From a technology perspective, the big news from Netflix’s second quarter was the completion of its ad tech roll-out—over two years (10 quarters) since the Netflix with Ads tier made its debut in Q4 2022. However, this was a clever smokescreen, because the latest and most significant technological development at Netflix was not even hinted at during the company’s earnings call. This involved the use of generative AI technology in a Netflix original show, for the first time. Netflix’s genAI debut came during an episode of ‘The Eternaut’, an Argentine sci-fi series, and was used to develop a building collapse scene. While Netflix has not disclosed a specific dollar figure for the cost savings achieved by using genAI, Netflix boasted…