Netflix said artificial intelligence has been used in around 300 of its titles this year, with co-chief executive Ted Sarandos telling investors in a quarterly earnings update on Thursday that AI now generates "highly complex sequences" including crowd scenes and shots of historical battles. Sarandos argued many such segments would not have been filmed at all because of cost or time constraints, and framed AI as a tool for filmmakers: "Movies are being made by people who make movies." He had said at the end of April that AI was already used for special effects and that the company was only scratching the surface. Netflix acquired InterPositive, an AI filmmaking tools company founded by Ben Affleck, in early March. The same July earnings report said Netflix will report film and series popularity data once a year instead of twice.