Grimes confirms her 'Accelerando' video used some AI alongside a 70-plus person human team

Grimes's video for "Accelerando", the first single from her album Psy Opera, came out on 9 October and soon set off arguments online about how much of it was machine-made. On 13 October her spokesperson told Business Insider that the video does contain some AI-generated elements, while the song and its vocals use none.

“AI was selectively incorporated as a supplementary tool within this much larger, artist-driven VFX pipeline, rather than serving as a replacement for the creative or technical work”

Spokesperson for Grimes, to Business Insider, to Business Insider · dnyuz.com ↗

The spokesperson described AI as a small, selective tool inside a large VFX pipeline run by artists. More than 70 artists and production staff worked on the clip; Business Insider puts the work at two to three months, while Stereogum, relaying Grimes's own post, says many months. The live action was shot entirely on blue screen with real performers, physical props and ground textures, and the end credits list at least three "AI Artists", a detail fans had seized on in a Reddit thread. Stereogum's framing is that the album is AI-inspired but not AI-generated, and the spokesperson's account fits it: the machine work was supplementary, and the people who built the visuals were the core of the production.

Grimes, whose legal name is Claire Boucher, answered critics on X by asking that the team's labour not be diminished or mislabelled. The song was made with her frequent collaborator VADAKIN and is out on Nazgul/Eternal Recurrence. Separately, she has said that her track "Deepseek" draws its opinions and lyrics from the Deepseek model, an AI use she has described openly, separate from the single's music and vocals.

The row sits inside a record built around AI themes. Psy Opera is a concept album about the possible extinction of humans at the hands of AI, previewed by the trailer "Eve Is Online..." on 7 October. Business Insider recalls that in 2023 she offered to split royalties on AI music using her voice, and partnered with the AI toy company Curio. The spokesperson's statement answers fans who had been guessing from the credit roll alone, and Grimes herself says she does not use generative AI in her music, only for visuals.