Nikola Todorovic onstage at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025.

In 2025, Nikola Todorovic, VFX supervisor, entrepreneur, and co-creator of Autodesk Flow Studio, reinforced his role as one of the industry’s leading voices on AI and the future of media and entertainment (M&E).

From SeriesFest’s SAG-AFTRA AI in Entertainment panel to the Toronto International Film Festival’s (TIFF) 50th anniversary, AI on the Lot, TechCrunch Disrupt, and SIGGRAPH, Nikola met audiences where they are with a consistent message: AI should empower creators, not replace them. He carried that perspective into podcast conversations with creative-technologists—Bad Decisions, School of Motion, befores & afters, James Altucher, and more—where he spoke as a practitioner with deep production roots, not a theorist chasing the hype cycle.

As we look back on a pivotal year for M&E, five questions kept surfacing—here’s how he answered.

1: How is Autodesk Flow Studio different from text-to-video ‘AI slop’?

A: AI isn’t magic. You can’t press a button and replace human storytelling. Autodesk Flow Studio elevates human performance; it doesn’t fabricate one.

2: How can AI help bring more artists to the field?

A: I grew up in a small country, Yugoslavia, and spent years trying to break into this industry. That’s why I’m so optimistic about AI in the long term–if we get it right, it enables more storytellers to exist, from anywhere in the world.

3: Are synthetic actors the future?

A: I certainly hope not–do we really want the top films of the year starring humans who don’t exist? To me, that would be a failure, not progress.

4: How can creators take creative control?

A: Filmmaking is iterative. Directors adjust a camera by an inch or a performance by a breath. Most AI tools don’t let you do that, but Autodesk Flow Studio does enable directability, since filmmaking demands precision, not prompts.

5: There’s still a lot of fear that AI will replace human storytelling – thoughts?

A: No, I don’t believe so. Sure, jobs will evolve, the production process may change, but creativity, taste, and human nuance are non-negotiable. AI accelerates the grind, but humans craft the story.

Hear more about Nikola’s perspective on the future of AI in filmmaking on Bad Decisions, School of Motion, befores & afters, James Altucher.

Nikola Todorovic and others onstage at SeriesFest.