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Making a movie has historically been a time- and capital-intensive process that a novice videomaker couldn’t dream of successfully embarking on solo, but the founders of startup Runway are changing that. The company, which is known for helping to build popular text-to-image model Stable Diffusion, recently launched the first publicly available text-to-video platform, Gen-2. The company currently offers over 35 tools for AI-powered video editing to production companies, news publications, or individual content creators. Runway also allows creatives like filmmakers and artists to generate entire shots and scenes, and the tech was notably used to edit parts of movies including <em>Everything Everywhere All at Once</em>. Some of its customers include New Balance, CBS, and Vox, according to a spokesperson from the company. In June 2023 Runway raised $141 million in Series C extension funding at a $1.5 billion valuation with participation from Google, Nvidia, and Salesforce Ventures. The company recently released new research detailing ways to reduce bias in models that generate images from text and unveiled Director Mode, which gives users more control over scene generation.

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The Olympics gymnastics tumbling floor is basically a designer runway, with athletes donning $3,000 leotards adorned with thousands upon thousands of Swarovski crystals. Fortune spoke with design team GK Elite about the craft that goes into these stunning garments and the evolution of Olympic gymnastics fashion over the years. 

An Inside Look at Team USA’s $3,000 Gymnastics Leotards With 47,000 Crystals

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The Olympics gymnastics floor is a runway, with athletes in $3,000 leotards covered in Swarovski crystals. Fortune discussed the craft and evolution of these garments with GK Elite.

Paris is set to showcase a unique runway this summer on its Olympic gymnastics tumbling floor. This unofficial fashion week has the US gymnastics team fighting for gold and eight custom made leotards sparkling with 47,000 Swarovski crystals. The dazzling costumes aren't for sale but would retail for about $3000 each. The entire collection. We wanted to make sure that we were elevating the looks of team usa and connecting fashion which Paris is the world center of fashion. So connecting the location of the Olympics with team USA created by the Pennsylvania based company GK Elite. These leotards feature up to 10,000 crystals each meticulously arranged on custom fabric. The red, white and blue color scheme shows off the athletes nationality. While the intricate crystal patterns pay tribute to Paris. The city of light, the crisscross design comes into play mimicking corsetry and then also having the pearls hand placed in the back too. The mesh used in this leotard is called Jac card mesh and we are the only gymnastics manufacturer in the world to offer this mesh to our customers. It's super soft, super comfortable and it has a lace effect to it without actually being lac. So has that comfort element but also has the high fashion element with the Olympic Games only happening once every four years. Annie Heffernan, vice president of the women's program at USA Gymnastics told the Washington Post quote, regardless of their performance, I want them to feel amazing and beautiful when they go out and represent the US in a leotard that they can be proud of when designing. We don't really have to worry about how our designs are going to affect functionality. Certain gym bring in their own personality into each garment that they wear. So even though it was designed with team mentality with the styling of it, they can really let their own skills and personality shine on that world stage. Though gymnastic uniforms have always been eye catching according to the New York Times bedazzled leotards emerged around the early two thousands with just a few crystals here and there to catch the light in the arena. But the trends accelerated dramatically this century with the of crystals per leotard going from under 200 in 2008 to up to 10,000 per uniform. Now, back in 2016, a rep from GK le even predicted quote, we may have hit peak crystal only for the number of Swarovski crystals to double. Since that we wanted to make sure that we were keeping with patriotic red, white and blue tones. We incorporated our slate mystique and then we paired it with a grounding black to really let the crystal design pop and do the talking and then the negative space stars are created through the stone being clustered on the outside of the star. And we have touches of gold in the crystal design to really pay homage to our dynasty that USA Gymnastics has built. These eye catching uniforms might be hard to miss, but it's the athletes who truly steal the show a whopping 8.2 million viewers tuned in to watch Simone Biles clinch her spot in the US Olympic Gymnastics team last month making it one of the top rated moments of this year's US trials with seven Olympic medals. Biles has rocketed herself and gymnastics into the heart of American pop culture being so overtly inspired by the American flag just helps that sense of patriotism and representing your country, which is really what the Olympics is all about and that spirit of strong athleticism and strong patriotism just merging together beyond their stunning appearance. These intricate leotards have boosted athletes confidence at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021. US. Gymnasts dubbed one particular leotard quote our lucky leo because every athlete who wore it won a medal as these garments have become more popular among competitors. Gymnasts have personalized the colors and patterns to reflect their own tastes. Strong inspiration from icons like Beyonce in a sport where athletes often earn more from a endorsements than from competition winnings creating a recognizable brand is essential. And these stunning leotards play a crucial role in that branding. I think as Americans, we all have kind of this universal experience of going to fireworks and having the bright, bold, beautiful lights in the sky with the sparkling streams, kind of leaving everybody wanting for more. I think there's no better way than to embody the national team in that same way. They're bright, they're beautiful, they're strong and we've all just been dying to see what they're going to do next.

Jennifer Fleiss, Partner, Initialized Capital; Co-founder, Rent the Runway, Jetblack Interviewer: Andy Dunn, Chief Executive Officer, Pie; Co-founder, Bonobos; Co-chair, Fortune Brainstorm Tech

Brainstorm Tech 2024: How to Innovate Without Losing Your Mind

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Thanks for having us. So Jenny and I were comparing notes we met in Soho in 2009 and you were starting rent the runway and I wanted to begin with what it's like when you come down from the entrepreneurial journey. So you spent nine years building rent the runway at some point that went public. Then three years during the go go days of e commerce Transformation at Wal Mart. What was it like? After all that excitement came too close. A really big comedown. So nine years then jumped straight into the next role, starting and leading and growing up to zero to about 300 employees within the business. I ran at Wal Mart all of a sudden came out of that and it was COVID and I had left Wal Mart and I was like, who am I as a person? What do I want to do with my life? And in that process of that span of entrepreneurship, which was a complete blur. I had, had three Children. I had lost my mom and there was a lot I think I just hadn't processed because it was 1 ft in front of the next problem solving, taking care of the hundreds of employees that we had at various companies. And so this kind of question of like, what did I actually want in life? Where was I in life? Like, really suddenly hit me really hard along with time to kind of process that, which is in theory important, but it can also be a little bit rattling. Yeah. So one thing I like about you is that over the years as we've gone through some ups and downs as friends and fellow entrepreneurs, we've talked about where do you get help from a mental health perspective? We've compared notes on executive coaches and I think at some point shared one of those compared notes on therapists. How do you decide as a founder when you're dealing with difficult things? And maybe even as a human folks in the room who have this decision to face, when do you hire a coach? And when do you hire a mental health professional therapist, psychiatrist, et cetera? Yeah. Well, before I had a coach or a therapist, I had people like you, Andy, honestly and my co founder, but truly in New York, I mean, the ecosystem is a lot bigger now. But when we were starting around the runway in Bonobos, there was like eight of us and we all were helping each other. Whether it was like, how much are you paying for per square foot for office space? Like the silliest question all the way to really hard stuff around fundraising or first person, you were going to fire and the ability to, like, authentically form friendships and meet people and get advice from them both. Kind of the most practical way. Like, we didn't have any time, it was like a very practical way to get things done and figure it out. But also it was like, it was really meaningful and it led you feel like you're not in this alone and having a co founder does that as well. And so I feel like, very grateful that in these like dramatic highs and lows of entrepreneurship, I had someone not just to deal with the low moments because those definitely happened in entrepreneurship, but it's way more fun to deal with the high moments. And like at the end of the day, that's what kind of gets you to muffling through the next, the next blow. And that idea that you're not in this alone because your co founder implicitly like cares just as much as you do, like your necks are both on the line. You've both got to make it work. That was something in the second business that I started for Walmart. Like I didn't have that in the same way. And I never, I never actually took it for granted because like, it literally came up so often. And I think that's what kept me really afloat in a very sane way amidst losing my mom and having three kids while being at rent the runway. Yeah. And we joined Wal Mart at roughly the same time, I can remember sitting down with Doug mcmillan when we were doing the Bonobos deal with Wal Mart and Doug just looked at me with those like piercing blue eyes and he was like, Andy, why do you want to do this? And I was, I was nervous at that dinner. There was a $300 million deal on the line and I just thought about it and I said, Doug, I need a job and he was like, you have a job and I was like being a founder of a company is not a job. Always worrying about payroll and all these things. I'm curious was your experience of managing your own mental health different when you were a founder versus when you were a doing great things but effectively a corporate executive. Interesting, you know, I think, um I think the biggest difference was probably like, there was more resources that you could put to work within the ecosystem of Wal Mart. One being coaches, for example. So around the runway, there was easily seven years before we had coaches or we talked about having a coach for Jen and I within the company, I don't think it was as common back then. You know, we launched the business in 2009, but we also didn't necessarily have the capital, the resources or really the time to be thoughtful about that. I mean, I wish we were more proactive about it. What we did do very well, Jen and I was, we forced ourselves to sit down every other week together. The two of us, whether we thought we had something to talk about or not and it was meant to be about, like, our relationship and, like, talking about like us and like, there was some hard stuff that came up, there was like some funny stuff that came up, but like definitely some like hard tense conversations that came up and that advice had been given to us by of our board members who's still an observer to our board. But I think just having, you know, for those seven years having great board members, great advisor, great peers around the table took that role within the Walmart ecosystem. Like they have a great set of existing coaches that they can pair you with and I was able to see like huge benefits in then leveraging that resource and also having this feeling, you know, within that broader corporate, I wasn't also fundraising, you know, there was a sense of like there was some safety net connected and this broader, you know, it wasn't entirely 100% on my shoulders. So I think that let me breathe a little bit more, but it was also like a different sort of responsibility to live through totally. And I do want to take questions in a moment. So please prepare your question. Um Let's talk about co founders for a second. And I have to tell you something. You don't know when we sat down for lunch in 2009, I was in the middle of a co founder, divorce with my business partner. And I remembered thinking these two have no idea how hard it is to have two amazing leaders. Both who with business school pedigrees right out of H BS. The two of you were, this isn't going to work, which was the most weird thought to have had. And then you have endured with your co founder and the CEO of Run Runway Jen Hyman. You were there for nine years. You had a thoughtful transition. You're still on the board. What is unique about your friendship and partnership with her that has enabled you to do as friends and co founders, something that we so rarely see which is to endure as both. Yeah. Well, thank you. You truly have seen the whole trajectory. It is probably in the course of around the runway. What I feel the most proud of like legitimately is my relationship with Jen and the fact that it's still a very strong relationship. Today, we talk almost daily about pretty much everything and I'm still on the board with her. So some of it is business related and some of it is like friends and life related. But the reality is we started our friendship and our relationship during this time where we went through so many moments together of blitz scaling and highs and lows and fundraising and go public and COVID at a time where people didn't need to get dressed and we could never imagine that would have happened. Right. And then the moment when I did decide to leave and the moment when we brought in a couple of senior executives for the first time, like there were just so many like hard and special moments that like kind of like a spouse, like no one lived through that with you in the same way. But then I think knowing also as a person that she and I could both kind of weather storms as people and keep that relationship with each other. And I say with like our founding team in this really like special place, like that's a, that is like the stuff that's meaningful uh in life. And, and ultimately, I don't know, like it, it really is what I'm most proud of when I think of my time there, great anyone ready to jump in over here? Um Can you talk about the specific moment when you had the self awareness to know you had to step away in order to keep the company growing? Yeah. So I've always loved the earliest stages of entrepreneurship and at rent the runway like Jen and I were able to have really real conversations. And so at one point I took on a role in like starting the new parts of our business actually. And so I started our omni channel retail strategy. I started our subscription business, which is say about 90% of more than 90% of our company. I started a whole sponsorship business. So we were like finding these ways to like use my best self that would also make me the happiest within the business. And at some point, like, there wasn't more stuff we should start, it was just about baking all of that. So that was like a very clear thing. And we'd also hired an amazing senior team that felt really like good that, you know, I felt like I could leave if I wanted to. And coincidentally, I feel like, right as everything was feeling very settled and good in that way, Mark Laurie, who we both worked with at Walmart, reached out with the opportunity to go start a business on my own within Wal Mart ecosystem. And he's like, you know, pick your team, like, you know, it's your company, your vision. And I had for really all of my career, done things with Jen and she'd always been the CEO which like I was always psyched about and that was great. But like, it was a chance for me to be like, who am I as an individual leader and business person and to like, try that on and have that experience in a really unique moment in time. I mean, this like entrepreneurship at a moment where Mart had just sunk $3.3 billion of like through the elephant in the swimming pool. Like we actually care about digital and we were led to take some really big swings. It was, it was a really unique opportunity. And I think she also saw that and wanted that for me as well. And the whole board, the whole senior team, I think we were able and we still have like very healthy relationships and conversations because I would never have left if it wasn't that I knew like the business was in a really good ok place. So back to rent the runway, the company went public at one point. I remember it was valued at 800 million in the private markets and worth more than a billion. I looked this up last night, 66 million of market cap today. Tell us two things about that. What's that been like for you as co founder? And what has that meant for showing up for gen and maybe some specifics on how you've had to show up because it does become asymmetric at some point being the person that's still in it and running it versus being the board member looking in on it. Yeah. No, absolutely. I mean, as much as there's highs and lows at a company, as much as there's for your co founder it is quite different when, you know, I've diversified from my own career and from my role in investing now and the portfolio of founders that I work with versus being there day in and day out that said, you know, like the actual valuation of the company, I think in some ways that's never, has never felt like something where like, wow, that's money in the bank. I mean, like my shares have been like, as far as I know, it's kind of like, always been this thing where there's, there's money that hopefully at some point will exist, but it was never, it was never as like tangible. So like, I like the pieces that I cared the most about and that I really saw Jen care the most about were like when our employees who were brought in with like option valuations at a certain amount. Ben saw those being underwater in a way that when you're a private company is never visible and it was not, it was not at all connected to the actual performance of our company or what they were doing, it was connected just like what's out there publicly day to day and you have to kind of manage through that emotional and kind of cultural tension and pain for your employees. Like that stuff was really hard and friend of mine um seeing Jen carry the weight of what like I think for her too, it was more the weight of what that was to be a leader to employees then than it was like what her personal portion was was worth and to like, try to be the partner for her to support her in the moment where that was happening and then you have to compound it with like laying off employees at different points in time. Yeah, it was definitely really tricky. You know, I think all this stuff though. It is. What in this next chapter now where I landed about that? Tell us about now you're on the other side of the table, you're a venture capitalist. What's different about being a founder now from back then? And how do you show up for the founders that you partner with? Yeah. So it, it still feels, I don't know, I still feel like I'm both an operator and an investor. So I started doing investing while I was at rent the runway even and then at Walmart. And I think one thing that's awesome about initialized is like all the partners are former operators and founders. And so I actually feel like I'm at home in this entrepreneurial ecosystem and in the way that we work with founders. So that was like for me, my answer of how do I find my happy place in making this dramatic transition between being a builder, being an operator, growing teams to being the one on the sidelines and guiding. But what I will say, you know, I think all the learnings and the highs and lows like have become these amazing learnings that I can now share. They weren't just like for nothing and it wasn't just like these pains and scars and bruises. They were ways that I could like now guide and share it with founders. And, you know, my favorite one, I actually shared this tip with a founder earlier today. It's not just about sharing the scar stories. It's also like create an email account that's like memories at Rent the runway.com or whatever it is. And when you have like a fun moment, a funny email, a photo just like BC that email and then like look back at it every five years and like celebrate and figure out like fine, like remember those special fun moments because it all goes by really frigging fast, right? I've got one more for you. Yeah, let's go back to the beginning. Let's say you had a founder who was exited and was at a similar low point. What would you say? What would be the one thing you would say to someone who was in the, in those shoes that you were in just some years ago? Yeah. Well, first off, I hope that I would be the type of investor that they would come to because one reason why I went to investing is our first investor, Scott friend from being capital. He had been an operator and the ability for him to empathize and to be that person that we called at like 830 in the morning or 10 pm at night in those moments, like is literally still there. Like I still have to find an investor with empathy with the empathy that's on through it, that you can trust that like you want to call and you feel is going to be there for you and have real thoughtful advice. And I think what he what other people told me, it's like this journey and life is like a lot longer than you think of it as when you're an entrepreneur, you're entrepreneur, it all runs by and I'm getting to this. You're going to let me just say I so admire your journey and thanks for being here to talk about this. Thanks everyone.

Jake Aust, Chief Innovation Officer, AGBO Cristóbal Valenzuela, Co-founder and CEO, Runway Moderator: Sharon Goldman, Fortune

Brainstorm Tech 2024: AI Goes To Hollywood

Hi, everyone. Thanks so much, Chris. It's great to see you again. Jake, it's great to meet you. Well, well, this is amazing. I, well remember seeing the first generation of runway A I and I think, you know, we can all see the progress that's been made. But Jake, I'm going to immediately go to what I consider to be the cinematic elephant in the room and that is will A I kill Hollywood. Hollywood's been around for 100 years. Will A I kind of end this run of Hollywood as we know it or are we not there yet? I think we've been here before and I think it's, it's important to recognize that Hollywood exists because of technology and there have been many, many technological revolutions that have happened across the history of Hollywood. You know, from bringing sound and color to, to the, to the picture, to CG and there has been existential angst in Hollywood and outside of Hollywood as to whether or not this was going to kill Hollywood. I don't see A I as something that's going to kill Hollywood. We are at the end of the day, an artist driven company at Agbo and it still takes the human, the human touch, the human connection. Now that said, will it be revolutionary? I believe it will. I believe it will. But I don't see it as a revolution that kills Hollywood. OK, Chris, I'm going to push back on that a little bit because you know, as Ali was saying, and as we've discussed, you know, many actors, writers, creatives of all stripes have pushed back on this technology. We can see how amazing it is and folks have raised concerns about it just a year ago, started the SAG actor strike. And you know, just last week, there was news that actors had pushing back against digital scans of their likenesses. What are they misunderstanding? We were just talking in the green room about kind of the nuance around this discussion. Can you talk about that? Yeah, absolutely. The first thing is, I think I agree with you, Jake with regards to how really art and technology are entwined like cinema and filmmaking, the history of technology in a way. And I think what we're seeing right now are more disdain. These are really exceptional tools for great artists and kind of what we're discussing before to a point of nuance. I think these days it's really hard to get nuanced conversations. I think we get into extremes. This is either destroying everything we know or is the best thing we've ever seen in our lifetime. And I think it's like none of those. It's like somehow in between it's gonna create a lot of change. I think technology creates change. And that's a good thing. And it also is going to allow for many more things that we never thought could be possible to be possible. And I think that the first type of thing that I think is necessary to get a bit more of a nuance is if you're afraid, if you have your opinions around this, if you've never used any of those tools, then the first thing you should do is use them. Like if you've never ever created a video, using a model like gen three, then go ahead and create a video and you'll see by experience in like two minutes where things are, what are the challenges, how it can be used and how filmmakers are using it so far. And so getting to a nuance is somehow difficult, but I think it's needed. Well, I want to come in a few minutes. I want to take some questions for the audience. I'm sure there is some. So just think about that. But Jake, I'm going to turn to you again. I'm not sure how many people realize that for a long time, you were a producer, you know, on some iconic TV, shows that we all love like the office and community. So I feel like you have a unique take on this, moving into this innovation role at ADVO can you talk a little bit about how you use today's A I tools in production, whether that is runway or I think you were talking about kind of even earlier in the R and D process. Sure. Yeah, I did start as a producer and I've been involved in technology through my entire career right now. I think what's important to realize is this technology when it comes to being useful to a company like ours, Agbo is very much in its infancy. We're in a, we're in a very early stage of now. We're all watching it progress at a fairly rapid pace. The question is, does it continue to accelerate or to progress at that same same pace? But what we see opportunity in right now is, is what a lot of people in Hollywood are using generative A I for is bringing vision, visualizing your creative idea prior to when you would even have access to a crew to a team of artists that can visualize that for which might have been the traditional process or you just don't have the money to do it because you're, you know, you're an independent filmmaker with, you know, a much lower budget potential and the generative tools can really help you. It's like sketching, you can, you can get your ideas out and look at it and say is that it's not what you're going to put on the screen at the end of the day. The way we look at it right now anyway. Um it, it is, it is a way to get your ideas out there and to communicate your ideas visually. And that's a, that's a very powerful thing. We've seen it as a, as a powerful thing, especially when you're in the middle of still creating what the story, what the world is. And again, like I said, it's, it's early in the process we call development where you're, you're, you don't have access to things, you're going out to the studios to pitch your ideas, to try and secure financing. And this gives you the ability to, to, to give just a little more than you could before Chris, we've talked about your early days runway started in 2018, you and your two co founders met at NYU at art school. So I've always been super interested in the fact that you are a visual artist historically and you know, that has sort of helped inform run. Can you talk about how that is the case? And now when you kind of get pushback from creative communities, how you kind of bring that back to your own background? Yeah, absolutely. So yeah, we better runway 2018, I've been working on some of the concepts and ideas of runway almost for a decade now. And I think like the unique aspect of what we build over time is really the intersection of art and science in a way that makes sense for tool makers for artists who want to use this and leverage it. My personal passion was really trying to understand what new art forms can emerge out of like new models like this ones. Now, the world was very different in 2018 in terms of what journal models could do, what even computer vision could do at the time. But I felt like there was something there that just felt very differently. And I think over time, we're pushing only the research boundaries with the timeliness of the videos that we just saw, but also with how accessible these tools can become for more people. And that accessibility requires empathy and understanding how artists really work. If you simplify the creative process to pushing a button that missed the whole point, it's a process, you sometimes don't know exactly where you're going. You start with an idea and it's about experimentation. And so building tools with the experimentation mindset at the beginning is something we've encouraged the team to do from the very beginning. And I think we'll continue to do so for, for the time being. Um And then how we've uh I think how we manage that, that to communicate that across and also speak more about the nuances with uh encouraging more people to um view what's possible with A I States in the context of really high kind of like production like environments. Like we have this film festival we host every year, I think you, you went, that uh that's an invitation basically to celebrate artists who are using new technologies, not technology. We're not, we don't discuss models, we don't discuss A I, we, we just discuss like people using models or technologies and that is one of the key things I would say they need to do more of. We, I'm obsessed with technology. I think a lot of people here are, but we should start obsessing with people more than like the technology itself. Well, speaking of the people, I'd love to take a, a question. Does anyone have one? We've got a mic back there. OK. Right here. Just say your name and where you're from. Hi, Chris Willis from Domo. Um I love what you said about uh your creativity is not just pushing a button uh with these new tools, you know, we, we, we hear that it's not gonna replace jobs, it's gonna replace kinds of tasks, but going forward. What kind of people do you think will really thrive with these kind of tools or what do schools like our schools at NYU need to be teaching? Yeah, that's a great question. I think like you can look at the past to get a sense of uh of how to make sense of the future. I would say this is uh the, the, the current like generation of artists were benefited a lot from the f transformation technology that we saw a couple of decades ago. And right now, something similar is happening where a new generation of art of artists are gonna be embracing this as tools for them to take on will be the ones that will like I would say thrive. I think the the mindset that I'm trying to um uh move away from is the stasis mindset, which is thinking that what we have right now, production wise, tool wise, uh technology wise is the forever way we will ever do things. And I think that for me is a mistake that uh puts not like the history of art in like context. There's, there's art is an ever changing like form. And I'm curious and I'm really thoughtful and I'm really excited for the ones that are going to think of these things as a new media type, as a new art form that will require people to experiment, to create new things that we haven't never seen before. And the ones that are doing that are the ones that are not constrained by how things used to work. And those for me are like the ones that are pushing the boundaries these days. And so we incentivize also in schools for students to be more of that mindset. That leads me to my next question for Jake, I feel like video and photography and creative mediums are a good example of where we've already had so many tech developments in that area. You know, we've had Photoshop, we have youtube, we have different apps on tiktok to make videos. How is this different? Do you see it as different even more game changer down the line or do you see it as just another evolution in the history of video and photo and, and visual art? I would say probably somewhere in the middle of that, I think there's a lot of similarities to, let's say the release of Photoshop and the ubiquity of Photoshop. We were grappling at the time with a lot of very similar issues, which is what's real. You used to see a picture, you could see a picture of something, it was that man, it was real. And then all of a sudden Photoshop started questioning and you started Photoshop became a verb very quickly and we grappled with that and we are all fine still, you know, like it's OK, you know, and so I think that there's some of the same wisdom should be applied today to what A I tools are that said, I think it is, I very much agree with Chris. I think there's a, there's potentially a new medium here that is about enabling something that doesn't currently exist um in terms of personalized interactions, in terms of um you know, um uh being able to, to get exactly what you want at the time that you want it um in, in, in, in relation to, to creative works, you know, an IP that might exist or have been created. It's a really, it's a really interesting, I think, possibility and that's where I'd like to keep my eye is not trying to save a nickel doing the stuff that we've always done. But like, what's new? What, what can we create here with this technology? We have, we have one more question here. I'd love to take uh Hi, I'm Kako Shrivastava, uh CEO of Splice. We are creator first, uh A I tech for music and musicians. So I really appreciate your question, Sharon. Um We also believe that it's about the creative process first and you have to focus on the creator. I'm super curious in both of your work. What have you seen artists do differently with this technology? That's not just a productivity gain but a creativity gain and more specific, the better. Um Go ahead. Sure. Um You know, I've been, I've been, we, we've released a new model. Uh I think it's been like 12 days or so. Um I've been obsessed just watching people generate things. So I do like something where I just see people like generate things and, and work with these models and the more I see them, the more I started to understand that um this is becoming more of what I I've been thinking about as um think about it as like a dream for the mind. You're going to exercise your creativity, not for the sake of creating some sort of like mastermind picture like film that's gonna make you an award winning director. But more because you wanna just exercise your own creative like mind and it's a tool that allows you to basically do that. You go in with some ideas you have in your head, something you've ever wanted, always wanted to create, you start creating with it. The model responds back with new things you've never thought of before. You take those things, you adjust them and you spend hours doing it and then suddenly you're like in a flow state where like you spend hours thinking about stuff, creating stuff, the output is not some productivity, like video that you're gonna put for a self pitch or I don't know a film. It's just for your own like like joy and you're happy with it. And I think that for me has been something I've never seen before that you engage with the technology in a way you've never engaged with any other technology before. I think part of it is the model becomes extremely creative as you use it more. And also it's a very fast feedback process. So you, you think about something you see it, you think about it again and you start doing this all the time. That for me has been like one of the most interesting non like productive like use cases I've seen so far. All right, we've got literally just over a minute left. I want so, so watch that. I want final thoughts. Three final thoughts. But what should we be thinking here? I mean, I think, you know, just to relate back to what I just said. I think it's, it's keep, keep our eyes on the future, keep our eyes on what's possible. I think the artists are going to show us what's possible. I think Chris's art background is, is, is uh, is so critical to what you're doing and, and I think it's going to be the artists that show us how these tools are used and it's the happy accidents. It's the, it's the, you know, the hallucinations that happen that are inspirational. I think that is, is what's new about this. What do you say, Chris? I basically think the same, think about and try to go for the things that don't have names that you've never seen before. When photography was first invented, people didn't have the words to describe it and they looked at it as something new. The first photographers ever made were referred to as mirrors with memories because that was the language people have, they had time to describe this new thing. I think pretty much what you were saying. Focus on the artists are going to push the bond just to figure out those new languages. Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Chris and Jake. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you all. Thank you.

Anastasis Germanidis, Co-founder and CTO, Runway Kylan Gibbs, Co-founder and Chief Product Officer, Inworld AI Ely Greenfield, Chief Technology Officer, Digital Media, Adobe Moderator: Ellie Austin, FORTUNE


Brainstorm AI 2023: Entertainment at the Speed of AI

Anastasis Germanidis, Co-founder and CTO, Runway Kylan Gibbs, Co-founder and Chief Product Officer, Inworld AI Ely Greenfield, Chief Technology Officer, Digital Media, Adobe, Ellie Austin, FORTUNE


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