They Look Like Amy and Ian, Sound Like Amy and Ian ...

The EnTech Fest audience got a kick out of avatars of DEG's Amy Jo Smith and DEG.AI Alliance's Ian Fried (above).

Amy AI and Ian AI explained how they were pregenerated, by Ben Relles and his associates in the Office of Reid Hoffman, using an AI avatar platform and an AI text-to-speech platform. AI Amy advised the audience: "This industry is literally having a main character moment right now, and you do not want to sleep on it. My advice, don't just lurk. Get in the room. That is how you go from NPC to the real storyline. The ones who are going to win in this area are the ones who can vibe with both the technology and the humans behind it. AI is not going to replace you, but someone who knows how to use it better than you, that's the real villain arc. No cap."

Quinn Favret of AI research lab Tavus spoke with Fried (aka real Ian) about building avatar models and interacting with avatar models that look like humans and can also see like humans; and uses for such avatars in industry's ranging from entertainment to healthcare and education. An avatar of B.B. King, created with the estate of the late blues guitar legend, interacted in real time with Favret and commented on the room around him, including "a whole lot of people gathered together look like they're ready to learn something new."

Skirball's Ahmanson Ballroom was full for programming throughout the day.

Many Thanks to All Who Supported This Week's

EnTech Fest

A tip of the hat to our 600 sponsors, speakers, exhibitors and guests in attendance!

We look forward to hosting you again next year.

KEYNOTE CONVERSATIONS

Top photo: In an afternoon keynote conversation, Cineverse's Chris McGurk (r.) spoke with Variety's Cynthia Littleton about Cineverse's evolution as a technology company, its approach to content, and its move into vertical microdramas.

Middle: Kartel's Kevin Reilly (l.), who is known for reshaping network and streaming content over four decades, discussed with EnTech's Rick Hack of Empire House Management (r.) about the opportunity to enhance storytelling and brand marketing with AI that extends human creativity. DEG's Amy Jo Smith joined the two after their panel.

Bottom: Andrea Downing, of PBS Distribution (l.), and Netflix's Amy Reinhard after their morning keynote conversation in which Reinhard talked about ad load, viewer experience and retention, and the promise of generative AI to improve productivity.

SITTING BY THE FIRE CHATTING

Building a passionate audience is the key objective at direct-to-consumer services Angel Studios and Fandango, executives said at EnTech Fest. Angel's Thomas Hughes (l.) and Fandango's Cameron Douglas (c.) spoke with Screen Engine/ASI's
Holly Leff-Pressman.

Leading entertainment lawyer Ken Ziffren of Ziffren Brittenham LLP (l.) spoke with The Wall Street Journal's Ben Fritz about the three stages of AI adoptions he sees for media and entertainment and how they might impact studio growth and studio-talent relations.

Euvin Naidoo (l.), Top 50 Best Undergraduate Business School Professor- Poets and Quants, 2025, engaged in a thought-provoking conversation with DEG.AI Alliance's Ian Fried about applying John Boyd's concept of the OODA (observe, orient, decide, act) loop to leadership in the age of AI. In media and entertainment, "It's not just about producing content faster. It's redefining what content actually means for the consumer. This is where the puck is going, and those organizations that are not afraid to create those experiments to start early to really push their teams for that world, these are the ones that are the engine, and the engine is this OODA loop mindset."

PLENTY OF PANELS

Marketing budgets can far exceed production costs for verticals, and monetization models are still evolving, said Small Screens, Big Opportunity panelists (l. to r.) Scott Brown of Second Rodeo, Lily Darragh Harty of CandyJar, Ziyu Wu of Dramawave, and Dana Protsyshak of Vert-I-Go Media, shown here after their panel.

In the panel discussion Search & Discovery: Will AI Assistants Become Your Personal TV Concierge?, (l. to r.) Synamedia's Lena Wasikowski led Matthew Dominguez of Xperi, Andreas Hofman of LG Electronics, and Justin Inman of Emberos in talking about the disconnect between streamers and platforms about where discovery should happen and the growing role of AI models in search.

In the Entertainment in Motion session, panelists discussed the evolution of cars and living, and entertainment consumption, space. (Above, l. to r.): Patrick Rossi of Dolby, Mark Lee of LG Electronics, Samara Winterfeld of Xperi, Joseph Perry of Sony Pictures and moderator David Bloom of Next TMT/Forbes.

The case study Adding AI Layers to Modernize Legacy Product Offerings looked at how two companies are innovating their legacy offerings by leveraging AWS's AI Prototyping Team to help make their customers' workflows more efficient. (l. to r.) AWS's Shane Madigan, Fabric's Rob Delf, and Nomad Media's Adam Miller spoke with Tavant's Filiz Bahmanpour.

MAKING CONNECTIONS

With a full house at Skirball Cultural Center, this year's EnTech Fest was full of energy. Attendees connected and caught up with each other throughout the day, making new connections and memories.

Brianna Price (r.) and Annie Shao from Fandango in the Mercedes-Benz CLA.

(l.-r.) Craig Seidel of Seidel Media Technology, EnTech Chair Rick Hack, and Dolby’s Ron Geller in front of the Nio ET9 with Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos.

In-car entertainment was on full display for attendees to experience. Mercedes-Benz CLA with Xperi technologies, Nio ET9 with Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos, and BMW i7, featuring the BMW theater screen shined bright in the courtyard.

(l.-r.) Looper Insights Lucas Bertrand, Xperi’s Bill Neighbors, and Xperi’s Scott Maddux gathered for some car talk.

UHD Alliance's Bill Bill Baggelaar (at podium) spoke to an enthusiastic lunch crowd about updates to Filmmaker Mode with ambient light compensation and OTT automatic switching.

Hilary DeCamp of Interpret (l.)

and Angel Studios’ Thomas Hughes

Circana’s John Buffone presented insights on

streaming’s new core audience.

Jeni Hatfield Benhain of
Whip Media (l.) and

DEG’s Evie Silvers

(l. to r.) Eric Stein of Impact Global Media; Lucas Bertrand of Looper Insights, who introduced the Chris McGurk keynote; and Becca Monahan of Official Charts Company