According to Casey Lau, 2026 will be the breakthrough year for AIGC animation (source: Casey Lau on X). Google DeepMind stated its short film Dear Upstairs Neighbors is previewing at the Sundance Film Festival and focuses on solving the core challenge of control in generative AI, developed with Pixar alumni, an Academy Award winner, researchers, and engineers (source: Google DeepMind on X). This highlights a push by a leading AI lab toward controllable video generation and production-grade AIGC pipelines, a development traders can track for potential adoption in professional animation workflows (sources: Casey Lau on X; Google DeepMind on X).