Summary:
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DeStorm Power and Taryn Southern to speak at AI Creator Day on Sept. 29 in LA.
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Panel will discuss AI tools, business restructuring, and navigating the creator economy.
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Event lineup includes speakers on AI education, deepfakes, and the future of entertainment and creator economy.
DeStorm Power and Taryn Southern built their careers in YouTube’s earliest days, back when uploading a video and building an audience was itself the disruption. Now they’re being asked to weigh in on a new one.
Both are part of the first speaker lineup for AI Creator Day, a new event from TheWrap and What’s Trending that opens TheGrill, TheWrap’s annual business and technology conference, on Sept. 29 at the Directors Guild of America Theater in Los Angeles.
The pairing is the more interesting story than the event itself. Power and Southern represent a generation of creators who already survived one platform upheaval, the shift from cable and traditional media to YouTube.
Their panel with other early creators will get into what’s actually working with AI tools, what’s overhyped and how they’re restructuring their businesses a second time, a question with more weight coming from people who’ve done this before.
Southern’s path makes the case on its own. She built an audience during YouTube’s founding years, then released what’s considered the first AI-composed pop album back in 2017, years before generative AI became a mainstream conversation. Since then she’s moved into neurotechnology and digital cloning work.
Power, a Zeus Network co-founder with more than 30 million followers across platforms, built his following before any of these tools existed.
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The rest of the lineup fills in where that adaptation is heading. Rourke Heath will talk through how he built GenHQ into an eight-figure AI education business, part of a stated goal to help create 100,000 new jobs for creators and companies figuring out where AI fits into their work. Caleb Ward, whose Curious Refuge has trained artists inside nearly every major studio, will run a workshop on the tools creators are folding into daily production.
The event isn’t skipping the harder questions either. Rebecca Grone, who leads impact work at Paris Hilton and Bruce Gersh’s 11:11 Media, will address the flip side of the same technology: deepfakes, consent and likeness rights. Her session covers the company’s series “Searching for Mr. Deepfake” and its work behind the TAKE IT DOWN Act, which gives creators more legal footing against AI-generated content made without permission.
AI on the Lot joins as a partner, with co-founder Mike Gioia leading a session on where entertainment and the creator economy go from here. Organizers say more speakers will be announced in the coming weeks. Tickets for TheGrill on Sept. 30 are on sale now, with a discount available to WrapPRO subscribers.
Find your tickets HERE.
