The Creators, Brands & Builders Shaping AI

Jenny Stojkovic, Chris Capel, Paige Piskin, Don Allen III, Verena Puhm, Oren Rosenbaum and Jagger Waters join the new event from TheWrap and What's Trending.

September 29, 2026 ·  DGA Theater  ·  Los Angeles

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, TheWrap's flagship business and technology conference, taking place the following day at the DGA.

Who You'll Hear From

Conversation

The Agent’s Playbook: Building the Creator Business

Oren Rosenbaum, Partner & Co-Head, UTA Creators

Oren Rosenbaum has closed numerous deals on behalf of clients including the partnership between Barstool Sports and Fox Sports, the partnership between Red Seat Ventures and Kill Tony, the launch of Alex Cooper’s Unwell Network and Ashley Flowers’s new SiriusXM channel Crime Junkie. At the event, he'll share an insider’s view of how the creator business is built — from identifying creators with the potential to build lasting businesses to structuring the deals and partnerships that help them scale. Rosenbaum will offer the agency perspective on what agencies are looking for in the next generation of talent, how representation is evolving alongside the creator economy, and what he’s seeing across the industry. He’ll also explore how AI is reshaping the way creators build, monetize and grow. 

Conversation

Navigating Brand-Creator Partnerships

Don Allen III & Jenny Stojkovic — moderated by Paige Piskin

Brands are moving faster than ever to work with AI-native creators, and both sides are still writing the rules as they go. Allen and Stojkovic join Piskin to talk about what brand partnerships look like when the work is made with AI, and where creators and marketers are still misaligned.

Allen is a creative technologist and futurist who leads the A.R.T. Department at Asteria Studio, sits on Adobe's Creative Council, and advises WhatsApp and Meta's Ray-Ban hardware division. A former DreamWorks Animation specialist trainer, he's the author of Make a Seat and host of the Rethink Reality podcast, where he makes emerging technology feel usable to everyone.

Stojkovic is one of the youngest female venture capitalists in the U.S., serving as General Partner of Joyful Ventures, and has invested over $25 million into early-stage, values-driven startups. Jenny is known for delivering high-energy, insight-packed talks on artificial intelligence, leadership, innovation, career growth, and the future of work, especially for first-generation professionals and underrepresented talent.

Piskin is a pioneering AR Makeup and Lifestyle Creator whose influence spans the digital beauty landscape with over 300 billion impressions and 1.3 billion shares across social platforms. Dubbed a "Legend" by Vice, she has designed 300+ AR effects and filters for top international beauty brands and influencers, cementing her reputation as one of the most prolific creators in the augmented reality space.

Spotlights • Throughout The Day

How I Made It

Jagger Waters, Verena Puhm & Chris Capel

Throughout the day, AI filmmakers, creators and visual artists present a finished world, character or story and reveal how a small creative team made it possible.

Waters is a writer, producer and multidisciplinary AI creator with over a decade of experience across film, TV, audio, immersive, live events and digital storytelling. An early adopter at the forefront of AI-driven video production, her work has been recognized by SXSW, the Sundance Institute, VidCon, Adobe, Cannes, Raindance Film Festival, Fox Studios, the Producers Guild of America, Forbes and the Television Academy.

Puhm is the founder and CEO of Matriarch, an L.A.-based AI-native studio developing tech-influenced IP, serving Hollywood studios and building the infrastructure for how content is made in the age of AI. She was previously head of Dream Lab LA at Luma AI, where she built the industry's first next-generation cinematic R&D studio and pioneered scalable AI-driven production pipelines across live-action, animation and hybrid formats.

Capel is a comedy director with over 15 years of experience bringing laughs to brands like El Pollo Loco, LEGO and Jimmy Kimmel Live! With two decades in animation and a deep background in VFX, his work blends timing, character and craft in a way that hits the sweet spot where story meets technology. Chris treats generative AI like a creative playground, using it to fast-track big ideas and serve up comedy with extra bite. With nearly 200k YouTube subscribers and over 100 million views across platforms, he's built an audience the old-fashioned way, with brains, heart and a knack for whip-smart comedic storytelling.

Join us at AI Creator Day. This is where partnerships begin and deals get done.

More speakers, partners and programming announced in the coming weeks.