The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist did not start as a studio assignment. After the 2023 Oscars for *Everything Everywhere All at Once*, people in the Center for Humane Technology orbit reached out to Daniel Kwan and Jonathan Wang. The pitch was that AI was moving faster than the public could track, and that someone with cultural reach should make a clarifying film. That conversation produced a three-year documentary directed by Daniel Roher (*Navalny*) and Charlie Tyrell, produced by Kwan and Wang (Playgrounds), Shane Boris (Cottage M), Diane Becker (Fishbowl Films), and Ted Tremper. Focus Features acquired worldwide rights in October 2024. The film premiered at Sundance on January 27, 2026, opened theatrically in the United States on March 27, and landed on Netflix US on September 15. Domestic box office was about $1.3 million. Netflix is where the audience scale actually is.