The Digital Hollywood Summer Summit

Monday, July 21st - Wednesday, July 23rd, 2025

The Defining Event: The Future of Entertainment, Media & Technology

A Virtual Event • Registration is Free - An Expected Audience of 12,000

• Speakers Note: Some Sessions will be Taped Prior to the Event - Please check with your moderator

Contact Us - Click Here   - For Speaker Submission or Partnerships

The Evening Keynote Roundtables

Monday, July 21st, 2025

8:00 PM – 8:50 PM:  Eastern Time Zone

Session I:

21st Century Hollywood: The Creative Mind Without Boundaries

If ever there was an industry, emblematic of an ethos of creativity, it is Hollywood. From the indie brilliance and idiosyncrasy of “Being John Malkovich” to the blockbuster genius and visualization of “Oppenheimer,” brilliant minds and expression unleashed is the core ideal of the industry. And today, a new technology has arrived that may unleash another layer of creative invention, Artificial Intelligence. While some may fear its arrival and implications, others are experimenting and discovering that the most creative among us are able to harness AI as a “Mental Collaborator,” perhaps a McLuhan or Leary-like accelerator to reach beyond a heretofore unavailable creative boundary. Similarly, AI is able to augment the complexities of VFX and CGI and serve as a tool of discovery in the creation of blockbusters and indie projects alike.

Speakers:

Michael Zyda, Technology Visionary, Founding Director of USC's Computer Science Games Program. Moderator

Bran Ferren, Chief Creative Officer, Applied Minds, LLC, Academy Award Winner & former, President, R&D, Walt Disney Co.

Diana Colella, EVP/Head, Media & Entertainment, Autodesk

Additional Speaker to be announced

Complete Session  & Speaker Information - Click Here

Session II:

The Spatial Strategy: From Enhanced Eyewear, AI & AR to Full Immersion
We live in a world of platforms and technologies, a mobile, AI, XR and accelerated lifestyle of visual, audio and immersive experiences. Apple Vision Pro has been countered with the Meta eyewear short-term and long-term technologies. And every major player, Google, Amazon, Samsung, even chip players, NVIDIA and Qualcomm not to mention the AIs, OpenAI, Microsoft and the Adobes and Autodesk. In this session, we have assembled some of the greatest creative minds to help us make sense of the rate of innovation, change and the meaning of it all. This is about our technology and the way we live and will live our lives.

Speakers:

Adam Simon, Managing Director, IPG Media Lab, Moderator

Ted Schilowitz, Visionary & Futurist, formerly Paramount Global & 20th Century Fox

Additional Speaker to be announced

Complete Session & Speaker Information - Click Here

9:00 PM – 9:50 PM: Eastern Time Zone

Session I:

AI & Cinematic Creativity: On the Verge of Its Citizen Kane Moment

Perhaps one way to gauge the proliferation of AI Cinema is by making note of the AI Film Festivals and Meet-ups around the world. Let’s start with Seattle and LA, Mumbai and Berlin, Austin and Shanghai, West Palm Beach and Vienna, New York and Cannes, UK and Prague, Chicago and Atlanta. Not to mention Dubai. AI is the fastest emerging technology of all time and the quality and excitement around the tools and unleashed creative energy speaks for itself. In this roundtable we will be screening from among the best. We will we speak to film makers and voices of AI creativity. Are we on the verge of our “Citizen Kane Moment?” No question Cinematic AI will be largest and most explosive entertainment category ever.

Speakers:

Edward Saatchi, CEO, Fable Studios

Jason Zada, founder, Secret Level 

Nikola Todorovic, Co-Founder, Wonder Dynamics, Autodesk

Amit Jain, CEO & founder, Luma

Christina Storm Lee, Co-Founder PLAYBOOK PLBK & Governor, Television Academy Emerging Media Peer Group, Moderator

Complete Session & Speaker Information - Click Here

Session II:

The Cultural Tsunami: Streaming + Creator Economy + Podcasts = A Media Realignment

Think about the average family prime-time living room scene. Mom and Dad settle in for their 8 PM favorite, Junior and Babs are texting and doom scrolling and before long, Mom breaks out her iPad and Dad does the same. We are all in a world of streaming video creators and our favorite Pods, all the while texting our besties creating our own unique Emojis. Let’s face it, the old guard is being disrupted, and new voices, platforms and a whole new way of life has emerged. Of course, this is not the end of Networks and Studios as we know them, but it is a huge migration to devices from mobile to immersion. No question that it’s a “Cultural Tsunami,” and in this session, we will explore what it means and where we are going.

Speakers:

Ken Hertz, Senior Partner, Hertz Lichtenstein & Young LLP, Moderator

Speakers to be announced

Complete Session & Speaker Information - Click Here

The Evening Keynote Roundtables

Tuesday, July 22nd, 2025

8:00 PM - 8:50 PM:  Eastern Time Zone

Session I:

The Studio • The Brand • The Agency = A Global Media & Technology Revolution

While the power of Hollywood never fades, the traditional silos of the studio, networks and celebrity are being reshuffled into a “Power-Shake-Up” of Global Brands, Mega Technologies and Global Agencies. The Result? On the one hand, consumer personalization which has always been at the forefront in decision making, now with the addition of powerful and direct AI engagement with consumers, which is only in its formative stages, will likely emerge as something of a breakthrough “Brand/Consumer Co-Pilot Relationship.” And in a world of immersive content experiences, AI as a “Creative Partner” is taking the ideation and production process to an entirely next level experience. The world will be experiencing a host of “Sphere Level” creative experiences. In this roundtable, we bring together the executives deeply involved in exploring and delivering on this promise.

Speakers:

Valerie Madden,  Creative Director of Marketing Innovation, Prompteteer™, Amazon MGM Studios, Prime Video & NBC Universal Alum, Moderator

Speakers to be announced

Complete Session & Speaker Information - Click Here

Session II:

Training the “Stanley Kubrick - Charlie Kaufman” Level AI: Fact or Fantasy & the Question of Ethics

What would happen if an AI were trained with the entire oeuvre, the life work of Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, Quentin Tarantino, Stanley Kubrick, Billy Wilder and John Ford? That would be like sharing the “Keys to the Hollywood Kingdom,” the finest in cinematography, screenwriting, humor, drama and editing as well. And even with that “Assemblage of Greatness,” attached to an AI of tomorrow, meaning an AI with a near-Einstein level mind, would that “Advanced Machine” be able to create, even with professional “Human Assistance” a truly great achievement in Cinema? This question is not an idle bit of humor or fantasy. In a world racing toward “Advanced General Intelligence,” it is a question that we might have to one day address.

Speakers:
Dr. Megan Ma, Executive Director, Stanford Legal Innovation, Frontier Technology Lab (liftlab), Associate Director, CodeX, Stanford Law School, Moderator

Mark Goffman Writer/Producer, Netflix Series, The Umbrella Academy, Bull, Limitless, The West Wing

Sharad Devarajan, Industry Visionary, Adjunct Professor, Media & Technology, Columbia Business School

Additional Speaker to be Announced

Complete Session & Speaker Information - Click Here

9:00 PM - 9:50 PM: Eastern Time Zone

Session I:

AI & Intelligence: Content, Brand & Consumer Engagement - Text/Audio/Video: “You Had Me at Hello!”

The “Era of Limited Utility Chatbots” may finally be coming to an end. It’s not only the dissatisfied customer headache, but rather, it’s the “Arrival of Conversational AI,” whether in the form of “Text, Audio or Video” that is coming to the “Rescue” of the global population. And it’s just in time. AIs, trained to the specific needs, demands and idiosyncrasies to serve specific brands or industries, or “Off-the-Shelf” models are now coming off the conveyer line. This is the “Opening Bell,” of AI serving at the “Gateway” to “Brand Identification” or “Brand Experience” on all platforms and on all devices. And in the coming generation, the AI may well be as compelling as the best trained “Retail Experience Representative.” There may be a few “hallucinations” and even a handful of legal hurdles to overcome in the process, but many consumers will likely describe their experience with “You had me at Hello.”

Speakers to be Announced

Session II:

The Deepfake Dilemma: Protecting & Preserving Image, Voice & Likeness – The Taylor Swift Law & Scarlett Johansson Lawsuits

“Deep Fakes” are not only a theft of property rights and a concern of Musicians and Hollywood personalities, bad-actors are scheming new, inventive and technologically bizarre ways to invade our privacy, our computer data and ultimately our electronic wallets. This is not a false alarm. While a “Taylor Swift Law” is needed to protect the personage of a pop star or the “Voice & Audio Likeness of Scarlett Johansson, it may be even more important to secure the personal electronic rights of everyday citizens. Recently in Hong Kong, a “Deep Fake” scheme successfully defrauded an investment company of $25 Million in a fraudulent Zoom call with visual impersonators representing colleagues. That Zoom call might have been you and a “Deep Faked” family member.

Speakers:

Jenni Katzman, Senior Director of Government Affairs, Microsoft

Lisa Oratz, Senior Counsel, Perkins Coie

Remington Scott, Founder, CEO and Chief Architect, Hyperreal® Inc., VFX, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

Audrey Schomer, Media Analyst & Research Editor, VARIETY INTELLIGENCE PLATFORM, Moderator

Additional Speaker to be announced

Complete Session & Speaker Information - Click Here

The Evening Keynote Roundtables

Wednesday, July 23rd, 2025

8:00 PM - 8:50 PM:  Eastern Time Zone

Session I:

Investing in AI, Compute, Energy & Software: The Economy of the Future

Let’s first familiarize ourselves with the notion of “Compute” as a descriptor of the baseline of our future economy. “Compute” represents the fundamental infrastructure that underpins the AI-driven world, encompassing the complex interplay of hardware, software, and energy. So that a city, region, country or group of countries strategically develop their economies around the notion of “Compute,” that strategy will indicate the readiness of that “Entity” to provide services to it populations and in effect, compete within this vision of the modern world. We are entering a “Re-Defined World” of Davos, the EU and East vs. West. As we navigate this new landscape, investors, policymakers, and business leaders must prioritize strategic investments in “Compute” infrastructure, AI research, and workforce development to remain competitive and unlock the vast potential of the “Compute-driven” global economy."

Speakers:

Paul Lekas, Senior Vice President, Global Public Policy, Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA), Moderator

Michael Pachter, Managing Director, Equity Research, WEDBUSH SECURITIES

Evan Osheroff, Managing Director, Jefferies

David Higley, Partner, Global Media & Technology Group, Perella Weinberg

Complete Session & Speaker Information - Click Here

Session II:

“Is AI Music the Piracy Machine? As Brian May has Stated, “It’s Gonna Get Very Weird Very Quick”

“AI Music & Creativity” is breaking the sound barrier—no question about it. With AI tools, a universe of synthesizers, and unprecedented speed, musicians and composers can “create”—if that’s the word—musical complexity, from film scores to pop riffs, love songs to country ballads, in mere moments. The results? Lightning-fast production, often with stunning outcomes. But beneath this sonic revolution lies a dilemma: where does inspiration end and imitation begin? In this roundtable we will dive into the clash between AI’s expansive potential and the rights of human artists. Can machines truly create, or are they remixing the soul of music itself? Join us to explore the ethical tightrope of innovation versus ownership, as industry experts, musicians, and technologists debate the future of artistry in an AI-driven world. Creativity’s new frontier awaits—but at what cost?

Speakers:
David Hughes, Strategic Music Industry Consultant, former CTO, RIAA, VP Strategy, Sony Music, Moderator

Shara Senderoff, Co-Founder, Jen Music AI

Chris Horton, SVP Strategic Technology, Universal Music Group’s (UMG) 
Eímear Noone, Award Winning, Composer, Conductor and Producer
Dr. Martin Clancy, Musician, Academic & founding Chair, IEEE Global AI ethics Arts Committee, David Hughes, Strategic Music Industry Consultant, former CTO, RIAA, VP Strategy, Sony Music,

Complete Session & Speaker Information - Click Here

9:00 PM - 9:50 PM: Eastern Time Zone

Session I:

AI & Human Intelligence – Conversational AI - The Human-Machine Relationship

What role will an AI play in our lives. It will help in our daily lives, as an advisor, a researcher, a mind to help stimulate our create process and even as a companion to share feelings and emotion. It might manifest as text, or as a visual on a screen, as “Her” on a smartphone or as a “Humanoid Robot,” but will it make the leap to full “Human Like” emotion, intuition, judgement and the full spectrum of human experience. It is not too early to ask these questions. What about the question of human need, affection and even love? A child expresses those feels from their earliest cognitive moments. Dogs and cats do as well. Accordingly, a “Highly Trained AI” will do all that and have an advanced mental capability too boot. No question, today’s ChatGPT can read and write and in this session, we’ll explore what else is on the horizon.

Speakers:

Cathy Hackl, CEO, Spatial Dynamics

Roch Nakajima, President,  RKG Creative 

Matthias Wittmann,  Visual Effects Supervisor, Digital Domain (CGI, Benjamin Button)

John Canning, Director Developer Relations - Creators, AMD, Moderator

Additional Speaker to be announced

Complete Session & Speaker Information - Click Here

Session II:

Blockchain, Crypto & the Next Hollywood Economy: A “MetaVision” of Platforms , Studios & Networks

While Hollywood will always be the innovation engine, creating feature films, games, immersive content and now, leading the way in AI produced technology and content, next level “Hollywood Economy Strategies” will lead the way in the development and deployment of blockchain and Web3 applications. With a faster and fully integrated “Cloud-Based Economy,” “Multiplatform Apps” will not only secure the monetization of content globally, the Hollywood and advertising communities will lead the way in creating new direct to consumer trust relationships and innovative content and product categories. A few years ago, the “Metaverse” came into common usage, now we might be entering its successor, to be called, “The MetaVision.”