Revenant Studio Releases A Statement On Its Approach To AI

Glasgow, Scotland-based animation and vfx shop Revenant has announced a statement on AI and how it will — and won’t — be used at the company.

The 14-year-old studio, which works on ad campaigns, video game cinematics, and film projects like Netflix’s documentary Apollo 13: Survival, said that it is offering the transparency into its operations as “a reflection of the studio’s growth.”

The studio, founded by creative director Kev McCrae, said that its approach “pinpoints two fundamental values that have anchored them throughout over a decade’s worth of industry shifts and changes: the craft of its artists and teams, alongside a constant curiosity to seek the best in new technologies.”

In its statement, Revenant explains that it isn’t using AI to undermine its creative process, but is looking at ways that AI can be used to prototype visual ideas and pitch materials, streamline production workflows, and assist in scripting, voice tests, and pre-production support.

Read the studio’s full statement below:

Our Approach to AI at Revenant

At Revenant, we’ve always been driven by craft, curiosity, and storytelling. As new tools emerge — including AI — we see huge potential to enhance how we work, not replace what makes our work unique.

We believe AI, when used responsibly, can support the creative process: speeding up ideation, removing repetitive tasks, and helping our artists and producers focus on what they do best — creating original, high-quality animation and VFX.

We’re actively exploring AI to:

• Rapidly prototype visual ideas and pitch materials
• Streamline workflows like rotoscoping, clean-up, and tagging
• Assist in scripting, voice tests, and pre-production support

But we’re also clear on what we don’t use it for — we don’t use AI to shortcut the creative process, we don’t lift style or work unethically, and we always put human creativity first.

For us, it’s simple: Craft comes first. AI is here to support it.

We’re committed to staying curious, collaborating openly, and leading with integrity as the creative landscape evolves.

Cartoon Brew’s Take: Revenant’s transparency is welcome and shows a common sense approach that is actively being explored by most animation/vfx producers. In 2025, studios big and small are currently implementing or actively exploring implementation of AI into their pipeline. Few are publicly talking about it, though Cartoon Brew has had many off-the-record conversations with studios and artists on the topic.

A big reason why animation companies are being so cautious about sharing any information about their efforts is because of poor understanding of the topic by the public. On social media, the most prominent pro-AI voices are grifters who have no involvement in the animation/vfx industries and who are trying to push AI as a replacement for the entire creative process. That’s a nonsensical approach that everyone in our industries knows can’t and won’t happen because animation and vfx is not a single process that can be output by a computer. It is dozens, if not hundreds, of highly specialized processes that work in tandem to achieve a finished product.

The reason studios are investigating AI is because many of these individual processes, including some mentioned by Revenant, are tedious, laborious, and outdated workflows that can reliably be replaced by automation, thus allowing creative talent to focus on what matters. It’s a nuance that is lost in the online discussion, which is almost entirely focused on the unrealistic proposal that generative AI can replace human creativity.