LA Summit Speakers Unveiled, Including 1X, Adobe, and will.i.am

Theme

This second order effects of progress in creative technology has shaped our LA program more than any single innovation. "As execution becomes more abundant, taste and discernment become more valuable," says Dani Van de Sande, founder and CEO of Artist and the Machine. "We're seeing brands turn their creative DNA into systems, filmmakers build at a scale that used to require much larger teams and budgets, and artists move between mediums that once required completely different technical skill sets." It's also why we wanted the day to end on a conversation about creative leadership itself.

LA Summit

Artist and the Machine returns to LA this December, bringing together 500 artists, founders, and leaders from entertainment, media, tech, and AI. Among the Summit’s speakers is will.i.am, who will join director Jason Zada for a closing conversation on the evolving relationship between director and creative director as AI changes how ideas move from concept to screen.

Creative artist, entrepreneur and Founder & CEO of FYI.AI, will.i.am is simultaneously a futurist, musician, professor of practice, and tech investor as part of his fluid cross-disciplinary career. Achievements and honors include performing at two Super Bowl Halftime shows, nine Grammys, a CLIO, an Emmy, a WEF Crystal Award, and a TIME 100 Impact Award.

Speakers Unveiled

Dar Sleeper of 1X joins Bloomberg Media for “Humanoid Design”, while Meow Wolf founder Vincent Kadlubek takes on experiential worldbuilding. Additional speakers include Jo Shoesmith of Amazon, Behnaz Farahi of MIT Media Lab, artists Kelly Boesch and Gossip Goblin, and more to be announced.

Sessions also feature Presenting Creative Partner Adobe, AIR, Amazon Design, Artlist, Bloomberg Media, Epidemic Sound, LTX, Luma, Nebius, NVIDIA & HP, and more.

On December 3, Studio Day moves from conversation into making: an invitation-only day of creative challenges, salons and hands-on masterclasses at the Audrey Irmas Pavilion with Adobe for Startups, Luma, and Artlist.

Pulse

• Sounds Human, Isn’t: Jack Dorsey’s Block unveiled Dessa, a voice model trained only on human speech. It can sound tired, emotional and amused. Dorsey says talking with it “feels like talking with a person.”

• Instagram Goes Long: Instagram is testing 90-minute horizontal videos, with Reels that link straight to the full episode.

• The Pope Weighs In (Again): Pope Leo XIV told a Vatican gathering that AI is a tool, not a person. “The decisive question, then, is not simply ‘What can AI do?’ but rather, ‘What purpose should it serve?’”

If you’re creating something aligned with Artist and the Machine or you’d like to recommend work shaping this space, we’d love to see it for the chance to be featured. Reach out to us at [email protected].

Til next time,

Artist and the Machine.

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