Shouldn’t be particularly surprising Netflix is leaning in here - they’ve been pretty open about viewing themselves as “second screen”/background content for people doing other things. Their primary need these days is for a large volume of somewhat passable content, especially content they can get for cheap. Spotify’s in a similar boat and has been filling the recommended playlists up with low-royalty elevator music.
"If you can confidently say "yes" to all the above, socializing the intended use with your Netflix contact may be sufficient. If you answer “no” or “unsure” to any of these principles, escalate to your Netflix contact for more guidance before proceeding, as written approval may be required."
They do want to save money by cheaply generating content, but it's only cheap if no expensive lawsuits result. Hence the need for clear boundaries and legal review of uses that may be risky from a copyright perspective.
They also mention reputation / image in there. If I can’t tell something is generated by AI (some background image in a small part of a scene), it’s just CGI. But if its the uncanny valley view of a person/animal/thing that is clearly AI generated, that shows laziness.
"Generated material is temporary and not part of the final deliverables" sounds like they are not looking to generative AI for content that they will air to the public.
Later on they do have a note suggesting that the following might be OK if you use judgement and get their approval: "Using GenAI to generate background elements (e.g., signage, posters) that appear on camera"