📰 News Roundup

• Want a signing bonus? How about $100 Million? Sam Altman says Meta has offered some OpenAI employees $100 million signing bonuses. We predict this may be less attractive than Altman is claiming, with potential vested stock options. But that number is sure provocative.

•  CALL 1-800-AI: Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski is now taking calls from the public to give feedback on the loan company… well kind of, it’s an AI version of him trained on his “real voice, insights, and experiences.” If you want to give him a call, the US number is +14246675385

• Adobe AI on the go: Adobe has finally made its Firefly AI technology available on mobile as a separate app for Android and iOS. The company had hinted at the possibility of this early this year and has finally come good on this promise. You can download the Adobe Firefly app from the App Store and Google Play.

• r/ORB: Reddit has announced it will start verifying human users with Sam Altman’s WorldCoin ORB Retina Scan technology. Fighting the growth of bots and automated accounts. Users can still verify themselves in a number of other ways, but could this be a sign of the future?

• CyberTaxi is a go: Tesla has finally launched its CyberTaxi operation in Austin this week. With a decent sized geofence area. The taxis were promised to be unsupervised, but do have a human safety driver in the car for unplanned eventualities. More so, in true Musk fashion, there are easter eggs planted in the car, like a tip feature which actions a ‘just kidding’ Rick Roll.

🚨Artist and the Machine presents THE AI & CREATIVITY SUMMIT: LA Edition

We’re thrilled to announce that The AI & Creativity Summit is coming to Los Angeles on November 13, 2025! After a hugely successful NY Summit in April, we're back by popular demand - this time in Los Angeles, bigger and bolder than ever 😈. Our sizzle reel from our NYC AI & Creativity Summit is now live, check it out for a sneak peak of the vibe.

This November, join 300 innovation leaders & executives, top VC-backed founders, GenAI artists, and cultural pioneers as we explore and celebrate the intersection of AI, Creativity, and human-machine collaboration in the city of Los Angeles. We’re offering a full-day deep dive experience thoughtfully curated across intimate conversations, live showcases, and spaces designed to foster deep connection and realtime insights.

Watch the video above to experience our NYC Summit, and secure your spot to join us on November 13 if you’re serious about attending. Space is very limited and we expect to hit capacity well before the Summit occurs!

🛠️ Tool Of The Week: Adobe Firefly Mobile

It’s hardly surprising that tool of the week goes to the newly launched Android and iOS versions of Adobe Firefly. Anything made within the app will automatically sync to your Adobe account, which means you can pull over what you've made into bigger projects.

"Our goal with Firefly is to deliver creators the most comprehensive destination on web and mobile to access the best generative models from across the industry, in a single integrated experience from ideation to generation and editing," says Adobe CTO Ely Greenfield.

This is clearly an incentivized push into mobile by Adobe with the Firefly mobile launch following suit of Photoshop just last month.

You can download Firefly for iOS here and Android here.

👾 Spotlight: AI Avatars and how Google Veo3 is generating a world of AI Slop.

In the past few weeks, Instagram has been flooded with AI-generated gorillas, Bigfoot sightings, and stylized “street interviews,” as creators dive into Google’s latest AI tool, Veo 3, priced at $200/month, making it their most advanced and expensive release yet.

The gorilla trend, though already teetering on oversaturation, has birthed a wave of AI-native influencers. One standout: Big Yowie, who racked up over 265,000 followers in just a week. Meanwhile, creators like Ceej Vega have taken it further, teaming up with Adobe to produce a now-viral video involving a high-octane motorcycle chase, original characters, and custom scripting to emulate a lo-fi selfie cam aesthetic, all powered by generative tools.

The pace of innovation in AI is dizzying, but for the first time, creators are keeping up. As soon as a new tool drops, they’re not just testing it; they’re pushing its limits and turning it into content, influence, and opportunity.

As our Studio to Storyverse panelist Lori McCreary said only last week “I have been living in a world where I was reading scripts for what I could create, and now the kinds of stories we are going to be able to create are endless”.

Oakley is a cultural powerhouse. The founder lives in a brutalist, cyber mansion. The brand brought us dystopian over the top sunglasses, and so when Meta and Oakley announced the new future of AI Glasses, the anticipation was high. This week the drop went live, launched by a photo of Mark Zuckerberg wearing them.

The stats are strong, with 3K video, twice the battery life than the previous Ray Ban version, and more.

But the reaction has been lacklustre, with many wishing Oakley had pulled on their cultural ground-breaking heritage. In a video from Cait Cavell and Boys Club the cutural icon describes the product as “It’s all wrong, V2 better be better”, with Boys Club calling the Oakley launch “Rage Bait”. Meanwhile VR & AR pioneer Daniel Cheetham posted “Focusing on the utility from a sports perspective is a very smart way to avoid a repeat of the distaste that Google Glass provoked.”

The launch is certainly polarizing. What do you think? Check them out HERE.

🦁 Cannes Lions: “We’re still in the iykyk phase”

AATM Founder Dani Van de Sande spoke at Cannes Lions as part of the Brands & Culture series with ON Discourse (thanks for the invite!) and Lightricks, an open-source AI model that is built for storytelling with an emphasis on human-in-the-loop. During the interactive session, subjects that came to the forefront included “Do efficiency and creativity go hand in hand?” and most importantly: “What is the role of human craft, and what does taste mean?” in this paradigm shift.

Thank you to our partners AWS, Adobe, and Leonardo for their incredible hospitality at Cannes Lions. We were excited to convene with some of our favorite AI pioneers, from Leonardo AI, Adobe, Moonvalley, LUMA, Coactive, Twelve Labs, AWS, and more. Those serious about enterprise adoption were working the rooms with us in the much-anticipated South of France gathering - it was a high impact opportunity, and we’ll certainly be back next year! That said…our overall impression of the festival, where leading CMOs and Advertising Executives pour $1BN+ into experiential activations (!!): it’s still so early for AI. Share by Dani:

🤖Join The Machine: We’re Hiring!

We're seeking warm referrals to a dynamic, experienced rockstar who’s passionate about joining us in the early days of establishing and growing our brand, who will be focused on driving revenue-generating sponsorships and partnerships for our rapidly growing AI & Creativity Summit series across LA and NY.

This role is ideal for a Sales/Business Development leader with a proven track record in securing high revenue-generating, win-win sponsorships for fast-growing Events or Media organizations. We're looking for someone deeply passionate about the future of technology, creativity, and transformation across enterprise executives, artists, and founders at the forefront of this field, and who's ready for a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to shape the future of the greatest technological paradigm shift of our time.

As we’re in the early stages of building Artist and the Machine, I’m seeking referrals and warm intros from within our community and network – please send them our way! We are a remote organization, however NY or LA based is ideal. Interested candidates should send their resume or LinkedIn profile along with why they’re excited about this opportunity, to [email protected]

Til next time,

Dani Van de Sande (Founder) & the Artist and the Machine team.

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