Two tech giants are racing to integrate AI and technology into the real world. While Eve Kim wants to use it to help mankind, Julian Dillinger intends to create weapons. As their digital creations can only last for 29 minutes in the real world, they hunt for the solution, the Permanence Code. Dillinger sends an advanced program, Ares (Jared Leto), into the real world to retrieve the code, but the super-intelligent and self-aware Ares questions its programming.