Sony shared in its 2025 Corporate Report that it used machine learning, a subset of artificial intelligence, to develop an automatic lip-sync engine currently employed in anime production. This technology has been in use since 2021 on four anime so far, the latest being Utano ☆ Princesama TABOO NIGHT XXXX, which was released in May 2025. Sony’s report was published on September 12, covering developments between April 1, 2024, and March 31, 2025 (Certain information as of September 12 may also be included).
IBM describes machine learning as “the subset of artificial intelligence (AI) focused on algorithms that can ‘learn’ the patterns of training data and, subsequently, make accurate inferences about new data. This pattern recognition ability enables machine learning models to make decisions or predictions without explicit, hard-coded instructions.“
In March 2025, Tech4Gamers reported on a Sony patent that may relate to the same technology as the examples above. Filed in August 2023 and currently under review in Japan, Patent Application 2025-046683 describes a system that takes both an original source file (audio/text) and a translated version, and breaks down each file’s phonemes into corresponding lip movements. A phoneme is a single distinctive sound in a language. In other words, it displays the lip movements based on the distinctive sounds made.
Then, the engine determines the length of each file’s phonemes, and, among multiple applications, can generate a similarity score based on how well the sequence of new translated mouth shapes lines up with the source files’ mouth shapes.
Since there may be multiple ways to translate a specific piece of audio into another language, some translation candidates may have a better similarity score with the original than others in terms of their lip movements. This would help to inform that translation decision, reducing “discomfort to game players and viewers of video works,” Sony says. In the anime example, machine learning may be used to refine the Sony engine’s ability to map sounds to lip movements and suggest ideal lip flaps for animators to reference.
Sony adds in its report that it’s “positioning AI as a catalyst for positive transformation and a partner in creativity, based on the belief that AI should support people. We place great importance on encouraging our employees to be wise, proactive users of AI, as well as addressing risks such as copyright infringement, privacy and ethics, and is exploring generative AI use to help raise productivity, acting as a “starting point for enhancing creativity.”
In collaboration with Aniplex’s A-1 Pictures and CloverWorks, Sony is developing AI technology for anime coloring, which joins other production companies like OLM Digital, whose representative described generative AI as a “supporter“, and Toei Animation, which envisioned AI for storyboarding, coloring, in-betweening, and backgrounds, both earlier this year.
Anime Corner reported that AI anime production company Creator’s X filed trademark applications for “AIアニメ” and “AIアニメーション” (“AI anime” and “AI animation“) earlier this year. Creator’s X also acquired studio Gaina (Grendizer U) in August. Frontier Works, which has co-produced titles like Higurashi When They Cry and The Wrong Way to Use Healing Magic, co-produced the AI-supported anime series Twins Hinahima this year.
Source: Sony Corporate Report
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