The “Devil Wears Prada 2,” isn’t about fashion—it’s about Artificial Intelligence.

Set 10 years after the events of the first novel, Andy has moved on from her nightmare at Runway magazine and successfully partnered with her former workplace nemesis, Emily Charlton.

In the 2026 film sequel, AI isn’t just a background detail—it serves as a major narrative catalyst and the ultimate corporate “villain” of the story.

Screenwriter Aline Brosh McKenna used AI to represent the cold, automated, and algorithmic shift that has upended modern journalism and publishing.

The threat of AI enters the story through a new orange faced character named Benji Barnes (played by Justin Theroux), a Silicon Valley tech billionaire and a nihilistic, Elon Musk/Jeff Bezos-style composite.

Benji is dating Emily Charlton and leverages his wealth to try to buy Runway magazine from its parent company. 

Benji’s literal goal is to fire the entire editorial staff and replace the writers, editors, and fashion models with generative AI.

He views human-led curation as an inefficient relic of the past, arguing that culture should be dictated by algorithms, and human creativity should simply “submit” to the inevitable AI wave.

Ultimately, the movie uses AI as a symbol for the loss of human soul in media, positioning Miranda’s obsessive, high-standard human curation—no matter how difficult she is to work with—as something worth fighting to protect.

You can see a glimpse of this corporate environment at the **** mark of the clip, where Miranda Priestly sits at the head of a conference table surrounded by executive staff, just before the film transitions into the dramatic showdown between human curation and Benji’s tech takeover.

This is the specific scene where Artificial Intelligence transitions from a background threat to a central plot catalyst is the conversation between Priestly and Barnes.

The Scene Setup

After the finance-bro heir Jay Ravitz (B.J. Novak) threatens to gut Runway magazine, Andy Sachs (Anne Hathaway) and Emily Charlton (Emily Blunt) hatch a plan to save it. They convince Emily’s current boyfriend—the flashy, orange-tanned Silicon Valley tech billionaire Benji Barnes—to step in, use his massive wealth to buy the magazine from Jay, and keep it afloat.  

The AI Reveal

The pivotal moment happens right after the buyout is set in motion. Miranda tries to accept the corporate takeover with grace, meeting with Benji to discuss the transition. However, during their conversation, Benji reveals his true, nihilistic vision for Runway: he plans to entirely automate the magazine.  

He blatantly explains his intention to downsize the human workforce, arguing that human-led curation is an inefficient, expensive relic of the past. Instead, he intends to use generative AI to write articles, edit content, layout pages, and even replace fashion models. To Benji, culture should be dictated by data and algorithms rather than human taste, stating that human creativity should simply “submit” to the automated wave.  

The Impact

This conversation completely changes the trajectory of the film. Alarmed by Benji’s cold, algorithmic view—which represents the ultimate loss of human soul and craftsmanship in modern media—Miranda realizes that keeping Runway under his ownership would mean its total destruction.  

This scene forces Miranda and Andy to put aside their past grievances and team up to find a competing, benevolent buyer (Sasha Barnes, played by Lucy Liu) to intercept the deal, setting up the film’s climax to protect the value of human curation over “AI slop.”