Knucklehead Launches Airhead, Its Director-Led AI Studio Reimagining Commercial Production

It was only a matter of time before production companies started taking AI into their own hands to keep pace with the brands and agencies who have already begun exploring its potential. Knucklehead is now at the forefront of that reckoning, proving it can move fast, think big and still handle the logistics of large-scale productions without losing its footing or its sense of craft with precision.

Knucklehead has launched Airhead, its in-house AI Studio, under the guidance of award-winning director Chris Hewitt. As agencies and brands grow more curious about what AI can do and where it falls short, Airhead reinforces that AI is a tool for filmmaking and not a replacement for craft.

LBB’s Olivia Atkins spoke to Knucklehead’s co-founder Tim Katz and Chris to discuss why now is the moment for Airhead, what the studio actually does, and how AI is quietly reshaping the landscape of commercial production.

LBB> Why did you decide to launch Airhead now? What pushed Knucklehead to create the AI studio?

Tim> We’ve been thinking about our AI offering for a while, but the turning point was a big job we did for MG Motors earlier this year, which was a hybrid AI and live-action project that worked incredibly well. Agencies and clients are all talking about AI. They’re curious, but they also don’t really know what they’re asking for yet.
We’ve been making commercials for 20–30 years; we’re not trying to replace that. But AI is definitely one of the answers to future-proofing production. It expands what’s possible. So Airhead is our way of saying: we can help you navigate this, and we know how to use the tool properly.

'The Pentathlete', MG Motors

LBB> Chris, you’ve been experimenting with AI for a while. What made you feel the timing was right?

Chris> AI has reached a point where it can slot naturally into the traditional filmmaking process. Say you need a drone shot over a mountain range but you don’t have the budget, that used to mean trawling stock sites. Now we can just make that shot… and make it feel completely integrated with the footage we’re shooting.

When AI sits inside real footage, it often enhances the realism. And you can now respond to client feedback, generate multiple takes, and refine things with a really small team. It means ideas that once cost £100k for a single shot can be done in days. And that’s creativity-expanding.

LBB> So what exactly is Airhead? Is it a roster, a lab or a production unit?

Tim> Agencies want people making AI commercials who actually know how to make commercials. That’s the core of Airhead.

We’re building a director-led AI team, with filmmakers first, who are supported by AI-skilled artists and technologists. Prompters alone won’t cut it. You still need people who understand storytelling, how to treat a script, how to communicate with agencies and clients, and how to craft a film.

Chris is the creative director of Airhead. We’ll build a roster of both traditional directors and AI artists, and the marriages between those skill sets are what will make the work strong.

LBB> Is there a knowledge-sharing or training aspect within Airhead?

Chris> Definitely. There are incredible AI artists out there, and there’s also a huge difference between an AI artist, an AI filmmaker, and a filmmaker full stop.

My role is partly to bridge those worlds, by guiding younger artists and helping them to shape a process, helping them talk to agencies and making sure the storytelling fundamentals stay strong.

And look, everything is evolving constantly. Tools change weekly. So building a collaborative, shared brain and trust inside Knucklehead means we can adapt without losing out on craft.

LBB> Walk us through the MG Motors ‘Pentathlete’ job you mentioned. It was your first AI-live action hybrid. What did you learn?

Chris> It was the perfect testing ground. The car was shot for real but the human pentathlete vignettes were all AI.

A year ago, the tools were much less advanced, so we had to basically recreate the logic of filmmaking inside the prompt: by giving it pages of detail for wardrobe, lighting, location, action and nuance. If you leave gaps, the model fills them with the AI slop we see all over social media. But when you control the variables, the realism can be amazing.

We’d start with stills, get agency approval, build the storyboards, then create multiple ’take’ variations to send to the editor, exactly like rushes really. It was just traditional filmmaking with a different capture tool.

Tim> One key learning from that job was that changing a shot late is really hard. It’s not like asking a VFX house to nudge something. The approach has to be intentional from the start.

LBB> Is Airhead tool-agnostic? How do you choose the workflow for each job?

Chris> It’s totally job-dependent. Some things can be done in browser-based tools. But more complex scenes need node-based pipelines like ComfyUI or Flora, which are super stable, secure, private, and built for heavy rendering.

Part of pitching will now involve mapping the workflow before greenlighting a job. That’s new territory in production and it’ll mean we’ll have to figure out the AI pipeline as early as you’d figure out a shooting plan.

LBB> Where does traditional craft sit within this new AI/hybrid approach? And how can we safeguard human craft and instinct?

Chris> It’s a huge question. My instinct is that AI can deepen creativity, but it will never replace the emotional reward of being on set with 100 people, pulling off a shot that everyone’s buzzing about. Nothing matches that.

But used well, AI fills the gaps. If the project means we can’t afford to shoot glaciers, we can now. If you want a car in perfect twilight for ten shots, but you’ve only got two hours of real light, AI can keep you in that magic sliver of daylight. It enhances scale and beauty without removing the human pieces, that are made up of performance, story and cinematography.

Tim> Technology has changed filmmaking many times. Just as a Hockney painting on an iPad doesn’t diminish his artistry, young directors won’t be less skilled, they’ll just have more tools. And honestly, for emerging talent, AI is incredible: you can sketch ideas, test concepts and make things you could never afford to shoot at the weekend.

LBB> Will AI-based imagery age quickly as the tech evolves?

Chris> Maybe, just like early CGI or early digital video aged quickly. But post houses have already been using AI quietly for ages; the line between AI and VFX will blur.
We’re in the chaotic middle of a big industry shift. Standards will level out. Right now, people calling everything ‘AI slop’ just aren’t seeing what the real artists are doing. There’s incredible work already happening.

LBB> What types of projects do you hope Airhead attracts?

Tim> The right ones. We’ve already said ‘no’ to things where AI wasn’t the right tool. People will come in saying, “we want this to be AI,” and sometimes the responsible answer is, “you shouldn’t and don’t need to go there.”
But for music videos, imaginative commercial briefs, hybrids, scale-heavy ideas, AI can be perfect. We think in 2026, we will see a real upswing in AI-enhanced work.

Chris> Especially music videos. You’re going to see some absolutely wild stuff this year.

LBB> Finally: what does Airhead stand for, creatively?

Tim> It’s about using AI with purpose, not just because it’s a trend. We’ve got to remember that it’s always filmmakers first, and tools second.

Chris> And to encourage creativity without limitations. AI doesn’t replace the human stuff, it lets us dream bigger and deliver more. If we’re not exploring this now, we’re already behind.