I don't understand why the need to use ai on the intro, the artistic display on the story telling from the intro could be gain without too much flashy art, you could look at other title like behind the dune, or Yarimon Master, or even on triple A studio like those Mass Effect opening, you could reach the point of the story while maintaining artistic balance and cost just by making the art "simpler", those flashy portal and soldier thingie could be made using photoshop or any free software like firealpaca and a little drag and drop stock image with little editing touch, or if it hand drawn you can made it simpler while the point of the story still be understandable.... if the dubber is the problem, then just cut it... its just a lump in the back having an unnecessary dubbing at the opening while the primary game dont have any, by changing the name to "narrator" is enough without the need of any voice actor, or you could simply make the text appear anywhere else (ren'py gave you all the opportunity to make your game fancy afterall, god bless ren'py)
by tainting your short intro with ai, making some people sceptic about the rest of the game, decreasing more possible money bag from tossing their nickle just becouse a 1 minutes intro that not even everyone who bought the game care, now i see your point, "nobody cares anyway about the opening, just use ai on it to reduce cost" but then again, is it worth the cost of reducing possible buyer or patron on the long run? ... "oh why do i care, theres people out there stupid enough to be a patron for a literal 100% ai game, mine is only using ai in a small size" youre right, but then again whats the point on hiring those 1000$ artist? why not just make ai game entirely and claim all those ai buyer, that way no ai lover annoyed by the lack of ai, and no human art lover annoyed by the use of any ai
this is an evil mark but just so you know, you could spend way less money on a strugling 3rd world artist and even let them work on the opening for free just by sugarcoating them with sweet word and they can even make the opening more flashy than it is now or even make it animated (please dont do this, theyre also a human being and some of them even live in a constan life endangering backcountry)