AI Creator Day brings together creators, storytellers, marketers, brands and industry leaders who are actively building with AI and navigating its impact on the creative industries. Conversations, workshops, live demonstrations and creator showcases cover the businesses forming around the technology and the open questions about ownership, ethics and creative rights.
The inaugural event serves as the kickoff to TheGrill 2026, TheWrap’s flagship business and technology conference, taking place the following day at the DGA.
Who You’ll Hear From:
Caleb Ward
CEO & Co-Founder, Curious Refuge
Curious Refuge has trained thousands of artists worldwide and inside every major studio — from Academy Award winners to first-time storytellers. Ward brings those lessons to “The Creative Possibilities of AI Tools for Creators,” a workshop running through the latest tools worth adding to a day-to-day creative workflow.
Mike Gioia
Co-Founder, AI on the Lot
Mike Gioia is the co-founder of AI on the Lot, the world’s largest AI media conference and an official partner of AI Creator Day, where he will lead “What’s Next,” a future-trends conversation exploring the ideas and technologies shaping the next era of entertainment and the creator economy.
Rebecca Grone
Head of impact, 11:11 Media
At the next-gen media company founded by Paris Hilton and Bruce Gersh, Grone leads advocacy across child welfare, digital safety and policy. She’ll discuss the series “Searching for Mr. Deepfake,” 11:11’s work on AI-generated content and creator protections, and legislation the team helped champion — including the Take It Down Act.
Panel · Early YouTube pioneers
DeStorm Power & Taryn Southern
The creators who built the first creator economy wave on how they’re approaching this one — the tools they use, what’s working, what’s overhyped and how they’re rethinking their businesses around the technology.
Power is one of digital media’s earliest multi-hyphenate creators: Emmy-nominated, AMA-winning, five-time Streamy winner, host of “Punk’d” Season 10, 30M+ followers, and a founder of The Zeus Network, Ghost Studios and Dramatik Verticals.
Southern has tracked the technology at every stage — 750M+ YouTube views, the world’s first AI pop album in 2017, projects across VR, brain-computer interfaces and digital cloning, and advisory work with Fortune 500 companies.
Additional speakers, partners and programming will be announced in the coming weeks.
Together, AI Creator Day and TheGrill represent TheWrap’s continued investment in convening the industry’s most influential voices while creating a new forum at the intersection of Hollywood, Silicon Valley and the creator economy.
For more information on AI Creator Day and to apply to attend, visit: www.thewrapc.om/aicreatorday
AI Creator Day sponsors includes pocket.watch.
Tickets for TheGrill on September 30 are now available at www.thewrap.com/thegrill and WrapPRO subscribers get 30% off by emailing memberships@thewrap.com to claim the code.
For sponsorship opportunities, contact sales@thewrap.com. For speaker submissions, click here to nominate a speaker.
About TheWrap
TheWrap is the leading, authoritative digital news organization covering the business of entertainment and media. Founded by award-winning journalist Sharon Waxman in 2009, TheWrap is the only independently owned Hollywood trade, serving as a reliable and trusted source of breaking news, investigative reporting, expert analysis, exhaustive awards season coverage and in-depth features for over a decade.
About What’s Trending
What’s Trending is an Emmy-nominated media brand covering the people, platforms and ideas shaping digital culture. Founded by host, producer and TIME100 Creator Shira Lazar, What’s Trending has been at the forefront of the creator economy since 2011, producing original news, interviews and entertainment across social, digital and out-of-home platforms for a community of more than 4 million followers. The company also partners with leading brands, creators and organizations to develop content, events and experiences at the intersection of media, technology and culture.
