AI in the Director's Chair: Katalist's $1.5M Bet on Automated Filmmaking

SAN FRANCISCO, CA – December 18, 2025 – In a move that signals growing investor confidence in artificial intelligence’s role within creative industries, video production platform Katalist has announced it has raised $1.5 million in new funding. The investment, led by South Central Ventures, is earmarked to accelerate the development of what the company calls a “next-generation video production operating system.”

Katalist is at the forefront of a technological wave seeking to redefine how video content is made. As the demand for high-quality video across marketing, film, and social media escalates, production teams face immense pressure to deliver faster and more cost-effectively. The company’s AI-driven platform aims to solve this challenge by offering an end-to-end workflow, automating the complex process of turning a simple script into shot lists, storyboards, and ultimately, a finished video. This funding arrives at a critical juncture, as the industry grapples with both the potential and the pitfalls of generative AI.

The Business of Speed

The insatiable appetite for video content has created a production bottleneck. Traditional methods, while effective, are often slow, expensive, and resource-intensive. Katalist positions itself as the solution to this market imperative. The company was co-founded by Andraz Zvonar and Blaz Blokar, who previously worked on creative automation products for major global brands.

Their experience highlighted the inherent difficulties in video production, even for projects with significant budgets and top-tier talent. “We helped the world’s top brands create higher-quality video and reach more than 1 billion people while spending less,” said Katalist co-founder and CEO Andraz Zvonar in a statement. “Now our mission is to empower storytellers everywhere to do their best work without budget or time constraints.”

This mission appears to be resonating. The company reports a user base of over 250,000 professionals who have created millions of projects on the platform. The goal is to become a foundational tool in the modern creative’s toolkit, one that outperforms conventional techniques in quality, speed, and cost. Case studies support this ambition; Publicis Groupe Slovenia, for instance, reported doubling its creative productivity and cutting production times in half by integrating Katalist into its workflow, achieving cinematic-quality visuals with greater in-house control.

From Script to Screen: How the AI Director Works

Unlike AI image generators such as Midjourney or Stable Diffusion that focus on single visual outputs, Katalist’s core technology is built around narrative structure. It functions as an all-in-one system designed to guide a project from conception to completion. The process often begins with its AI Script Assistant, which can flesh out a full script from a basic idea. From there, the platform’s machine learning models analyze the text to automatically generate detailed storyboards.

Users maintain a high degree of creative oversight, with options to customize framing, camera angles, character poses, and overall composition. One of its most touted features is character consistency, which aims to maintain a character's appearance across multiple scenes—a significant challenge in generative AI. Testimonials from industry professionals highlight its practical benefits. One executive producer noted the platform saves “tons of minutes” in production and helps align the entire team's creative direction from the outset. Another creative director praised how it cut pre-production time in half, enabling quicker client turnarounds with detailed visual previews.

By automating the laborious pre-production phase, the platform allows creators to visualize their projects rapidly and iterate on ideas without the costs associated with traditional storyboarding and concept art. The cloud-based system further democratizes access, removing the need for specialized hardware and making advanced production tools available on any device.

Navigating a Crowded AI Landscape

Katalist enters a fiercely competitive market. It vies for attention not only against other specialized AI video startups but also against established industry titans that are rapidly integrating AI into their flagship products. Competitors like RunwayML offer a robust suite of AI-powered tools, including text-to-video generation, advanced compositing, and real-time collaboration features. Meanwhile, software giants Adobe and Blackmagic Design are continuously enhancing their products, Premiere Pro and DaVinci Resolve, respectively.

Adobe’s Premiere Pro now boasts AI features like Generative Extend, which uses its Firefly model to lengthen shots, and AI-driven audio tools that automatically clean up dialogue and balance sound. Similarly, DaVinci Resolve’s Neural Engine powers features that can generate timelines from scripts and automatically switch camera angles based on speaker detection. In this environment, Katalist’s unique selling proposition lies in its holistic focus on the storytelling workflow. By concentrating on the entire journey from the initial spark of an idea to a fully realized visual narrative, it aims to carve out a niche as the go-to platform for structured, narrative-driven content creation.

Creativity Unleashed or Caged by Code?

For all its promise, the line between empowering creativity and automating it into uniformity is a fine one. The platform has garnered positive reviews for its ease of use, variety of visual styles, and its ability to quickly translate ideas into storyboards. However, the user experience is not universally seamless. Some early adopters have voiced frustrations, providing a more nuanced picture of the technology’s current state.

Reports from users have pointed to a gap between advertised capabilities and current functionality, particularly concerning a fully-realized video generation feature, which some noted was still in development. Complaints have also surfaced about visual quality, with some users struggling with AI artifacts like “unnatural fingers” or difficulties generating specific concepts consistently. While the platform advertises character consistency, some creatives have found it requires multiple attempts to maintain a character’s look across different frames. These critiques underscore the reality that while AI is advancing at a breakneck pace, it has not yet perfected the art of visual storytelling.

The debate within the creative community is whether such tools are truly unleashing creativity or merely offering a sophisticated template. The challenge for Katalist and its competitors is to build a tool that removes technical barriers without sacrificing the artist’s unique voice and control. As one documentary filmmaker using the platform noted, the true power lies in enhancing storytelling capabilities, not replacing the storyteller.

The recent funding injection will be crucial for Katalist to address these challenges, refine its technology, and deliver on its ambitious vision. The trajectory of AI in video production is undeniably upward, pushing the industry toward a future of hyper-personalized content and deeply integrated automated workflows. This evolution is reshaping job roles, creating demand for AI specialists who can bridge the gap between human vision and machine execution. As companies like Katalist continue to push the boundaries, they force the entire creative ecosystem to adapt, ensuring the conversation around AI’s role in art and media remains as dynamic as the technology itself.