*Industry Report* The Medium is not Neutral
Theme
The printing press reorganized religion and politics. Cinema globalized storytelling and converged culture across borders. Television relocated media into the living room and domesticated entertainment. Each technological shift changed not only distribution, but behavior: where we gathered, how long we paid attention, who we experienced stories with, and which narratives could plausibly dominate.
Signal
We are in the middle of another paradigm shift. What appears to be an expansion of formats, including short-form video, AI-native micro dramas, interactive plot lines, and immersive worlds, is a deeper shift in how culture is produced, distributed, and lived. Mobile and AI are not simply tools layered onto existing systems; they define the constraints within which media and entertainment now evolve.
Read the full report below, with contributions from Michael Wise, Jon Rogers, Don Allen Stevenson III, Hannah Elsakr, and Liz Tingue.
Summit
We are just under two months away from our AI & Creativity Summit in New York, and the speaker lineup is heating up. Featured speakers include Nicholas Thompson, the CEO of The Atlantic, Kakul Srivastava, the CEO of Splice, Sinead Bovell, Doug Shapiro, researchers from MIT, and many more. Stay tuned for the unveiling of our full speaker lineup and agenda ahead of the event.
& Beyond
A common thing we hear from companies after our events: “How do we bring this inside our organization?”
Starting this year, we’re offering a small number of custom AI & Creativity immersion experiences for enterprises, purpose-built for internal teams, leadership groups, and agency partners who want to move beyond the conversation and into genuine creative exploration with AI.
If this sounds like something your company needs, just respond to this email. We’d love to talk.
Pulse
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Anthropic releases study on what 81,000 people want from AI: The largest qualitative study of its kind, users share how they use AI, what they dream it could make possible, and what they fear it might do.
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Yann LeCun Raises $1 Billion to Build AI That Understands the Physical World: Wired reports that Meta’s former chief AI scientist has long argued that human-level AI will come from mastering the physical world, not language.
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Hollywood Needs AI: A guest column in The Wrap making the case for why media and entertainment should embrace the frontier technology.
We hope to see you in NY on May 14, 2026, where we will continue these conversations on the forefront of AI and Creativity:
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 community@artistandthemachine.com.
Til next time,
Artist and the Machine.
xx
Paige Piskin is an award-winning AI and XR creator, known for pushing the boundaries of digital makeup, character design, and augmented reality experiences. With AR effects generating more than 300 billion impressions, shared 2 billion times, Paige has worked with major brands like Netflix, Bratz, Warner, and Coldplay, bringing immersive storytelling to life. She has also been a guest judge for Netflix, consultant, and 2x hackathon winner, recognized for her innovative work in AI-driven AR experiences. Paige is passionate about blending generative AI with character design, expanding the possibilities of digital self-expression and interactive storytelling.
Claire Silver is an anonymous AI-Collaborative artist that works with oil, acrylic, collage, photography, and different digital mediums to create her work. She often blends the classical style and mythos into her art, collaboratively producing work that feels at once familiar and strange. Her work explores themes of innocence, trauma, the hero’s journey, and how our view of them will change in an increasingly transhumanist future. Claire’s art can be found in the permanent collection of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, has been at Sotheby’s London and Christie’s New York and in galleries, museums, and festivals all over the world. Featured in the New York Times, WIRED, Fortune, NPR, and countless podcasts, Claire takes every opportunity to explore her unending fascination with AI, fight for visibility for this budding art movement, and wonder at the magnitude of this moment in history. She often feels like a caveman painting fire. Claire is vocal in her belief that with the rise of AI, for the first time, the barrier of skill is swept away and that in this evolving era, taste is the new skill.