Programme
WELCOME TO WONDERPANIC™ – Meet The New Neighbors
A year ago, we moved into Wonder Panic, the strange little town where every AI breakthrough made you gasp and sweat at the same time. We thought we’d settle in. Get comfortable. Maybe plant a few tomatoes.
We were wrong.
In the twelve months since, the neighborhood has changed beyond recognition. Open-source models went from scrappy underdogs to legitimate contenders. Sora showed up, threw a housewarming party, and then the house caught fire. AI agents stopped asking for permission and started booking their own meetings. Claude learned to code, co-work, and then basically moved in with you. Video generation went from “impressive party trick” to “wait, that’s not real?” And somewhere in there, a banana broke the internet.
Wonder Panic isn’t a quiet town anymore. It’s a boomtown. New neighbors are arriving daily, and they’re weird, wonderful, and occasionally terrifying.
Lars Bastholm returns with the sequel nobody asked for but everybody needs: a rapid-fire, irreverent tour of the year that made last year look so last year.
Lars is the co-founder and program director of the Scandinavian Creative AI Summit and an in-demand keynote speaker at conferences around the world.
He is also the founder and Chief Creative Officer of Bastholm Creative Consulting, a company that helps clients succeed in a world changed by generative AI.
Lars has spent his career working at the intersection of storytelling and technology in creative leadership roles at companies like Google, Ogilvy and AKQA.
White Canvas or Black Mirror
White Canvas or Black Mirror
Finally change! For too long, we’ve been stuck in outdated creative methods & output. But like with every new innovation, we face the same crossroad: See it as an existential threat, a “Black Mirror” scenario. Or see it as a “White Canvas”—an unprecedented opportunity to redefine creativity, unlock deeper relevance, and forge authentic human connections.
Jouke Vuurmans, Global CCO at Monks, shares his vision for harnessing AI in the ever-evolving landscape of design and creativity. With over two decades of experience navigating tech-driven evolutions, Jouke will rally to be aggressive, bold, and massively optimistic as we lead the charge into this exciting future, while remaining mindful of our human instinct to resist change.
Session takeaways:
- Tangible, real examples and applications of how AI will improve our creativity.
- Inspirational creative work, made in partnership with AI tools.
- Tips, tricks, & insights on how to evolve you and your team.
Jouke started his career as the first creative at Monks when MySpace was still a thing. Since then the digital creative world has evolved rapidly. That changing landscape became his creative playground and became the foundation of Jouke’s (and Monks’) growth into a creative powerhouse with international recognition.
He shines as a paragon of creative versatility, blending storytelling with the tactile essence of tangible experiences and always infused with the cutting-edge realms of technology. As the digital domain evolved, Jouke adeptly navigated the creative industry changes, transitioning from digital production prowess to broader agency ambitions, all while forging a unique path that transcended conventional industry paradigms.
Next to working on hundreds of award-winning projects, Jouke has also played a key role establishing Monks’ reputation as a global creative and production partner as the Global CCO. In the landscape of transformation, Jouke cultivated a philosophy that prized creative freedom and innovation, shaping a culture where imagination flourishes unrestrained.
As the digital age advances, with AI reshaping the creative landscape, Jouke is on the frontlines of this next now. He is advocating for a future where technology serves to enhance human creativity, where the machines will make the work more human.
The Power And Beauty Of AI Co-creation
AI filmmaking tools are evolving rapidly, giving creators ever-greater precision and control in shaping their visions. But there is another dimension these tools unlock: one that emerges when we surrender some control and step into the generative richness of the AI latent space.
Mark introduces his approach to “AI Co-Creation”, an invitation to treat generative models as creative partners rather than instruments, opening pathways to more surprising, holistic, and vibe-driven modes of creativity.
He will share some of his personal insights into this practice and explore how embracing unpredictability can transform both the process and the outcome.
Watch Mark’s award winning The Cinema That Never Was.
Mark has been working as a screenwriter across various media and genres for over 20 years, including TV shows, video games, and three fantasy novels. His works often investigate how systems and narratives shape our society, culture, history, and identity while charting the possibilities of an emergent AI cinema to create bold, cinematic narratives.
Mark’s AI film The Cinema That Never Was (2025) touched film lovers worldwide, including Hollywood veterans such as Alex Proyas (Dark City), John Gaeta (The Matrix), and Jeffrey Silver (Edge of Tomorrow).
The film won some of the most prestigious AI film prizes, including the Grand Prize at the OMNI AI Film Festival (jury president: George Miller), the Grand Prix at the Artefact AI Film Festival (jury president: Cédric Klapisch), the Grand Prize at the Korea AI Content Awards, and the 2nd place at the Reply AI Film Festival.
Mark’s follow-up AI film Céremony (2025) was a Top 12 finalist at the $1,000,000 AI Film Award by 1BFS and Google Gemini, out of 3,500 submissions.
Coffee break
AI, Creativity & the Law: Are we allowed to do this?
AI has collapsed the distance between idea and execution: it’s now easier than ever before to generate, replicate, modify and remix content. But just because you can do something doesn’t mean it’s a good idea — commercially, reputationally, or legally.
In this session, media lawyer and AI expert Kelsey Farish will cut through the noise surrounding AI’s legal hotspots: copyright, confidentiality, liability, and transparency. Using real-world examples from her practice, she’ll focus on explaining what you can do, what you can’t, and what happens in the grey zones in-between.
Kelsey Farish is a London-based solicitor whose specialism in AI began in 2019 with a simple goal: to help protect actors from unauthorised deepfakes. Today, she’s internationally recognised as one of the leading lawyers advising on AI in the screen and audiovisual sectors.
Her favourite projects and negotiations often involve digital replicas and voice cloning, but her practice spans copyright, reputation, and media matters more generally.
When she’s not at her desk, you can probably find her on the sofa with a glass of wine, reading something like Tarkovsky’s Sculpted in Time, or otherwise enjoying a dumb movie with her young son.
Tom York Designed My Roller Coaster
Why being (and staying) a bit wonky is a competitive advantage in a world where everything is AI-ified. A hands-on demonstration with numerous creative-ish side quests.
Iain is a creative leader who applies decades of experience in digital, advertising, and design to the emerging field of Artificial Intelligence.
Creatively active since the mid-90s, his work has been instrumental in defining digital advertising and design, and is driven by a philosophy of connecting people and technology in inspiring new ways. He loves to make simple, delightful, and accessible things that help audiences understand and explore the potential of new technologies.
As Global Interactive Executive Creative Director for Wieden+Kennedy and Executive Creative Director at Google’s Creative Lab, he led exceptional teams that redefined how successful brands, artists, and talent use technology to communicate. His work has resulted in him being listed as ‘inventor’ on two Google-owned patents, as well as having work in the Guggenheim, and MOMA permanent collection.
He is the founder of two highly influential creative studios: Poke (1999) and, more recently, Food (2021). At Food, he’s been helping clients like LVMH, Google, Spotify, IKEA, and Hinge unlock the creative potential of AI.
His work has been recognized at the highest level by The Webbys, Cannes Festival of Creativity, D&AD, Clios, One Show, Art Directors Club, Andys, and many others. He is a frequent speaker and advisor on innovation, cultural change, and technology within the creative industry.
LUNCH
Models, Apps, And The Future Of Creativity
The initial shockwave of generative AI has passed, but the real earthquake is just beginning. As the novelty of simple text-to-image generation fades, a new, far more complex reality is emerging. So, where is all of this actually headed?
In this session, we will chart the future of creative AI across three crucial frontiers. We’ll explore the incoming evolution of underlying AI models, how these technological leaps will birth entirely new types of creative applications, and ultimately, what this means for the day-to-day reality of the creative industry at large.
Prepare for a candid look at what is coming next, and learn how you can position yourself, and your work, for the massive shifts on the horizon.
Khulan’s journey from Mongolia to Europe and now New York has been a continuous lesson in adaptation, teaching her early on that storytelling & creativity is our most powerful tool for reinvention.
A self-taught designer turned Product Marketing Manager for Cloud AI at Google, she now drives the go-to-market strategy for generative media models (Veo, Nano Banana, Lyria, and more). Beyond Google, Khulan explores the intersection of creativity and AI through her newsletter, Make it Pop, and her active LinkedIn community.
Whether speaking at events like New York Fashion Week and NY Tech Week, or breaking down complex tech for her readers, Khulan is constantly looking ahead. She is actively piecing together a vision for the future of creativity and AI, exploring where this technology is headed and empowering others to use it to reimagine their own potential.
Greatness and Gradients
You’ve seen it. That site with the purple a gradient. The logo with the electric violet glow. The AI website that looks like every other AI website. It’s clean. It’s competent. It’s good enough.
But it isn’t great.
AI was trained on ‘good enough’. Good enough to accelerate, good enough to impress a client, and good enough to check a box. But the last 10%? What separates memorable from forgettable? That hasn’t changed. It’s just more evenly distributed.
Chad Vavra has spent over twenty years chasing that last 10% — working with Pixar, Meta, Google, Samsung, and Cisco where he led UX. But AI handed him something he never saw coming: the ability to become something he always believed was beyond him. A founder, entrepreneur, and builder of something entirely his own. Chat Agency AI
And in doing so, it made him more creative and more productive than ever.
He will share how his journey required two things most people treat as opposites: critical thinking and hopefulness. The willingness to challenge and accept AI as a creative partner, and the belief that something genuinely great is on the other side.
This is a talk about what happens when you are more than good enough.
Session takeaways:
- Why AI’s “good enough” is an opportunity
- How critical thinking and hopefulness work together as the engines
- How AI can unlock a version of yourself you never thought possible — and why that changes everything
A design executive with twenty-plus years of experience. Chad has worked with Cisco, Pixar, Meta, Google, NBC Universal, US Air Force, Samsung, and many more.
He is the creator and cofounder of Chat Agency AI, a platform that leverages advanced AI to create conviction for entrepreneurial concepts by automating and streamlining the ideation-to-execution process.
Building a Disruptive AI Content Studio
In this session, Yoko Higuchi-Zitzmann, founder and CEO of a disruptive content studio, will discuss the future of AI content studios as they rapidly evolve from using AI as a tool to operating as fully integrated AI production studios.
Yoko Higuchi-Zitzmann is the Founder and CEO of a disruptive content studio dedicated to building a future-oriented European AI studio for films, series, short-form, and digital content. Alongside international partners, she develops innovative production models based on generative AI and hybrid film production.
She previously served as CEO of Telepool (a Westbrook Inc. company, owned by Will Smith), where she successfully led a strategic transformation and M&A process, evolving the company into a global powerhouse for premium films, series, and IP across TV, cinema, digital distribution, and streaming.
Her extensive leadership track record includes roles as Co-Managing Director at Pantaleon Films (founded by Matthias Schweighöfer), as well as executive positions at Studio Hamburg and Constantin Film, where she gained deep expertise in production, licensing, distribution, and growth strategies.
Her credits include the Oscar-winning film La Vie En Rose, the international blockbuster Asterix at the Olympic Games, the global hit My Blind Date with Life (sold to 54 countries), and the Blue Panther-nominated RTL+ series Herzogpark.
As a leading figure in the German and international entertainment industry, Yoko has been repeatedly recognized by The Hollywood Reporter as one of the “40 Most Powerful Women in International Film” (2023 & 2024) and one of the “35 Most Powerful Women in International Television” (2023).
Today, she bridges her decades of experience as a producer, rights expert, and C-level executive with a profound focus on the future of AI-driven media.
Coffee break
And really good networking.
Why I’m More Optimistic Than Ever
We live in an age of ruthless disruption. Robots are encroaching. The media we once leaned on is losing its gravity. Consumers now hold the same power and tools we once thought were ours alone.
And yet — I’m more optimistic than ever. In this talk, PJ Pereira will turn adversity on its head. He will explore not only how this industry is under siege, but how precisely that is setting the stage for its greatest evolution yet.
How every challenge is a crack that lets fresh light in. How losing our sacred spaces forces us to invent new ones. And why the democratization of technology isn’t our death — it’s our fiercest ally.
PJ Pereira is an industry veteran of over 20 years, known for co-founding independent award-winning creative agency, Pereira O’Dell. In 2023, PJ was also named Chief Creative Officer of independent agency network Serviceplan Americas. He’s been named to Adweek’s Creative 100, Ad Age’s Creativity 50, 4A’s 100 People Who Make Advertising Great, and most recently Adweek’s AI Champion of the Year.
His interest in AI led him to co-found AI incubation and innovation lab, Silverside AI, as a company within Pereira O’Dell. In 2023, PJ released a novel called The Girl From Wudang, a novel about artificial intelligence, martial arts, and immortality. Pereira is a pioneer in the marketing world, sitting at the intersection of tech, entertainment and advertising. His credentials have made him one of the industry’s most influential and respected creatives.
As a board member for the Ad Council, PJ has led award-winning initiatives including the “It’s Up To You” Vaccination campaign. Outside of his work in advertising, PJ is a novelist of 12 years, and a martial artist with multiple black belts.
AI From Creation to Distribution
During the writer’s strike of 2023, Jagger Waters became a public advocate of using AI in previsualization, storyboarding and pitching original projects. Driven by her experience as a narrative storyteller above all else, she won a series of early gen AI filmmaking competitions that launched her deep into a thriving network of entertainment and tech thought leaders.
Join Jagger as she leads a workshop demonstrating the process of creating with AI, from original script writing, to keyframes, to public streaming distribution. Watch her true crime short film NO SMOKING (created for Season 2 of Fairground.tv’s true crime anthology series) on Roku and Xumo Stream box, now.
Jagger Waters is a multidisciplinary AI creator, writer and producer with over a decade of experience across film, audio, micro dramas, live events, and digital storytelling.
As an early adopter at the forefront of AI-driven video production and vocal advocate of using AI for proof of concept, storyboarding and previsualization (especially for emerging, independent directors and writers), her work has earned recognition by Adobe, the Sundance Institute, SXSW, Cannes, Producers Guild of America, Forbes, and the Television Academy.
Along with developing her own original content for digital platforms at the intersection of the creator economy and AI, Jagger leads Creator programming, education and innovation efforts at G&B’s College of Influence.