In 2013, Lenox co-authored The Strategist’s Toolkit with Darden Professor Jared Harris. His latest book,

Lenox is a prolific author; his most recent book, Strategy in the Digital Age: Mastering Digital Transformation, examines how digital technologies and services enable the creation of innovative products and services, as well as identifying new competitive positions.

B.S., M.S., University of Virginia; Ph.D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology

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