Atmatzidou, Avgi-Maria (2025), AI as a Creative Tool: Tracing Its Role in Interactive Documentary Evolution, Cunoașterea Științifică, 4:3, 130-147, https://www.cunoasterea.ro/ai-as-a-creative-tool-tracing-its-role-in-interactive-documentary-evolution/

 

Abstract

This article explores the transformative role of artificial intelligence (AI) in the evolution of interactive documentary filmmaking. AI technologies are changing the ways of presenting stories as well as the overall experience, which is possible with artificial intelligence technologies. In the article, the author focuses on the following aspects of AI implementation in interactive documentaries: pre-production, design, prototyping, and post-production, which encompasses GPT models, AI avatars, voice cloning, and virtual and augmented reality. It also discussed ethical concerns related to AI, like Voluntary Consent, Truth and Trust, Deepfake, and Misinformation. This article offers a focus on the role of AI in shaping narratology trends, as well as highlighting how future integrations in the field may impact structures, content, and reception by the audience. Furthermore, it notes that there exist certain ethical issues when it comes to using AI in the creation of films, technology, and other fields, as these involve the future path that should be taken to balance the use of such technologies as well as observe the legal standards and requirements set by various organizations.

Keywords: Artificial Intelligence, Interactive Documentary, Immersive Storytelling, Ethical Implications, Voice Cloning, VR/AR, Audience Personalization, Documentary Filmmaking, Deepfakes, Narrative Structure

IA ca instrument creativ: Urmărirea rolului său în evoluția documentarului interactiv

Rezumat

Acest articol explorează rolul transformator al inteligenței artificiale (IA) în evoluția realizării de film documentar interactiv. Tehnologiile IA schimbă modalitățile de prezentare a poveștilor, precum și experiența generală, ceea ce este posibil cu ajutorul tehnologiilor de inteligență artificială. În articol, autorul se concentrează pe următoarele aspecte ale implementării IA în documentarele interactive: preproducție, design, prototipare și postproducție, care cuprinde modele GPT, avatare IA, clonarea vocii și realitatea virtuală și augmentată. De asemenea, a discutat preocupările etice legate de IA, cum ar fi Consimțământul Voluntar, Adevărul și Încrederea, Deepfake-ul și Dezinformarea. Acest articol se concentrează asupra rolului IA în conturarea tendințelor naratologiei, subliniind totodată modul în care integrările viitoare în domeniu pot influența structurile, conținutul și recepția de către public. În plus, se observă că există anumite probleme etice atunci când vine vorba de utilizarea IA în crearea de filme, tehnologie și alte domenii, deoarece acestea implică calea viitoare care ar trebui urmată pentru a echilibra utilizarea acestor tehnologii, precum și pentru a respecta standardele și cerințele legale stabilite de diverse organizații.

Cuvinte cheie: Inteligență artificială, Documentar interactiv, Povestire imersivă, Implicații etice, Clonare vocală, VR/AR, Personalizarea publicului, Realizare de film documentar, Deepfake, Structură narativă

 

CUNOAȘTEREA ȘTIINȚIFICĂ, Volumul 4, Numărul 3, Septembrie 2025, pp. 130-147
ISSN 2821 – 8086, ISSN – L 2821 – 8086
URL: https://www.cunoasterea.ro/ai-as-a-creative-tool-tracing-its-role-in-interactive-documentary-evolution/
© 2025 Avgi-Maria ATMATZIDOU. Responsabilitatea conținutului, interpretărilor și opiniilor exprimate revine exclusiv autorilor.

 

AI as a Creative Tool: Tracing Its Role in Interactive Documentary Evolution

Avgi-Maria ATMATZIDOU[1]
aatmatzidou@gmail.com

[1] PhD student in the Film and Media department at Babes—Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca

 

Introduction

Recent developments in the production of documentaries saw the evolution of what are now termed interactive documentaries (i-docs). While there are documentaries that present a sequence of events over which the viewers have no control and are just observers, interactive documentaries are way different. While this format enables viewers to decide, discover, and occasionally participate in creating something, narrative media becomes a genuinely interactive conversation between the author and the consumer (Aston & Gaudenzi, 2012).

The notion of interactive documentaries emerged in recent years due to the development of interactive media trends within the media industry. Storytelling is not only a process that is told significantly by technology, but it is also a co-creative process. This change relates to the growing shift of audience expectations in a world where the audience can dictate what content they want to consume and what content they would like to promote and create. Audiences do not merely receive stories; they contribute to them. This evolution shifts the audience from being mere consumers to active participants in nonfiction media (O’Flynn, 2012).

On the other hand, artificial intelligence is gradually being introduced to different parts of movie production, including writing, editing, marketing, and consumer data analysis (Wan & Ren, 2021). Though it may not be fully expanded to interactive documentaries yet, its application to personalization and real-time content adaptation suggests what is yet to come in switchblade narratives.

This article aims to further the understanding of interactive documentaries, with emphasis on the technology that underpins this media type and its public, including the impact of AI. Its purpose is to describe how these elements combine to alter nonfiction media in a given way.

Evolution of Documentary Storytelling

Documentary filmmaking has been confined more to linear narratives in which the filmmaker constructs one narrative while the audiences are presented with that only. However, with the advent of the digital generation, this moulds the structure more like an open-reacted mode of media. The invention of web documentaries, VR, and AR has led to the creation of interactive documentaries, which have a non-linear form and configurations of perspectives where audiences can explore multiple features and entry points of multimedia (Aston & Gaudenzi, 2012).

This shift toward interaction has been greatly driven by technological advancements in gaming, web design, and Artificial Intelligence. Concepts employed by the virtual structures of video games, therefore, became the standard for the architecture of interactive documentaries: the string plots, the paradigm of choices, and the Game World (the environment where the game takes place) (Haroun et al., 2021). Hence, web design concepts, including user interfaces and user experiences, together with changes in technology, have boosted the creation of interactive forms that are friendly and easy for users. Furthermore, AI is gradually influencing the ways narratives are constructed, personalized, and interactively adjusted to user responses (Sun, 2024). Far from simply adding to documentaries, these technologies are changing what it means to be a documentary.

Notable early examples of this evolution include Hunger in Los Angeles (2012), one of the first VR documentaries, which used immersive media to place viewers within a simulated hunger crisis on Skid Row (De la Peña et al., 2010). This endeavor revealed the possibility of inciting empathy and a sense of urgency with respect to the issue in the experiential narrative. Another important work is Do Not Track (2015), a web installation, which is an interactive documentary exploring the themes of Internet privacy while presenting content based on the user’s trial (Beaulieu & Dufresne, 2015). Documentaries such as these demonstrate how more interaction and technological advancements are helping increase viewership and individualization of the genre.

AI in Pre-Production: Story Development & Scriptwriting

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is gradually penetrating the pre-production stage of documentary narratives, where specific changes can already be seen in the process of working with a script. Long plotlines are slowly being replaced by micro-stories that demand new approaches to planning strategies. Modern non-linear and interactive narratives require conceptualization tools for narrative architecture, as Ryan (2015) pointed out. Tools such as ChatGPT, Sudowrite, and DeepStory are being developed to generate ideas and outlines, as well as to help a writer elaborate plot and dialogue with the help of the generative language models.

According to Sirén-Heikel (2019), these are co-writers who can suggest better phrasings, character motivations, or plots of the story. Sudowrite, for example, uses GPT-based models for crafting descriptive text and completing scenes, and is designed to let writers make numerous revisions in short succession. Likewise, DeepStory employs machine learning to identify patterns of stories and predict the subsequent actions that should lead to a smooth continuity of events while allowing the writer to create intricate narratives (Cake, 2023).

AI is also used when it comes to branching narratives, which are essential for nearly any interactive documentary. Some of the platforms, like Twine and Inklewriter, let you make choices, which lead to various story paths, and with the help of AI, it is possible to predict the possible paths based on the chosen options. Specifically, Atmaja and Sugiarto (2022) highlighted that due to AI technology, interactive stories create story worlds in which audiences themselves determine the order of events and endings. This approach is especially useful in social issue documentaries because it allows the documentary makers to track several user pathways simultaneously to show that real-life issues are complex.

Furthermore, when it comes to the consideration of modular story paths, AI makes use of a prediction feedback loop. As stated by Mateas and Stern (2005), it is possible to prepare AI systems to recognize the kind and extent of viewers’ engagement. This leads to high-time user immersion through null and void feedback processes, as well as ensuring that stories also remain flexible and engaging. For instance, in a documentary about systemic poverty, the users can be presented with various arcs related to healthcare, housing, or education, and the AI decides which option is likely to provoke the audience most.

AI in Design & Prototyping Interactive Experiences

The use of AI in interactive documentary narrative building during the design and prototype development phase has turned how designers and prototypers imagine and model audience engagements. Different tools, such as Visly, when used in conjunction with generative language models like GPT, can help in the fast prototyping of dynamic logic trees, especially in documentaries with choices and multiple storylines. Mateas and Stern (2005) have postulated that interactive storytelling mostly relies on decision trees and the agency of the user, and now, with the help of AI, it is possible to simulate the decision trees in real time.

Visly is an online design tool that lets designers design UI elements and connect them with the corresponding logic blocks. When incorporated into GPT models, designers can simulate the viewer’s choice mechanism through feasible answers, reaction analysis, or branching plots. According to Atmaja and Sugiarto (2022), such a level of prototyping is very effective in enhancing the development process, yet at the same time not compromising the narrative integrity. For example, if a viewer decides to watch the journey of a character who becomes homeless in a city, GPT can provide related comments and background that will allow for an individual experience of the user. A practical example of this is a documentary, “About a Hero” (2024), which used an AI trained on Werner Herzog’s (Director) voice and writing style to generate the script and narration, crafting a fictional documentary that explores themes of originality and authenticity.

AI also plays a role in the UX/UI of the overall storytelling process. In traditional linear formats, interface design plays a minimal role; however, in interactive documentaries, the UI adds an essential layer to the overall story. Murray (2017) describes how designing menus, navigation paths, and feedback biases the stories and their interpretation. AI helps in fine-tuning these designs by analyzing the pattern of users as well as a user interface that allows modifications for better affordances. It can include recommendations for adaptation to the text, such as inclusiveness, features to help viewers with disabilities, or alterations to its content flow to enhance the perception of the viewers.

Additionally, using decision trees and narrative flows related to characters in AI makes the process of prototyping more effective. Szilas (2007) observed that AI systems can predict how virtual characters would respond to the audience’s inputs, therefore allowing for the design of multiple forms of narratives for a trial before production. These experiences assist in anticipating the users’ emotions, logical fallacies, and level of engagement in different interactions. This predictive design approach saves time in production while ensuring that the interactive does not overwhelm the audience with too complicated a structure, while at the same time maintaining relative non-linearity of the main narrative. For instance, Eno (2024), a custom generative AI engine, assembles the documentary uniquely for each viewing, combining archival footage and interviews to create a non-linear, ever-evolving narrative experience.

Voice, Avatar, and Human Interaction with AI

Advancements in both AI avatars and voice synthesis have significantly impacted the audience’s perception of historical and narrative documentaries. Playing into the strengths of Synthesia and HeyGen, avatars are interactive, ‘thinking’ presences that adapt their response to viewers, a dynamic that is absent in traditional documentary filmmaking. As observed by Manovich (2024), these avatars play the role of intermediaries, enabling the actual dialogues with the re-creations of historical figures or narrators at the viewers’ choosing, thus increasing immersion and personalization.

Advanced voice cloning applications such as Respeecher and Altered Studio expand the interactivity to a further degree by synthesizing natural-sounding voices, including multilingual and emotional voices. These tools make it possible to create the branches of a documentary in different languages, yet having a single voice behind the narration and maintaining a high quality of the product. According to Puntoni and Wertenbroch (2024), the use of voice cloning can help bridge language barriers and improve accessibility, making the narrative more inclusive and emotionally resonant.

The first interesting application of conversational avatars is in historical documentaries, where it lets people interact with figures from the past through an AI voice persona and an interactive animated character. For instance, in an interactive Holocaust documentary using artificial intelligence, the viewer is asked questions by an avatar that has data on a Holocaust survivor, and the avatar provides responses based on that data. It, thereby, improves the learning experience, without detracting from the serious tone of messages that are being passed to the learners (McCall, 2016). In addition, The Andy Warhol Diaries (2022), Resemble AI’s synthetic speech engine recreated Andy Warhol’s voice to narrate his diary entries, offering a posthumous first-person perspective that blends archival content with AI-generated narration.

However, such advancements are not without consequence, touching on ethically questionable aspects, especially deepfakes and voices. Malicious intent in the use of deepfakes can be especially dangerous since it can alter perception or disseminate fake information as the real thing. As underscored by Westerlund (2019), the extents of realism of synthetic media present a worrisome reality in documentary journalism because the audience cannot discern between what is real and fake. Moreover, the reproduction of voices, particularly of individuals who are no longer alive or never had any privacy to begin with, leads to issues of consent, rights to one’s ideas, and the use of a persona after death. Chesney and Citron (2019) highlighted that many jurisdictions do not have proper legal guidelines on such complications, so creators find themselves in ethical limbo.

Visual & Immersive Storytelling Through AI

The combination of artificial intelligence with immersive media technologies has introduced qualitatively new drifts into documentary filmmaking. Software like Runway ML and Wonder Studio helps filmmakers to perform difficult visual operations in one click, like rotoscoping, motion capturing, and compositing. According to McCormack et al. (2029), these tools lower the technical barriers for creating effects and increase creativity, making it easier for producers to prototype photorealistic looks that would have taken an enormous amount of time to manufacture and would have required massive crews and expensive tools.

Incorporation of AI into 3D and such VR systems as Unity ML-Agents and NVIDIA Omniverse has taken engagement with visual storytelling to another level. These enable the possibility of simulating his intelligent agents and direct interaction with the environment for creating explorable story worlds. According to Peticî (2024), such systems show interaction in response to the user’s activity and therefore turn documentary into an engaging process rather than passive viewing. This is in harmony with existing concepts of mainstream historiography and other forms of modern historical instruction that call for and incorporate the use of an orientation towards deeper levels of involvement or empathy when tackling topics that require the learner to (re)connect with a specific real-life culture and/or historical civilization.

Another most impactful use is the usage of AI to create explorable areas or even real event recreations. It brings audience members through time to interact with multi-layered stories in lifelike recreated environments that contain original physical and architectural contexts. For example, an AR/VR tourism play Clouds over Sidra was developed using Unity and stock AI -enhanced graphics that let users virtually experience a reconstructed Syrian city, from the perspective of a civilian exposed to the ravages of war. In this case, users can engage with documentary clips, the AI avatars with their testimonials, and soundscapes,  thus it is immersive and emotionally engaging (Elshahawy et al., 2023).

All of these innovations also have relevance to education, memory, and activism. This means that people who have become skilled in manipulating the narratives offered by AI and who themselves are knowledgeable enough about the specific historical settings can create scenarios that are both visually and historically plausible and emotionally engaging. It is important to note that as AI progresses, the use in building meaningful, emotionally engaging, and data-driven narrative environments will ensure the future advancement of the documentary genre (Skarbez et al., 2017). For instance, in a documentary, How I Faked My Life with AI (2023), generative AI tools were used to fabricate an entire month of the filmmaker’s life, creating synthetic photos and videos that blurred the lines between reality and fiction.

AI-Driven Editing, Post-Production, and Modular Assembly

AI is set to transform the post-production environment and render editing decisions more efficient, creative, and decisive in documentaries. Algorithms enable filmmakers to build a set of composable scenes that could be arranged for various viewers and paths of their watching, shifting the process of post-production from linear editing to a type of responsive design.

One of the most excellent tools is Descript, which works with text and enables the user to edit a video in the same way as a document. According to Pace (2018), Descript is an AI-powered software that uses NLP to transcribe audio and align it with the edits, thereby making it faster to trim interviews, correct mistakes, or build a narrative out of segments. This not only enhances the efficiency of production but also allows creators to produce a piece for various versions of the content or different target markets.

Adobe Sensei, Adobe’s AI and machine learning, goes further by incorporating intelligent auto-editing into the creative processes. Gurieva (2024) states that this is a feature that enables Sensei to edit the structure of a video, transitions, and even the pace depending on the mood that the creator wants to portray in the video or whether the video will be posted, particularly on the YouTube channel. It can create multiple narratives or viewers’ journeys within the documentary, and it can interactively change depending on the user’s action or inaction.

In the cases when we only have raw or low-quality videos or tapes at our disposal, Topaz AI and DeOldify help fix issues with visual quality and the overall picture. According to Pal et al. (2025), these tools use deep learning to enhance visuals and perform super-resolution and noise reduction, as well as colorization of old B&W footage. This is especially useful in historical documentaries, where there are many source materials to integrate into videos and scenes; these materials have to be standardized and made as believable as current visuals, no matter the branch of content.

The most critical issue with the style is the user-dependent logic that defines how readers proceed through the content presented in modules. Such complexity is solved by AI that can analyze viewers’ interactions to make suggestions on editing sequences. In the words of Huang et al. (2023), predictive algorithms would help to point out options in real-time decision trees, let alone maintain a clear narrative that the viewers fully engage with.

Adaptive Content and Viewer Personalization

Interactive documentaries have evolved into the social context, where personalization and adaptability to viewers are becoming the major focuses of storytelling with the help of AI and big data insights. These creative strategies enable authors to respond to viewers’ actions, tastes, and reactions in a way that immerses the audience in unique and personal formats of a story.

Some examples of the early applications of the audience data include such tools as Cinelytic. Roy (2025) opined that, with the help of machine learning techniques, it becomes possible to identify the demographic characteristics of viewers and their tendencies, as well as to find out what exactly structures or themes would be more effective to use in the given target audience. It not only helps in marketing decisions but is useful in modifying the storytelling even after the documentary’s release.

AI-enabled video platforms like Muse.AI and Pictory expand this idea to auto-generate Recaps, Summaries, or Highlight Videos, including those personalized to the user. According to Vora et al. (2025), such tools use computer vision and natural language processing to find key points in clips and recompile them in line with the user’s preferences or history of watched videos. For example, if a viewer has shown an interest in environmental justice, they may be offered a part of a social issues documentary that is specifically concerning the climate aspect.

Furthermore, the adaptation of the game-like structure to a proper storytelling environment enabled real-time changing of the game plots. With the help of branching structures, systems are able to anticipate viewer interaction—decisions that may occur during the documentary in order to follow the branches of the structure. Pizzo et al. (2023) opine that these personalized pathways provide great depth in building the emotional context, owing to feelings of control, which make the viewers more attentive to the content and more likely to recall it.

An example is the development of customized highlight reels based on the viewers’ decision logs. Considering the choices made in an interactive documentary, AI can build summaries at the end, exposing the user’s track. This makes the entertainment more repeatable and also allows users to share their improvements or favourite content moments with others.

Web Deployment, Conversational Layers, and Real-Time Interaction

Web documentaries are documentaries that have been prepared together with Web technologies and Artificial Intelligence to make one interact with documentaries through conversational layers in real-time and not just passive documentaries. By integrating large language models such as GPT into web-based documentary platforms, documentary creators can incorporate features of interfaces like a chatbot that enhances the experience and expands the viewing options and opportunities for individuals.

According to Occhinegro (2021), the integration of AI models into the web environment most commonly entails embedding API-based large language models like GPT of OpenAI into JavaScript frameworks and serverless backends. These will work for real-time processing of viewer queries about the narrative and allow viewers to engage in an interactive chat using this format. For instance, a viewer can converse with the character in order to consider their story from a first-person perspective during the testifying phase or in order to ask a question during the clarification of circumstances in the investigation scene.

This has already been employed in projects such as “The Investigation,” a web-based documentary where an interactive chatbot provides users with basic contextual information answered in a chat form, suggests other versions of the story, and controls the flow of the investigation. According to de Passos (2024), the given project has the technical architecture of an LLM pipeline with phrase caching and the relevant user intents, but simultaneously affording narrative consistency and cohesiveness to the theme. The chatbot uses pre-existing knowledge to make sure the responses provided to users are relevant and correct.

This kind of real-time operation involves the use of modularity based on NLP, data routing, and UI frameworks. Web sockets and lightweight APIs control a user’s IO, while language models use a predefined narrative structure to produce textual outputs. As Trichopoulos et al. (2023) opined, this is a delicate give-and-take on the part of the author, providing a two-way conversation while simultaneously moderating the creator’s input and vision on the topic.

These conversational layers are not only rich in tech-speak but also rich in storytelling. They make it possible for viewers to feel with documentaries and for documentaries to feel with viewers, which means viewers can engage with simulated refugees, whistleblowers, or historical figures for deeper insight. Also, these systems provide adaptive interactivity by changing the course of the story in line with the audience’s engagement trends, making it a very engaging experience.

Film Industry Parallels and Hybrid Uses

The hybrid of interactivity and fiction/non-fiction has created an overlap between documentary and fictional movies, resulting in a crossover that blurs the line between the genres and consequently makes a change in the storytelling approach and taps into the audience’s view. Analyzing the current state of the interactive documentary, it is possible to note that its impact on fiction filmmaking becomes more visible with the examples of utilizing AI techniIf you are looking for insights or analysis on how AI might relate to the text provided, I can summarize or discuss specific points regarding the role of artificial intelligence in interactive documentaries, ethical implications, or the evolution of storytelling mentioned in your document. Please let me know what specific aspect you would like to explore further! Ques, telling the story, and audience interaction.

One of the productions where the film industry amalgamated AI is seen in the 2016 sci-fi thriller movie titled Morgan. While designing the trailer for the film, the editing process was governed by an AI algorithm in which different versions were predicted according to the audience’s reaction; the idea was similar to the interactive documentary in which the structure and progression of the film rely on the decisions made by the viewer (Goswami, 2024). This integration of AI into fiction filmmaking not only increases audience involvement but also creates new opportunities for content creation since the medium can learn about viewers’ emotions and then alter the scenes to match, based on AI capabilities.

Another example of this hybridization can be found in The Line (2020), an interactive theatre production that was staged in 2020 and can be classified as both a documentary and a fiction film. In this project, a number of events were based on the decisions made by the viewers for the characters of the story, where documentary-like scenarios were incorporated into a fictional plot. This is in line with the experience of interactive documentaries, where real stories are portrayed in the style of storytelling games. Finckel (2014) reveals that the blending of documentary and fiction gives the audience a sense of engagement and control, thus placing them from mere spectators to active players.

Interactive techniques are also seen to have a powerful impact on determining audience expectations when it comes to storytelling. Currently, people expect more unique and non-linear viewing experiences for documentaries and fiction. This transition is observable in the manifestation of using AI when it comes to delivering powerful narrative elements in a modular form, which enables top audience-centric stories. As described by Ogden (2020), the genres of thriller, science fiction, and drama have been impacted by the paradigm shift towards hybrid models that provide the viewer with choice and complicated narrative paths aided by Artificial Intelligence.

Ethical and Creative Challenges

Given that interactive and immersive storytelling appears to become the primary application ground for AI-looking technologies, it is important to point out at least five major ethical and creative potential issues connected with consent, truth, and deception. They are concerned with raising awareness of the possible impacts of using AI and other technologies in nonfiction storytelling.

Another challenge is consent and voice/data rights associated with the use of AI-generated content, especially when dealing with deceased people. There are many lessons to learn from the use of fake realism or impersonations of people who are not alive, such as in face swapping or deepfakes, which has some ethical concerns on whether it is ethical. Serena (2025) revealed that benefits such as improving the quality of historical dramas or gaining an exciting new layer to the story come with risks like exploitation and lack of consent, particularly if the individual whose portrait or voice was used did not give their permission or the heirs. The ethical question is further complicated by the idea of using such technology for profit or to rewrite history regarding an individual.

Another test is the question of truth in what AI produces as opposed to falsity and misrepresentation. AI can tell captivating and believable stories; however, the problem is in twisting facts to fit the narrative, which leads to manipulation. The line of demarcation between art and fake follows the level of distortion, and thus, it is becoming more challenging to differentiate between reality and art. Hight (2022) notes that such an interweaving of fact and fiction becomes even more evident in interactive documentaries since AI can dramatically change the views depending on consumer decisions, which, in turn, can lead to the twisting of facts and history as well as the representation of modern problems.

Also, the increasing use of deepfakes and fake news has emerged as a problem in trust in other nonfiction genres. It provides several examples of realistic virtual people, and with growing complexity and density, artificial videos make it difficult for viewers to differentiate between what is real and fake. To counter this, a documentary called Welcome to Chechnya (2020) used deepfake technology to protect LGBTQ+ activists while maintaining their emotional expressions. Faces were algorithmically replaced using AI, balancing realism and anonymity. In Another Body (2023), AI was again used to mask the identities of victims—this time of deepfake pornography—by generating synthetic faces while keeping real emotions intact.

More damaging is the loss of trust in nonfiction categories in which people expect the information to be accurate and close to real life. According to Hight (2021), an important way to reduce the risk of deepfakes and fake news is to increase transparency through the use of AI in creating such content, and also explain the possibility and the limitations of the technologies within the public domain.

The Future of Interactive AI-Driven Documentaries

Interactive documentaries that incorporate artificial intelligence are expected to evolve based on new tools and trends, which will change the perception and production of documentaries. As the technology of artificial intelligence develops apace, these documentaries will not only grow more lifelike but also be more idiosyncratic and interactive in presenting nonfiction.

A significantly impactful tool is emotional recognition, which lets documentaries change in response to the viewers’ feelings in real time. Regarding the concept of adaptation, it suggests that AL can change the news based on facial expressions, tone of voice, or other biometric data. According to Rico et al. (2023), this capability could revolutionize the way stories are experienced, creating deeply personal and empathetic interactions. Another emerging trend is the generation of environments using AI, which can help to build real-world environments that cannot be made practically in film production. Such environments can allow more focus on history as a topic or on a particular social issue, allowing the viewer to experience history or the effects of a problem more as if through an immersive simulation (Wang, 2023).

Other than technological developments, the future of interactive documentaries includes the democratization of storytelling. Today, even people with no coding knowledge or technical experience can build their own Artificial Intelligence using low-code/no-code platforms. Interfaces such as Runway ML and ChatGPT facilitate the use of AI-generated stories for filmmakers, journalists, and other content creators. McCormack et al. (2019), accessible AI tools are reshaping creative expression by lowering technical barriers and expanding participation across disciplines.

In the next generation of interactive experiences, every viewer will be engaged, and their responses will determine what happens from that point onward in a very personal way. Thus, AI-driven narratives are also predicted to advance thanks to big data analytics to tell more tailored stories that reflect consumer opinion, existing knowledge, and real emotions. According to Kapur and Ansari (2024), when used in documentary art, the incorporation of AI will allow the documentaries to feature branching narratives that are dependent on the code that the viewer inputs into them, making documentaries more interactive than before.

Conclusion

AI has certainly introduced many possibilities for the requirements of interaction and the creation of interactive documentary filmmaking. AI is being used for everything from scriptwriting and behavioral analysis to virtual environment production and design, and it is revolutionizing the industry by offering easily customizable and fully immersive films to the public. These tools have made new forms and opened thousands of doors for the narrative approach and the bending of genres, but they have also made it possible for documentaries to leave the linear pathway and become dynamic and interactive.

In movies, AI opens up creativity to create complicated stories with complex structures, with some branches depending on the viewer’s selection. However, it tells the technologists that there is a need to transform and enhance the current interactive platforms. They say that the future belongs to AI and human creativity in telling informative and captivating stories. Scholars must analyze these technologies, especially in the area focused on consent, manipulation, deepfakes, and misinformation. Transparency and explaining what AI is able to do or cannot do will be crucial steps in building trust in nonfiction media.

Moving forward, the tensions between ethics and creativity will continue to exist. However, it should also be noted that AI has the potential to develop powerful storytelling tools, and it should be used in this regard to the extent that it is positive for its primary function, to tell true stories and bring value to communities. When used properly and duly applied, AI can positively transform the documentary filmmaking process, but maintain the promise to tell the truth and remain empathetic and nonmanipulative.

Therefore, it is possible to conclude that the use of AI in documentary filmmaking has enormous potential for the industry; at the same time, it is crucial to note that the future of this phenomenon will largely depend on successfully addressing the ethical-creative and technical challenges of AI. There are responsibilities and challenges for a documentary concerning its utility, especially given the implications of the revolutionary growth of AI technology. However, these difficulties only appear when one forgets that focusing on the audience, education, and responsibility reenergizes the documentary as an expressive form with the potential to stimulate the audiences and make them actively participate in the dialogue on the critical issues of society.

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