Netlix Mainstreams AI-Generated VFX in "El Eternauta"

We just witnessed the entertainment industry's Pandora's box moment, and most people missed it entirely. Netflix quietly announced it used generative AI to create visual effects in "El Eternauta," an Argentine sci-fi series—marking the first time AI-generated footage appeared in a Netflix original. Ted Sarandos called it "an incredible opportunity to help creators make films and series better, not just cheaper," but let's be honest: we're not talking about "better" here. We're talking about the systematic erosion of the boundary between authentic and synthetic content, and the implications for how we consume and trust media are staggering.

This isn't just about a building collapse in Buenos Aires being rendered 10 times faster than traditional methods. It's about the moment when the entertainment industry officially admitted that reality is negotiable, and we're all supposed to pretend that's fine. The technology that created a convincing building destruction scene will be the same technology that makes it impossible to distinguish between what actually happened and what a computer imagined.

The Deepfake Deluge Is Already Here

The numbers are genuinely terrifying. Deepfake incidents surged to 179 in just the first quarter of 2025, already exceeding the total for all of 2024 by 19%. Celebrities were targeted 47 times in Q1 2025—an 81% increase compared to the entire previous year. The global AI-generated deepfake market is projected to reach $1.39 billion by 2033, growing at a 37.6% compound annual growth rate.

But here's the kicker: there is an ongoing race between deepfake creators and deepfake detectors with many examples of deepfake detectors some steps behind. While we're celebrating Netflix's efficiency gains, we're ignoring the fundamental problem that deepfakes can scramble our understanding of truth in multiple ways by exploiting our inclination to trust the reliability of evidence that we see with our own eyes.

The entertainment industry has essentially announced that visual evidence is now optional. The combination of impressive natural language generation models such as GPT‑3 paired with gaming deepfakes will result in NPCs possessing the limitless ability to converse with your avatar with convincing synchronized face and mouth movements. We're not just watching the future of entertainment—we're witnessing the death of visual truth as a shared reference point.

The Authenticity Crisis Marketers Can't Ignore

For marketers, this Netflix moment represents a seismic shift that most brands aren't prepared for. We're entering an era where 26% of individuals encountered a deepfake scam online in 2024, with 9% falling victim to such schemes. When a quarter of your audience has been burned by synthetic content, trust becomes the scarcest commodity in your marketing arsenal.

The implications cascade through every aspect of content marketing. User-generated content campaigns become minefields when you can't distinguish between authentic customer testimonials and AI-generated fakes. Influencer partnerships require new verification protocols when anyone can create convincing deepfakes of popular creators. Brand storytelling faces a credibility crisis when audiences develop a "zero-trust mindset" toward all digital content.

The low cost, ease and scale exacerbate the existing disinformation problem, particularly when used for political manipulation and societal polarisation. Netflix's VFX breakthrough isn't just about production efficiency—it's about normalizing synthetic content at the exact moment when distinguishing real from fake becomes critical for brand survival.

The Watermarking Band-Aid Won't Save Us

Industry leaders are scrambling to implement watermarking solutions, but they're essentially trying to solve a fire with a garden hose. The deployment of watermarking technologies raises several ethical and privacy concerns, including the potential for unauthorized watermarking of human-generated content, which could infringe on individual privacy and content ownership rights.

Google's SynthID and Meta's watermarking research represent genuine technological progress, but they're fighting an asymmetric battle. The watermarking prize competition in the NDAA is a promising idea, but the end date of December 31, 2025 might be too late to be effective; the landscape of generative AI will likely look significantly different by then.

The fundamental problem with watermarking as a solution is that it assumes voluntary compliance. Without regulatory mandates, the effectiveness of watermarking as a tool to verify the authenticity of content is undermined, as developers may opt to bypass watermarking. Netflix's announcement demonstrates that major platforms are willing to use unwatermarked AI-generated content when it serves their business interests.

The Post-Authenticity Marketing Playbook

We're entering what we might call the "post-authenticity era"—where the very concept of authentic content becomes meaningless, and marketers must adapt to an environment where every piece of media is potentially synthetic. This isn't necessarily dystopian; it's just a new reality that demands new strategies.

Deepfake technology isn't just a tool; it's a bridge between imagination and reality. For forward-thinking marketers, this represents an opportunity to create more personalized, localized, and culturally relevant content at scale. By using AI-driven lip-syncing and voice modulation, films, games, and other media can be seamlessly localized into multiple languages without losing the authenticity of performances.

The brands that will thrive in this environment are those that embrace transparency about their synthetic content while building new forms of trust based on brand values rather than content provenance. When everything can be fake, authenticity becomes about consistency, reliability, and genuine value delivery—not whether your spokesperson is a real person or an AI construct.

Netflix's El Eternauta

Netflix's "El Eternauta" moment marks the end of content authenticity as we know it. The entertainment industry has officially embraced synthetic media, and the implications ripple through every aspect of digital marketing. The companies that recognize this shift early and adapt their strategies accordingly will have a massive advantage over those still clinging to outdated notions of "real" content.

We're not heading toward a world where we can't tell real from fake—we're already there. The question isn't whether synthetic content will become mainstream; it's whether your brand will be ready when the last pretense of authenticity disappears entirely.

The future belongs to those who can build trust in an environment where trust itself has been algorithmically generated.

Ready to navigate the post-authenticity era? Winsome Marketing's growth experts help brands build trust and engagement strategies that work regardless of whether your content is human-created or AI-generated. Because in a world where everything can be fake, authentic brand relationships become the only currency that matters.