Korean entertainment powerhouse CJ ENM is betting big on artificial intelligence, unveiling a comprehensive AI content strategy alongside the premiere of its first fully AI-generated animation series “Cat Biggie” at an industry event in Seoul on Monday.
The company, which celebrates its 30th anniversary this year, hosted the 2025 CJ ENM Culture Talk titled “K-Content Meets AI: How AI Technology is Transforming the Future of the K-Content Industry” at its Sangam studio, where executives detailed plans to revolutionize content creation through proprietary AI technology.
“We are applying AI across the entire content value chain — including planning, production, distribution, and marketing — to expand AI content production across genres and formats,” said Shin Keun-sup, CJ ENM’s chief strategy officer. “This allows us to secure next-generation IP.”
The Oscar-winning “Parasite” producer demonstrated two key AI systems currently integrated into its production workflows. Cinematic AI is designed for narrative content like drama and film, seamlessly integrating image, video, sound and voice in a single system while automatically processing 3D characters and environments for consistent visual output — addressing a major challenge in AI-generated video content.
The company’s AI Script system functions as an AI agent for IP discovery, analyzing consumer demand and market trends to identify promising properties and suggest suitable genres and media formats. Unlike conventional AI models from major tech companies, CJ ENM says its tool demonstrates superior understanding of literary language for deeper content marketability analysis with cross-lingual capabilities.
“Cat Biggie,” the non-verbal short-form animation series that premiered at the event, represents CJ ENM’s first fully in-house AI production. The series, which follows a cat who unexpectedly becomes father to a baby chick, consists of 30 two-minute episodes produced by a team of just six specialists over five months — including content planning and character development.
“The key challenge was controlling and expressing the dynamic movements unique to animation,” said Baek Hyun-jung, head of AI business and production, who led the project. “We used our tool, Cinematic AI, to convert the characters into 3D data and train the production system accordingly. This allowed us to achieve a high level of completeness in the final output.”
The timeline represents a significant efficiency gain, as CJ ENM notes that typical 5-minute 3D animations require three to four months of production time. “Cat Biggie” will launch globally on YouTube in July.
Building on the animation debut, CJ ENM plans to expand into AI film and AI drama productions within the year, positioning itself as what Shin called “a global AI studio” through team expansion and creator development programs.
The company’s AI push comes as the entertainment industry grapples with both the creative possibilities and regulatory challenges of artificial intelligence. Sang-Hyeok Im, partner at SHIN & KIM LLC, participated in a policy discussion at the event, emphasizing the need for “clear industry guidelines, legal frameworks for copyright and data protection, and dedicated government departments to support the field.”
CJ ENM’s entertainment division has been a major force in the global expansion of Korean culture, producing acclaimed content including “Queen of Tears,” the globally successful “I Can See Your Voice” competition series, and Tony Award-winning musicals like “Kinky Boots.” The company operates three major studios — drama-focused Studio Dragon, U.S.-based Fifth Season, and CJ ENM Studios — along with Korean streaming platform TVING.