Ben Arnon
Appearances
Lead With AI
How Showtime AI Plans to Reinvent Moviegoing by 2030—And Save Cinema Along the Way
all that we could be bombarded with with AI. So that sort of notion of subtracting and gaining more from less, I think is super important.
Lead With AI
How Showtime AI Plans to Reinvent Moviegoing by 2030—And Save Cinema Along the Way
I think by 2028, the most valuable skill in business will not be prompt engineering or coding. I think it will be defining meaningful problems for AI to solve. We're moving from an era where technical implementation was the bottleneck to one where human integration and imagination evolved. is the limiting factor. And, you know, I started a Substack recently, benarnon.substack.com.
Lead With AI
How Showtime AI Plans to Reinvent Moviegoing by 2030—And Save Cinema Along the Way
I'm talking a lot about this, about the power of interdisciplinary thinking, the power of that integrative model and orchestration. And so, yeah, I think that that's where it's at. And that's my bold prediction.
Lead With AI
How Showtime AI Plans to Reinvent Moviegoing by 2030—And Save Cinema Along the Way
I'd say try this experiment this week. So next time you're planning to see a movie, notice all the friction points in your decision process. Like when are the show times? Which theater? What's the right price point for you? Then imagine if an AI already knew your preferences and had optimized all these variables.
Lead With AI
How Showtime AI Plans to Reinvent Moviegoing by 2030—And Save Cinema Along the Way
And that gap between your current experience and what's possible is exactly what we're addressing. So for those building in the AI space, for instance, look for those similar disconnects in traditional industries and those places where static systems are trying to serve dynamic human needs.
Lead With AI
How Showtime AI Plans to Reinvent Moviegoing by 2030—And Save Cinema Along the Way
And I believe that that's where AI can create not just incremental improvements, but the transformative new possibilities. And we're approaching the summer season, lots of blockbusters that people love to go to. So lots of movie going experiences. So I'd say run through that experiment.
Lead With AI
How Showtime AI Plans to Reinvent Moviegoing by 2030—And Save Cinema Along the Way
Thank you. I really appreciate that. And this podcast is phenomenal. So keep doing what you're doing. Thanks. And thanks for all you do.
Lead With AI
How Showtime AI Plans to Reinvent Moviegoing by 2030—And Save Cinema Along the Way
Yeah. Well, thanks for inviting me on here. And this is a great podcast. Um, so my background is a mix of media slash entertainment and technology. And, uh, and I've, you know, produced films and I've worked at places like universal pictures and Jersey films. And, you know, I love, I love film and cinema and I love going to the movie theater.
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How Showtime AI Plans to Reinvent Moviegoing by 2030—And Save Cinema Along the Way
And there's actually a movie theater, literally two blocks down the street from me where I live. So over the winter, you know, I live in New York, so it was cold. So I went to a lot of movies this winter and, um, You know, in general, I'm always fascinated. I've always kind of been fascinated by the disconnect between technology and traditional industries.
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How Showtime AI Plans to Reinvent Moviegoing by 2030—And Save Cinema Along the Way
And, you know, movie theaters are running on systems that were designed decades ago, and they're operating at oftentimes like 15 to 25% capacity, especially outside of blockbuster weekends. Like I was going to a lot of movies over the winter, great movies, but I'd be in the theater with like five other people or six other people. And, you know, and so the spark came, you know, around that.
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How Showtime AI Plans to Reinvent Moviegoing by 2030—And Save Cinema Along the Way
I thought to myself, That doesn't really make sense. And so it hit me. Theaters are kind of using these static schedules and pricing in a dynamic. And what's a dynamic world? They're just doing like static pricing. But, you know, you have airlines and hotels have kind of solved this years ago. Right. With like advanced yield management.
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How Showtime AI Plans to Reinvent Moviegoing by 2030—And Save Cinema Along the Way
And so the vision for Showtime AI really wasn't about just building another app. It was about reimagining the entire movie ecosystem and really saving an industry that I care deeply about. After COVID and streaming, movie theaters are in trouble. So I think Showtime AI is a solution that can help to bring people back to the theaters and help make it make more sense for people to come to theaters.
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How Showtime AI Plans to Reinvent Moviegoing by 2030—And Save Cinema Along the Way
Yeah, well, you know, we went to college together in Atlanta, so I'm really proud to have produced John Lewis' Good Trouble about the famed congressman. Yeah, I also produced an Audible series called Finding Tamika, which won a DuPont Columbia Award and a Webby Award. So really excited about that, working on some scripted film and TV content as well, and also a scripted Audible series.
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How Showtime AI Plans to Reinvent Moviegoing by 2030—And Save Cinema Along the Way
So, you know, lots of exciting things on that front. You know, from a moviegoer perspective, I love the theater. I know it's a little bit of a throwback, but I love going to the movies and watching the movies in the theater. So, you know, so I did a lot of that over the winter.
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How Showtime AI Plans to Reinvent Moviegoing by 2030—And Save Cinema Along the Way
Exactly.
Lead With AI
How Showtime AI Plans to Reinvent Moviegoing by 2030—And Save Cinema Along the Way
I think the jaw-dropping moment is what I envision for the future, because it's in development right now. We are, I should mention, we are in conversations with the theater chain about doing a proof of concept and rolling out. But I think in the future, what I envision is You know, that day will come when theater managers see their revenue projections after just like the first optimization cycle.
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How Showtime AI Plans to Reinvent Moviegoing by 2030—And Save Cinema Along the Way
You know, what Showtime AI is doing is transforming movie theaters through innovative artificial intelligence solutions. So AI-powered scheduling, dynamic pricing optimization, and audience engagement. And so, you know, I can...
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How Showtime AI Plans to Reinvent Moviegoing by 2030—And Save Cinema Along the Way
envision you know a time where uh where a theater manager um sees like a 23 of 35 revenue increase within six months and you know doubling their profits and um you know and then realizing that um the system uh is making recommendations for them based on ai and all the inputs inputs like um everything from you know demand forecasting to the weather forecast to um you know competition in in that area
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How Showtime AI Plans to Reinvent Moviegoing by 2030—And Save Cinema Along the Way
And, and when their system makes recommendations that actually seem counterintuitive to seasoned theater managers, but actually turn out to be exactly right. And, you know, end up leading to an increase in revenue, an increase in attendance.
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How Showtime AI Plans to Reinvent Moviegoing by 2030—And Save Cinema Along the Way
And for movie theaters, you know, the more people that they can get in there, the more that they can sell concessions, the concessions where they have really high revenue. you know, high margins. So those were some of the things I see in the future that, you know, I think will be that draw dropping moment.
Lead With AI
How Showtime AI Plans to Reinvent Moviegoing by 2030—And Save Cinema Along the Way
I think you'd find, I think you'd feel like, like you're watching sort of a master chess player thinking like 20 moves ahead, but for movie pricing and scheduling, you know, what's happening under the hood is really a sophisticated ensemble of AI models that are working in concert.
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How Showtime AI Plans to Reinvent Moviegoing by 2030—And Save Cinema Along the Way
I kind of call it orchestration and like our demand forecasting layer, for instance, ingests, this is kind of what I was talking about before it ingests everything from historical attendance to patterns of historical attendance to weather forecasts, to social media buzz, and even local events.
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How Showtime AI Plans to Reinvent Moviegoing by 2030—And Save Cinema Along the Way
So, you know, then our optimization engine uses reinforcement learning to simultaneously solve for multiple constraints. So distributor requirements. staffing availability, physical fear limitations, and all the while maximizing revenue potential.
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How Showtime AI Plans to Reinvent Moviegoing by 2030—And Save Cinema Along the Way
So I'd say think of it as like thousands of micro experiments that are running continuously, each one learning from real world outcomes and getting smarter with every single ticket that's sold.
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How Showtime AI Plans to Reinvent Moviegoing by 2030—And Save Cinema Along the Way
There you go.
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How Showtime AI Plans to Reinvent Moviegoing by 2030—And Save Cinema Along the Way
Yeah, I'd say that's super important with anything AI-related, especially on the LLN, the model front. The ethical line that we're constantly watching is accessibility and fairness in the movie experience. So dynamic pricing could easily become a system that makes movies accessible only to those with higher disposable income, let's say.
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How Showtime AI Plans to Reinvent Moviegoing by 2030—And Save Cinema Along the Way
But we've built guardrails into our system to really ensure that it doesn't just maximize short-term revenue, but actually considers long-term audience development. So, for example, we maintain affordability windows in every schedule and actually lower prices for certain segments rather than just raising them at peak times. Oh, okay.
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How Showtime AI Plans to Reinvent Moviegoing by 2030—And Save Cinema Along the Way
And we're also always going to be putting humans firmly in the loop so that the system makes recommendations that theater managers can override. If a theater manager and then human judgment feels like it should be overridden, then that can happen. And we're transparent with moviegoers about how prices are determined because the movies are really a shared thing.
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How Showtime AI Plans to Reinvent Moviegoing by 2030—And Save Cinema Along the Way
cultural experience that should remain accessible to everyone. And we won't compromise that principle for any kind of profit.
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How Showtime AI Plans to Reinvent Moviegoing by 2030—And Save Cinema Along the Way
Yeah.
Lead With AI
How Showtime AI Plans to Reinvent Moviegoing by 2030—And Save Cinema Along the Way
Yeah, I think in 2030, the movie experience powered by Showtime AI, I think will feel fundamentally more connected to who you are. So what I mean by this is, you know, gone will be the days of like scrolling through static Showtimes, hoping that something works with your schedule. And instead, I think theaters will dynamically generate optimal Showtimes based on community demand signals.
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How Showtime AI Plans to Reinvent Moviegoing by 2030—And Save Cinema Along the Way
You know, you'll open, say, the consumer side of Showtime AI and see personalized recommendations, not just for films that you might like, but for the perfect time to see them based on your habits and your preferences. Prices will flex to reward planning on, you know, to either reward planning or spontaneity, whichever you prefer.
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How Showtime AI Plans to Reinvent Moviegoing by 2030—And Save Cinema Along the Way
And I think your entire experience from the ticket purchase to concessions to seating, will feel like it was orchestrated really, you know, just for you. While theaters operate at higher capacities with greater efficiency.
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How Showtime AI Plans to Reinvent Moviegoing by 2030—And Save Cinema Along the Way
And I think that theatrical experience will stop being sort of a commodity and it will hopefully return to being something special, like a curated experience that blends what I call the magic of cinema with the precision of personalization. I know for myself, when I go to that movie theater and I'm sitting there and there's like six other people in the theater, I'm a little lonely.
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How Showtime AI Plans to Reinvent Moviegoing by 2030—And Save Cinema Along the Way
I prefer for there to be more people there. And so I think that will help theaters to get way beyond that 15 to 25% capacity figure that they're operating at right now.
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How Showtime AI Plans to Reinvent Moviegoing by 2030—And Save Cinema Along the Way
Me, personally, not really, but, you know, to teach their own. You know, I like to lock in and not miss anything. But for some movies, that is fun, though.
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How Showtime AI Plans to Reinvent Moviegoing by 2030—And Save Cinema Along the Way
Well, I'll tell you, I mean, I, I, I first built it, you know, initially just using lovable and, you know, that's one of a trillion different vibe coding platforms out there. And, you know, I, I put in this, I have, I have a sort of process for enhancing my prompts and then enhancing it even further. If I knew the prompt and the inputs were really strong, but the output just blew me away.
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How Showtime AI Plans to Reinvent Moviegoing by 2030—And Save Cinema Along the Way
I mean, the, the level of analytics dashboards and like the pricing elasticity, uh, toggle, it was just unbelievable. Uh, And then of course I've iterated on it a lot from there and, you know, made it much more production ready. But I mean, I guess that just goes for anything having to do with vibe coding. I like to call it AI coding. I think, I think week after week, the level of,
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How Showtime AI Plans to Reinvent Moviegoing by 2030—And Save Cinema Along the Way
complexity and the level of output just increases exponentially. And I'm constantly blown away by what we can create now with really no coding knowledge. So that first time when I first saw the extent of the analytics and dashboards, I just was floored by the output.
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How Showtime AI Plans to Reinvent Moviegoing by 2030—And Save Cinema Along the Way
I appreciate that.
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How Showtime AI Plans to Reinvent Moviegoing by 2030—And Save Cinema Along the Way
Yeah, we covered that a little bit before. I think it's the mindset. I think it has to be infused into the DNA of the corporate culture of any AI company, any company that's utilizing AI. Again, like for the most part, we're all using the same model. We're all using that GPT or a cloud or, you know, Google Gemini or what have you.
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How Showtime AI Plans to Reinvent Moviegoing by 2030—And Save Cinema Along the Way
So, you know, at the end of the day, a lot of the responsible ethical elements of AI are really dependent upon those models. Those models have to get it right. And I know that, you know, anthropic for instance, is like super focused on, you know, responsible AI and, and, you know, chat GPT and Google say the same thing.
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How Showtime AI Plans to Reinvent Moviegoing by 2030—And Save Cinema Along the Way
But for any layer that's sitting on top of those models, I think it's just important that we also think about all of the... AI, I think, is incredible and has the ability to enhance everyone's life and propel people forward. you know, into a new stratosphere if people can harness the power and potential of AI.
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How Showtime AI Plans to Reinvent Moviegoing by 2030—And Save Cinema Along the Way
But we can never take for granted that it could also go in a whole different direction and it could be incredibly harmful in a lot of different ways. So that always needs to be on the minds of anyone building with AI. And, you know, we talked about before a little bit how we're thinking about that. Great, great question.
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How Showtime AI Plans to Reinvent Moviegoing by 2030—And Save Cinema Along the Way
It should be something that anyone, I'm going to throw this to you, anyone leading with AI should be thinking about. There you go.
Lead With AI
How Showtime AI Plans to Reinvent Moviegoing by 2030—And Save Cinema Along the Way
I'd say metaverse real estate. I think creating artificial scarcity in a world of infinite digital possibility sort of kind of misses the point entirely.
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How Showtime AI Plans to Reinvent Moviegoing by 2030—And Save Cinema Along the Way
I'd say multimodal reasoning. I know that's kind of dorky to say, but it's AI that can think across text, images, audio, and data simultaneously. It's how humans naturally process the world. And I think it's going to change everything about human to AI collaboration.
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How Showtime AI Plans to Reinvent Moviegoing by 2030—And Save Cinema Along the Way
I think there's a great book that came out a few years ago, but it's called Subtract, The Untapped Science of Less. And it's by Leidy Klotz. And it's about the most powerful innovations often come from removing complexity rather than adding features. And that principle, I think, is even more important in the age of AI, where it's easy to become overwhelmed with complexity.