Ari Emanuel’s new memoir, Roll the Calls, arrives with a title that doubles as a defense of an increasingly unfashionable work habit: picking up the telephone and trying again when nobody answers. The TKO chief executive and WME Group executive chairman presents that approach as more than an old-school preference. In his telling, persistence, direct human contact and the endurance to survive an unforgiving industry are central to how careers and companies are built.
That outlook shapes Emanuel’s broader take on a screen-and-entertainment business dealing with consolidation questions, economic pressure after COVID-era disruption and strikes, and the possible impact of artificial intelligence on production. He expects the overall content field to expand across live sports, live events, film, television, podcasts, social platforms, concerts, books and lectures. At the same time, he believes AI will lower production costs. The key point in his forecast is not that technology eliminates the people at the center of entertainment, but that creators and representatives will still be necessary.
It is a characteristically forceful argument from a figure long associated with the aggressive agent archetype. Yet Emanuel also says he no longer wants to be identified with that version of himself, including the fictionalized Ari Gold character from Entourage. He credits his marriage and personal work with changing his perspective, and he says he has no interest in helping revive the series.
What “roll the calls” means to Emanuel
In agency language, “rolling calls” generally refers to working through a queue of calls, contacts and follow-ups. Emanuel’s use of the phrase is deliberately literal. He says that when he asks an assistant to call someone, sending a text does not complete the task. A message may be a valid modern tool, he acknowledges, but it is not interchangeable with a conversation.
His preferred method also includes follow-up: if a voicemail has been left, call again after roughly 15 to 20 minutes. Emanuel describes himself as a minimal texter, often replying with only one or two words, and notes that voice notes create a retained file. The subtext is plain: a phone call can be more personal, more immediate and more difficult to reduce to a detached record than a written exchange.
That does not make texting obsolete, nor does Emanuel claim it is. Texts and direct messages are now routine ways people communicate, especially in businesses built around fast coordination. But Emanuel’s distinction is useful. A text is often optimized for convenience and asynchronous response; a call asks for attention in real time. In a representation business, where negotiations, trust and reading a counterpart’s reaction matter, those are meaningfully different forms of contact.
For assistants and junior executives, the practical lesson is less “never text” than “understand the requested outcome.” If the goal is to reach a person, get an answer or establish a relationship, a message sent is not necessarily a conversation achieved. Emanuel’s broader case is that persistence is not a cosmetic performance of effort. It is part of the job.
A memoir framed as a map through entertainment
Emanuel describes Roll the Calls as a guide to getting through the industry, comparing it to the Thomas Guide, the spiral-bound Los Angeles street-map reference. The metaphor is revealing. Rather than frame success as a straight route or an inspirational transformation, he emphasizes navigation: knowing that the terrain is difficult, making choices along the way and staying in motion.
He says the book is intended in part for parents raising children with ADHD and dyslexia. Emanuel has said that his parents allowed him to struggle while ensuring he had the tools he needed. Looking back, he regards that experience as having made him an independent thinker, a quality he believes helped him both in business and in his personal life.
The other intended readership, he says, is people looking for a candid map of an industry where advancement takes time. His advice is not packaged as a shortcut. He stresses relentlessness, consistency, sacrifice and what he calls emotional endurance. That last phrase deserves attention. Emotional endurance is the capacity to keep functioning through rejection, uncertainty, conflict and delay—not merely the ability to work long hours. In agenting, where a deal can hinge on another person’s decision, that resilience has obvious value.
Emanuel says he did not have a backup plan; for him, it was “Plan A.” That is an account of his own posture, not a universal prescription. The useful takeaway is narrower: the memoir appears designed to argue that persistence has to be paired with a willingness to take responsibility for one’s route rather than wait for a clean, pre-approved path.
AI, cheaper production and a larger content field
On the next decade for talent agencies, Emanuel expects content to keep expanding across numerous formats. His prediction includes traditional entertainment categories alongside sports, live events, podcasts, social media, music performances, books and lectures. This is an expansive definition of the creator economy: not one platform or medium, but a network of formats in which people may need advice, dealmaking and representation.
He also anticipates more production and lower costs because of AI. In this context, AI is best understood as a broad set of software systems that can assist with tasks involved in creating, organizing or processing material. Emanuel did not detail which parts of production will become less expensive, how large the reductions may be or when they may arrive. Those unanswered questions matter. “Lower costs” is a projection, not a published budget model, and it does not establish that every kind of production becomes cheaper at the same pace.
Still, his expectation carries a practical implication: reduced barriers to making work could create more development and more opportunities for smaller projects to find audiences. Emanuel specifically expects creators to continue making small movies that generate significant returns, pointing to Obsession as an example. He sees potential for further development around that kind of project.
The tension, of course, is that cost-saving technology can also change who performs work and where value accumulates. Emanuel’s answer is that tools alone do not substitute for creators. He invokes an analogy about the bicycle extending human ability: the machine increases capability, but someone still has to pedal. In entertainment terms, a tool may accelerate or simplify parts of a process, but the industry still depends on people with ideas, performances, audiences and the ability to turn raw output into a meaningful project.
The conversation around lower AI costs is also active far beyond Hollywood. A recent look at AI companies emphasizing lower model costs illustrates why economics, rather than novelty alone, is central to the debate. For entertainment businesses, the important questions are likely to be what work changes, what quality standards remain, and how savings are distributed across a production.
Why Emanuel thinks representation will remain
Asked whether agency consolidation is a good thing, Emanuel does not claim certainty. He says there will probably be more consolidation, but avoids offering a finished blueprint for what it means for talent agencies. Consolidation, in this context, means separate companies combining or ownership becoming concentrated among fewer, larger businesses. It can reshape negotiating leverage, the choices available to clients and the scale required to compete. None of those outcomes is automatic, and Emanuel does not specify a particular agency deal or structure.
What he does argue is that entertainment has repeatedly survived declarations that a format, practice or even the whole movie business is finished. He cites moments when packaging, half-hour programming and dramas were described as dead, along with earlier skepticism around the film business before major successes including The Godfather and Chinatown. The point is historical in spirit: an industry can go through painful changes without disappearing.
Packaging is one of the terms at issue. In the agency world, it has referred to putting together multiple creative or talent elements for a project, such as attaching talent and producers. Emanuel’s mention of it is not an argument that every past business practice returns unchanged. Rather, it supports his wider skepticism toward absolute predictions. A model can change, a deal structure can fall out of favor and a market can contract, while the underlying need for creative work continues.
His most concise case for agencies’ future is also his simplest: talented people will still require representation. This is a prediction about function, not necessarily about the present number of agencies or their precise business models. Representation can mean advocating for clients, finding opportunities, negotiating agreements and navigating a fragmented marketplace. As content becomes more varied, Emanuel’s theory is that the need to help people move through it remains.
The commission story and a decision to build independently
Among the personal business stories Emanuel recounts is a mid-1990s transaction involving CJ Entertainment and a minority investment in startup DreamWorks. Emanuel says he assembled the deal’s “architecture,” but that Jeff Berg, then head of ICM Partners, took the entire commission. Emanuel says Berg owned the company, and describes his own response as a decision to leave and build something of his own.
He does not state how much the commission was worth and says he does not know how much Berg made from it. He suggests it was enough to pay for a house, while noting that he owned a duplex at that time. The story is therefore not a documented account of a specified fee; it is Emanuel’s recollection of a professional grievance and the motivation he drew from it.
That distinction matters. The anecdote explains the memoir’s personal stakes without turning an unquantified claim into a precise financial conclusion. It also aligns with the book’s apparent central theme: setbacks, resentments and moments of exclusion can become fuel, but only if a person converts them into a next move.
His case against Hollywood fatalism
Emanuel’s comments come amid a difficult stretch that he characterizes as six bad years spanning COVID and the strikes. Discussing a potential Paramount-Warner Bros. deal, he says the situation appears driven by CNN and politics rather than the core film, distribution or cable businesses, based on signals he says he has received from people in those sectors. He argues that the parties should move beyond that and make a deal.
That is Emanuel’s reading of a complex corporate situation, rather than a detailed account of negotiations. But it fits the rest of his comments: he sees hard conditions and probable consolidation, yet rejects the notion that the content business is nearing an endpoint. The form may change. Costs may change. Communication habits have plainly changed. But in his view, audiences will continue to seek material, creators will continue to make it and talented people will continue to need someone in their corner.
Roll the Calls is, by Emanuel’s description, a road map rather than a victory lap. Its message is not that business can be navigated with one perfect strategy. It is that progress demands repeated attempts: make the call, make the follow-up, learn the map and keep moving when the route is unclear.
