01ARTICLE
Inside a hybrid AI + CGI production pipeline
Published on
"Do you make it with AI or with CGI?" — the question we hear most. The answer: both, for different jobs. A hybrid pipeline is about running every tool where it's strongest.
AI's job: speed and exploration
Generative models are the superpower of the concept phase. A moodboard used to mean days of reference hunting; now we look at fifty variations in an afternoon. Showing the client the director's mental frame the day after the brief compresses approvals radically. AI also enters production itself for e-commerce assets and character design — the character in ŞOK's TV commercial was designed with AI.
CGI's job: control and accuracy
AI dreams beautifully but doesn't know physics: the angle of light, a product's millimetre-true proportions, the brand's exact Pantone. None of those errors survive into a final frame. The CGI layer builds the scene with physical accuracy; the product holds its true geometry and materials in every shot. In FOOH work, that precision is what keeps the "is it real?" illusion alive.
Live action's job: the human layer
Hands, faces, touch. The layer people bond with is still human. In hybrid work we shoot real plates and real talent, build the world in CGI, and stitch the seams with AI-assisted tools.
Five stops on the line
- Brief: one question — who is this for, on which channel, driving what action?
- Concept & moodboard: AI-assisted exploration; the approved board is production's contract.
- Production: CGI + AI + live action, simultaneously, in one pipeline.
- Revision: defined rounds; what changed and why stays traceable.
- Delivery: vertical, horizontal, DOOH, TV — every format from the same scene.
The result? Tadelle's hybrid AI film came off this exact line and passed 45M views. When speed stops costing quality, you're on the right pipeline.