Foundry has announced the completion of its acquisition of Griptape, a company focused on enterprise-grade AI orchestration, in a move that signals a significant next step in the evolution of AI inside professional VFX and animation pipelines.
For Foundry, this is not a sudden pivot into AI, but rather the continuation of a strategy that began several years ago with the introduction of machine-learning tools such as CopyCat. What Griptape adds is something different — not another AI feature, but infrastructure. Specifically, orchestration technology designed to allow studios to manage multiple AI models, tools, and agents inside secure, production-ready workflows.
According to Foundry CEO Jody Madden, the acquisition aligns directly with the company’s long-term vision. To find out more, Mike Seymour sat down with Griptape’s Jason Schleifer (Chief Creative Officer) and the Foundry’s Christy Anzelmo (Chief Product Officer) for this episode of the fxpodcast.
The timing is notable. Across the industry, studios are moving beyond experimentation with generative AI toward routine production use. That shift creates new problems: governance, reproducibility, security, model management, and integration with existing pipelines. These are precisely the areas Griptape was designed to address.
Integration with Foundry tools
Foundry plans to integrate Griptape capabilities directly into its creative software ecosystem, including Nuke. The goal is to allow artists to access outputs from multiple AI systems inside familiar production workflows rather than switching between disconnected tools.
This approach reflects a broader industry trend: AI becoming embedded infrastructure rather than standalone novelty. Foundry says it will continue developing Griptape to meet the scale, security, and longevity requirements of major studios — areas where many experimental AI tools currently fall short.
From AI features to AI orchestration
What distinguishes Griptape from many AI tools currently entering the media and entertainment space is its focus on orchestration rather than generation alone.
The product that is most closely competitive is ComfyUI. ComfyUI was released on GitHub in January 2023. According to comfyanonymous, the creator, a major goal of the project was to improve on existing software designs in terms of the user interface. Since its release the UI has been updated and improved, but this rapid updating and changes are also the cause of some of the greatest issues with compfyUI, namely how stable it is for production work. In the past artists have gone to open a file from the day before, with various plugins and engines only to discover nothing now works as various open source components have updated or changed. Compfy is very much open source, steered by a set of the core developers. And in the world of AI Comfy has established itself as the core of many production projects, but it is a complex program to master.
Like Comfy, Griptape enables artists to coordinate multiple AI models, whether open-source or commercial, within controlled workflows. These workflows can run either in the cloud or entirely on-premises, a critical requirement for studios operating under strict security and IP constraints.
The system includes several key components:
- Griptape Nodes — a visual interface allowing artists to build AI workflows without coding, available via browser or Windows application.
- Griptape Framework — a Python toolkit for developers to create secure generative AI applications and agents connected to production pipelines.
- Griptape Engine — the execution layer that orchestrates workflows across infrastructure, whether local or cloud-based.
Unlike conversational AI interfaces which seek to allow the general public to produce images with the minimum of interaction, the platform is designed to create programmable agents that can perform tasks across pipelines, including DCC tools and production tracking systems.
The architecture is model-agnostic, supporting integrations with a wide range of vendors across text, image, video, audio, and 3D generation, while also enabling studios to connect their own models or Hugging Face ecosystems. It also supports emerging standards such as MCP (Model Context Protocol) for connecting agent workflows with tools like Maya, Blender, Nuke, and even production management platforms.
Importantly for developers, the Griptape Framework and Engine are currently available under an Apache 2.0 open-source licence, and Foundry has stated it intends to maintain engagement with the developer community even as enterprise features evolve.
Industry perspective: interview with Anzelmo and Schleifer
In addition to covering the acquisition, fxguide spoke with Foundry’s Christy Anzelmo and Jason Schleifer, Chief Creative Officer at Griptape, about what this shift means for artists, studios, and pipelines.
Both emphasised that orchestration, not just model quality, will define the next phase of AI adoption in production.
Schleifer, well known in the animation and rigging community, highlighted that studios need systems that can survive technological change rather than being tied to a single vendor or model generation.
Anzelmo pointed to the importance of maintaining artist control, security, and traceability, especially as AI moves into daily production environments rather than R&D labs.
Their combined perspective reinforces a key message behind the acquisition: AI in media production is entering an operational phase, where pipeline integration, governance, and scalability matter as much as creative capability.
The bigger picture
The Foundry-Griptape deal reflects a maturing AI landscape in visual effects and animation. Early excitement around generative models is giving way to more pragmatic questions, such as
- How do studios manage dozens of models?
- How do they maintain security?
- How do they integrate AI into existing pipelines without disruption?
- How do they future-proof workflows against rapid technological change?
- How do you bid and manage projects when technology is changing so rapidly
By focusing on orchestration rather than isolated tools, Foundry is positioning itself around those questions.
If successful, the acquisition could mark an important step toward what many studios are now seeking: a stable, controllable, AI-enabled production pipeline that fits within professional VFX realities.