James Gerde is a Seattle filmmaker who discovered a sweet spot between AI and art, creating surreal animations that transform human movement into mesmerizing new forms. His work explores what happens when the physical world meets artificial intelligence, crafting dreamlike metamorphoses that feel both familiar and otherworldly. Through his production company, Gerde Got It, he blends this unique approach with traditional filmmaking, crafting visuals for artists like Wu-Tang Clan and Britney Spears, along with global brands including X-Games and MSI.

When he's not in the studio, James travels to creative conferences around the world, sharing insights about keeping humanity at the heart of AI art. His work comes from a simple belief: technology works best when it amplifies human creativity rather than trying to replace it. Through each project and collaboration, he seeks to create moments of wonder that remind us how art can feel both cutting-edge and deeply human at the same time.

Curt Cameruci (Flosstradamus) is a renowned DJ/producer with over 19 years in the music business. Based in Los Angeles, he gained prominence in Chicago, collaborating with acts like Post Malone, Lil Jon, and Diplo. He is known for founding the EDM subgenre "Trap" by combining Hip Hop elements with Dance music. Flosstradamus has headlined major festivals like Lollapalooza and played Coachella four times. His careerhighlights include tracks like "Original Don" (Remix), "Mosh Pit," and "Soundclash." With over 500 million streams, he has sold out iconic venues worldwide, earning a devoted fanbase known as HDYNATION.

Beyond his musical achievements, Curt Cameruci has expandedinto the technology sector. He is the founder of Rubin, an AI/Music R&D firm, creating cutting-edge AI tools that aretransforming the music industry, like Replay and the AI creation marketplace weights.gg. He advises several AI and tech companies, notably Suno, an AI-driven music creation platform that secured a $125 million investment in Q1 2024. His work has put Rubin at the forefront of music & tech.

Curt's insights have made him a sought-after speaker at conferences like NFT LA, COG-X, and NAMM, where he shares his vision for the future of music and technology. Curt Cameruci's journey from pioneering DJ/producer to a key figure in AI-driven music technology showcases his dynamic capabilities and drive to push boundaries. His work entertains and paves the way for future innovations, making him a transformative figure in both music and tech. As he continues to merge these fields, Curt remains a powerful force of inspiration and influence, leaving an indelible mark on the industries he touches.

Willonius “King Willonius” Hatcher, named one of TIME’s 100 Most Influential People in AI, is redefining the boundaries of comedy, music, and technology. As the creator of the viral AI hit “BBL DRIZZY” and the critically acclaimed comedy album UNSerious—produced by Grammy Award-winner Om’Mas Keith—King Willonius blends sharp wit with cutting-edge innovation, crafting unforgettable narratives through stand-up, audio dramas, and AI-driven artistry. A self-taught coder and digital architect, he navigates complex creative landscapes with unmatched skill, empowering underrepresented voices and inspiring the next generation of creators. Hatcher’s work isn’t just about making people laugh—it’s about pushing boundaries, breaking barriers, and shaping the future of cultural innovation.

Driven by a love for creativity and innovation, Eric specializes in creating YouTube tutorials on AI and VFX. He genuinely enjoys videography, video editing, and VFX, and is always excited to explore and integrate AI tools like ComfyUI and Automatic 1111 into his projects. Eric is passionate about visual storytelling and strives to make complex AI concepts accessible and engaging for his audience.

With nearly three years of experience as a digital creator, Julien Durand, better known as MidJourney Man across social media, thrives at the intersection of creativity and technology. A photographer at heart, his keen eye for beauty and composition informs all his work.

Winner of the CivitAI Award in Project Odyssey Season 1, Julien is passionate about pushing boundaries in the AI art world. From generating captivating images and creating animations to training LoRAs and experimenting with cutting-edge tools, Julien continuously explores and refines his craft.

With a career spanning over 18 years, Gabe Michael is transforming the future of storytelling. Currently serving as VP, Executive Producer of AI for Edelman, he pushes the boundaries of traditional storytelling, enhancing both creativity and production workflows.As an early adopter of AI technology in film, video and creative production, Gabe specializes in enhancing workflows and pushing creative boundaries with Artificial Intelligence. His work has earned accolades for "Best Odyssey' at the Project Odyssey AI film competition, ‘Best Character’ and ‘Best Art Direction’ at the Runway Gen:48 AI Film Competition, leading to his entry into many creative partner programs with top AI video brands.

Before embracing the forefront of AI, Gabe garnered recognition as an award-winning Director and Producer, working with renowned film studios, networks, brands, and celebrities to achieve billions of organic views across social videos, original shows, interactive, and branded content.

Guided by a passion for innovation and a commitment to excellence, Gabe believes in the transformative power of AI to redefine filmmaking and creative production as we know it.

Nem Perez is a director and creative technologist at the forefront of the AI-driven transformation in the entertainment industry. Born and raised in Chicago, Perez has spent the last decade honing his skills in Los Angeles, working with innovative companies like Snapchat. As the founder of Storyblocker, he leads a trailblazing team at Storyblocker Studios, where he created "Our T2 Remake," one of the world's first feature-length crowd-sourced films entirely created using AI technology, showcasing a global community of creators.Perez's work is characterized by a deep understanding of the intersection between technology and storytelling. He believes that AI is not merely a tool but a collaborator, capable of enhancing and transforming the creative process at every stage, from ideation to distribution. By embracing AI as an integral part of the filmmaking journey, Perez is redefining what is possible for independent creators, democratizing access to the tools and techniques once reserved for major studios.

Olivio Sarikas is an AI expert, artist, and content creator renowned for his contributions to AI art and education. He shares tutorials and insights on AI image generation tools like Midjourney, Stable Diffusion, and DALL-E through his YouTube channel, which has over 239,000 subscribers. YouTubeSarikas actively engages with the AI art community via platforms such as Instagram and TikTok, where he shares tutorials and NFT art, and invites followers to join his Discord server. GlarityHe has delivered talks on AI's impact on culture and entertainment, incorporating art history and philosophy to provide a comprehensive perspective on AI's role in creative industries.

Sebastian Kamph is a professional art director and AI educator specializing in generative AI and AI art. With over 20 years of experience in advertising and design, he has collaborated with global brands such as Toyota, Lexus, Burger King, and Procter & Gamble.

‍On YouTube, Sebastian shares tutorials and guides on AI art and generative AI tools, including Stable Diffusion, Flux, ComfyUI, and Automatic1111. His channel has amassed over 154,000 subscribers and more than 8 million views, reflecting his significant impact on AI education.

Matt Wolfe is an American entrepreneur, AI educator, and digital content creator renowned for his expertise in AI tools and their applications for marketers and content creators.

He is the founder of FutureTools.io, a platform that curates the latest AI tools and news, and publishes the Future Tools Weekly Newsletter, which reaches over 170,000 AI and tech enthusiasts. On YouTube, Matt's AI-focused channel has garnered more than 460,000 subscribers, where he shares insights on AI, no-code tools, and the creator economy.

Tyler Bernabe (jboogx.creative) stands at the forefront of AI-powered visual artistry, having established himself as one of 2024's most compelling voices in the digital creation space. His work masterfully blends innovative storytelling with groundbreaking technical execution, evidenced by capturing over  200 million views and 19 viral creations surpassing one million views each on Instagram in 2024. His distinctive approach to AI visualization has earned him recognition from industry leaders, including a notable feature with MetaAI, while his artistic vision has led to creating stunning visuals for acclaimed artists like Anyma and Grimes, as well as contributing to the visual landscape on the main stage of Coachella 2024.

Xintao Wang is a senior staff researcher at KwaiVGI, Kuaishou Technology, leading an effort on visual content generation.

As a pioneering GTM leader in AI, Ari was on the founding team at Figure Eight Technologies and Weights & Biases among 10 startup ventures. After shaping AWS's LLM and Gen AI strategy through key partnerships with Anthropic and Stability AI, he joined Lambda Cloud to lead Business Development, where he's revolutionizing AI applications in media and entertainment. With extensive experience scaling AI companies and fostering strategic partnerships, Ari brings deep expertise in commercializing cutting-edge AI technologies.

Mati Staniszewski is the co-founder and CEO of ElevenLabs, an AI audio startup specializing in speech synthesis, voice cloning, and sound effect technologies.

In 2022, drawing inspiration from movie voiceovers, Staniszewski co-founded ElevenLabs with, Piotr Dąbkowski, reaching unicorn status. The company aims to revolutionize audio AI by breaking language barriers and enhancing content creation.

Bryan Kim (“BK”) is a partner at Andreessen Horowitz where he invests primarily in consumer and app-layer AI companies. Today, BK serves on the boards of Partiful and Snackpass. He is also a board observer at Captions and ElevenLabs. Previously, he was chief financial officer at Bungalow, where he oversaw finance, business strategy, market expansion, and partnerships. Prior, Bryan was at Snap, where he took on leadership roles during the company’s pivotal hyper-growth, early monetization, and pre- and post-IPO years.

Nan Ha is the Product Marketing Lead at Viggle AI and a true film lover at heart. With a double master’s degree in Global Media and Communication from USC and LSE, she’s developed a keen eye for storytelling and the magic of visual media. Having lived in China, the US, and the UK, Nan brings an open-minded perspective and a genuine passion for exploring diverse narratives and cultures that inspire her every day.

Yonatan Dor is the founder of the iconic "Dor Brothers" AI Video Production Studios.Yonatan has created some of the most iconic AI works circulating on the internet, including popular satirical politician videos that have amassed over 100 million views in total.

In addition, he has led projects such as some of the first-ever AI music videos for legends like Snoop Dogg, The Game, French Montana, and other notable artists. He has also produced groundbreaking AI commercials for companies like eToro, Hugo Boss, and more. Notably, one of his commercials was among the first AI-generated ads in history to be displayed in Times Square.

Justin Hackney is a pioneering filmmaker and creative director from East London, renowned for integrating traditional filmmaking techniques with cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI) technologies. With over a decade of experience, he has directed award-winning commercials for prominent clients such as Samsung, Honda, Lego, and Uber Eats. Hackney is the founder of Realdreams.io, an AI-driven studio dedicated to democratizing generative tools through workshops and events.

Before taking a leave of absence to start Hedra, Michael was a PhD student at Stanford jointly advised by Jiajun Wu and Fei-Fei Li. Michael has published in top computer science conferences such as ICRA and CoRL, with a focus on building large-scale simulation platforms for computer vision and robotics. He has also made notable contributions to several open source projects (iGibson, OmniGibson). He’s a passionate cinephile, former thespian, and huge fan of Denis Villeneuve.

Matt is a cofounder of ThinkDiffusion, a platform that makes the entire open source AI art ecosystem easily accessible to all. He holds a BA degree from Yale and brings 20+ years of experience in the creative and advertising industries, spanning graphic design, animation, branding, concept development, interactive, web3, and AI.

Alex is a seasoned entrepreneur and startup founder with deep expertise in AI and AI-driven product creation. Currently focused on AI video models and AI video creation.

Yerzat is the Chief Research Officer of Higgsfield AI and a deeply experienced ML researcher with expertise in Reinforcement Learning, Natural Language Processing, Computer Vision, and Distributed Training. His portfolio of innovative projects includes a distributed training framework that enables the efficient training of large models, and RL-adventure, a pioneering toolkit for RL research that implements state-of-the-art algorithms in PyTorch. Both projects have gained widespread adoption among the AI community.

Karan is the CEO and Co-Founder of Cartesia.ai, an AI foundation model company spun out of Chris Re’s Stanford PhD Lab. Cartesia’s founding team pioneered the State Space Model (SSM), a fundamentally new architecture for real-time models with infinite context, and their academic work on Mamba is being widely adopted worldwide. Cartesia is backed by Index, Lightspeed, SV Angel, Conviction, A*, General Catalyst and more.

Manan is the Design Lead at Sync, with a strong background in motion and video. His work spans interactive web projects and animated videos, as he continually explores the intersection of design, motion, and technology in these evolving times.

Jason Zada is a pioneering filmmaker and the founder and Chief Creative Officer of Secret Level, a next-generation entertainment studio established in 2023.

Throughout his 27-year career, Zada has been at the forefront of non-traditional storytelling, utilizing mediums ranging from augmented and virtual reality to theatrical films. His recent projects with Secret Level include "Phantom House," an interactive mystery experience on Snapchat that combines filmed episodes with immersive augmented reality lenses. Additionally, he directed an AI-generated musical film, demonstrating the rapid and high-quality content creation capabilities of AI technology.

Under Zada's leadership, Secret Level has collaborated with major brands to create innovative content. For instance, they produced an AI-generated Christmas advertisement for Coca-Cola, reimagining the classic holiday ad for a new generation.

Eric W. Shamlin is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Secret Level, a next-generation entertainment studio that leverages generative AI to pioneer new storytelling methods. Before joining Secret Level, Shamlin served as Executive Vice President of Emerging Tech and Entertainment at Media.Monks, where he led innovative partnerships with leading technology and entertainment brands.

Throughout his career, Shamlin has been recognized for his contributions to the industry, earning multiple Emmy, Peabody, and Cannes Lion awards. He also holds positions on several advisory boards, including those for South by Southwest (SXSW), and serves as Co-Chair of the Producers Guild Innovation Award.

Kat Tchernavskikh is the cofounder of Jupiter, a pioneering creative studio and tech lab reimagining storytelling through AI for the world's biggest brands and influencers.

Previously, she was recognized on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list for cofounding and scaling a nationwide photography platform, while also establishing herself as a fashion photographer published in Elle Magazine and serving as a new faces development lead at IMG Models. Her deep expertise in both creative and technical domains has made her a sought-after advisor on AI strategy for companies like Nike and Dropbox, building upon her early career crafting campaigns for Apple at Ogilvy.

John Gaeta is a legendary Creator / Designer / Inventor who is best known for his Academy Award winning work on original The Matrix Trilogy and for Star Wars Immersive Entertainment. He has a history of conceiving and developing emergent forms of story and experience. He is known for pioneering methods and technologies such as Bullet Time, Volumetric Capture, NUI, Holo Cinema, Mixed Reality, AI NPCs, and GENai for Intelligent Entertainment.

Evolving from a foundational career in filmmaking toward new milestones in Interactive, Immersive and Intelligent Entertainment, John has led creative innovation for companies such as Lucasfilm/Disney as Co Founder / Executive Creative Director of ILMxLAB (Star Wars focused), SVP of Creative Strategy at Magic Leap, Executive Creative Producer for Epic Games, Chief Creative Officer atInworld.ai and most recently co Founder and co CEO of Escape.ai. He has also consulted and advised founders, ceos/executives and teams at world class companies such as Microsoft, Meta and Niantic. Some recent years highlights include: in 2021, John Gaeta worked with Epic Games’ on “The Matrix Awakens”, a state of the art Cinematic-Interactive Demonstration that showcased the launch and power of Unreal 5, he had a cameo appearance in The Matrix Resurrections and he developed and co wrote “The Animatrix_2.0”.

In 2022, as co Executive Producer in partnership with Kiri Hart (EP Star Wars 7,8,9), Gaeta commenced development of Metropolis (based on the landmark manga by Osamu Tezuka). In 2023, he collaborated with author Neal Stephenson and SVP of Imagineering Jon Snoddy on realtime interactive AI Character experiences focused on the IP Snowcrash amongst others. In 2024, John Gaeta co-founded www.ESCAPE.ai, a multimedia, multiplatform distribution service focused on the next paradigm of cinema and experience (Gen AI & Game Engine) which he terms: “Neo Cinema”.

Shawn Rushefsky leads the solutions engineering and developer experience efforts at Salad, and is the resident image generation expert, having previously run an image generation startup himself. He is a lifelong technology and art enthusiast.

Nico is a physicist by training and a passionate musician. He received his PhD in Physics in 2020. After falling in love with Stable-Diffusion-based AI animation generation, he founded neural frames at the end of 2022, which has since then matured to one of the leading AI music video generators.

Jo Zhang is currently Head of Community and Partnerships at ComfyUI. Jo previously co-hosted the largest ComfyUI event series, CCS in Asia, and featured essential diffusion researchers (LCM/IP-Adapter/InstantID) on her podcast. She was an experienced investor in AI before stepping into Diffusion field.

Peter is the Founder of Banodoco, the premier AI Animation and video open source community.

Eliza Tan is a Malaysian multimedia artist dedicated to exploring cross-cultural narratives. Now based in San Francisco, her work spans editing for documentary series and narrative films, directing shorts, as well as showcasing her work at multimedia galleries that blend video, photography, and written narratives. Previously an accredited broadcast photographer at the Tokyo 2020 and Beijing 2022 Olympic Games, Eliza now works on Adobe’s video product team, managing partnerships for Creative Cloud video and audio tools. She also teaches video, animation, and multimedia journalism as a part-time university professor.

Visual Frisson is a seasoned video editor and 3D animator with over a decade of experience crafting bold, visually striking work. In recent years, he’s been at the forefront of blending AI with traditional creative workflows.

He served as the AI lead on 'Get Me Out'—winner of the 2024 Runway AI Film Festival Grand Prix—and collaborated with Paul Trillo on his project 'Etherea', working as an AI animator and training a custom model to bring the vision to life.

Visual Frisson has brought his expertise to major brand campaigns and has created stunning show visuals seen at some of the world’s biggest music festivals. His work continues to redefine the future of video production and animation.

Jack has produced sound for films including "The Batman" and "Fast & Furious" and composed with global brands such as Google, Samsung, and Uber. He is currently Head of Creative Sound at ElevenLabs.

Yigit Kirca is a filmmaker and Creative Director at Realdreams. He specializes in making films, music videos and commercial content by utilizing generative AI. He has worked with companies like Chivas, Elevenlabs, Smiley and Highland Film.

Claire Xue is an AI creative educator, community builder, and Marketing Director for the Project Odyssey AI Film Competition. An alpha group artist for OpenAI Sora and Creative Partner with LumaLabs and RunwayML, Claire advocates for responsible, human-centered AI. She has trained creative teams at LVMH brands like Sephora and Hennessy to integrate AI tools into creative workflows effectively and thoughtfully.

Through her newsletter, “The AI Stuff Creators and Artists Should Know,” she provides insights on the ethical, legal, and practical aspects of AI in the creative industry, fostering a learning community.

Matty Shimura is the Executive Producer of Project Odyssey who developed the initiative to unite the companies, communities, and creators across the AI and filmmaking industry.

As a filmmaker for over 17 years, his work has been recognized at Cannes XR, Tribecca Immersive, and C-SPAN, winning AI Filmmaking competitions such Dreamforum and OutsideLLMs.

At Civitai, Matty is the VP of Partnerships, leading API integration deals, joint marketing events, and investor relations.