Brandon Baum, La'Ron Hines and Younez Zarou joined assistant managing editor Steven Bertoni at the 2025 World Governments Summit in Dubai for a conversation on how AI will impact content creators.
This Summit brought together governments, international organizations, thought leaders, and private sector leaders from around the globe to foster international cooperation and identify innovative solutions for future challenges, ultimately inspiring and empowering the next generation of governments.
Subscribe to FORBES: https://www.youtube.com/user/Forbes?sub_confirmation=1
Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:
https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript
Stay Connected
Forbes newsletters: https://newsletters.editorial.forbes.com
Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes
More From Forbes: http://forbes.com
Forbes covers the intersection of entrepreneurship, wealth, technology, business and lifestyle with a focus on people and success.
This Summit brought together governments, international organizations, thought leaders, and private sector leaders from around the globe to foster international cooperation and identify innovative solutions for future challenges, ultimately inspiring and empowering the next generation of governments.
Subscribe to FORBES: https://www.youtube.com/user/Forbes?sub_confirmation=1
Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:
https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript
Stay Connected
Forbes newsletters: https://newsletters.editorial.forbes.com
Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes
More From Forbes: http://forbes.com
Forbes covers the intersection of entrepreneurship, wealth, technology, business and lifestyle with a focus on people and success.
Category
🛠️
LifestyleTranscript
00:00Hey guys, I'm Brandon B.
00:02My content, it's hard to explain.
00:05I create fun visual effect videos.
00:07Essentially, I have these wild, crazy, imaginative dreams,
00:12and I bring them into reality.
00:14I'll grab clouds, turn them into cotton candy,
00:17and anything else my imagination can come up with.
00:21Alright, just to kind of give myself a little bit of an elevator pitch here, I guess.
00:26My name is Le'Ron Hines.
00:28I started this series during the pandemic called Are You Smarter Than a Preschooler?
00:31And it kind of somersaulted me into this lane of interviewing different types of people,
00:37and now I'm branching off into more lifestyle kind of content,
00:40as well as fashion as well, too.
00:43So many different things.
00:45I don't know how y'all found that picture of me from when I was 19.
00:47That was back there.
00:49Yeah, that's me.
00:51Very cool. Eunice?
00:52Yeah, what's up? My name is Eunice.
00:54First of all, sorry for my English, because sometimes they are broken.
00:57But I hope, inshallah, I will be fine for this talk.
00:59So I make some creative stuff on social media.
01:03Started 2014, become big in 2020,
01:08and yeah, make some photo videos, like cool edit stuff and stuff like this.
01:14Cool. I'm excited for this panel, because you and Brandon do a lot of visual effects stuff.
01:19Le'Ron does more like human interviews, that sort of thing.
01:23So it's cool to have the different perspectives.
01:25So what are we thinking now?
01:27When you think of AI in creation, what are your angles?
01:30And I want you guys to mix it up, ask each other questions, advice.
01:34But do you guys use AI right now in anything you do?
01:39I am not ashamed to say that I do use AI in a bit of, in some extent.
01:46I believe that AI is great in terms of a sidekick or an assistant,
01:53as opposed to just what you rely on fully.
01:56Like, I use AI almost as a thought starter for video ideas,
02:00or in terms of like, you know, I do questions.
02:02So like, if I need help asking specific questions, what are these?
02:06Like, AI is a great tool for things of that nature.
02:09But I think if you rely on it as much of, you're doing 20% of the work,
02:13AI is doing 80, I feel like that's when the problem kind of becomes a thing.
02:17But if there is an healthy balance between you and the AI,
02:20I think that's pretty ideal.
02:23Yunus, do you use it for your edits?
02:25I mean, for my video edits, I don't use it.
02:28But sometimes for my photo edits, I use it.
02:31And also for my captions.
02:34Sometimes I need it for my video captions.
02:37And yeah.
02:39Definitely video captions.
02:40Those are very hard.
02:42Mad.
02:43Yeah.
02:44So right now, it's like a tool.
02:45You're a futurist.
02:46You think we live in a simulation.
02:47We talked about that last night.
02:48Don't get me started.
02:49Otherwise, this panel goes to very different terms.
02:51So maybe we're already in AI.
02:53But you do stunning Hollywood-style effects.
02:57How do you do those now?
02:59And do you see AI making your job a lot easier, streamlined?
03:03What do you see from what you make?
03:05Easier, I don't know.
03:06Different, definitely.
03:08Honestly, I think the next 12 to 24 months is going to be pretty scary
03:13for a lot of creators.
03:15I think we're about to see a lot of rapid change, whether we like it or not.
03:20Anyone that hasn't had a chance to use any of these new video models
03:23that are coming out, VEO, incredible.
03:25Sora, stunning.
03:26ByteDance have now come out with their own video model.
03:29It's very clear to see what is currently happening.
03:32This morning's panel was awesome.
03:34We spoke about platform diversification.
03:37There was data in there.
03:39And the whole time, all I was thinking was, no matter what,
03:42we all lose that game.
03:44We never win the game against AI
03:47when it comes to platform diversification and data.
03:51What we're about to see is AI agents really coming into full fleet.
03:55Anyone that isn't up to scratch with agents,
03:57where we're currently at is we have LLMs, which is our chat GPTs.
04:01Agents is the next stage.
04:02Agents actually go out there and do things.
04:05Partnering up with these models, VEO, Sora,
04:08we're going to see these agents in the next 6 to 12 months
04:11actually start to create their own content.
04:14And the pipeline of these AIs will look something like this.
04:17It will create a video.
04:18It will then scrape the data,
04:20looking at the performance of that video.
04:22It will then re-optimize that piece of content,
04:24post it to every single platform instantly,
04:27scrape that data again, and the cycle will continue.
04:30Now, as of today, there's something like 500,000 hours
04:32that gets uploaded to social media every day.
04:35That's going to turn to about 500 million hours
04:38once tons of these agents get rolled out.
04:41So what happens?
04:42Again, all you guys, everyone here,
04:45everyone in this room is a huge content creator.
04:47You have some magic, you have some personality,
04:49some creativity that have made you stand out
04:51amongst all these other people.
04:53When you have this flood of not kind of a commodity
04:56or cheap content, how are people and how are you guys
05:00going to stay ahead of that and stand out
05:02when everyone can do this in their sleep
05:04and there's bots creating content instead of...
05:07I think at the end of the day,
05:10we as people have a quality that can't be replicated.
05:14I think that's just relatability and passion.
05:17I think that's one thing that really separates us from the AI.
05:20Of course, it really comes down to quality over quantity.
05:24I feel like at the end of the day,
05:25if you're just moving on autopilot with the AI,
05:28it kind of comes off in a very disingenuous way
05:31that won't really go over well with the audience.
05:33I'm speaking from multiple perspectives as well too
05:36because I grew up in acting.
05:38One reason that a big button on the strike
05:41that we just overcame with SAG was the use of AI
05:45and AI content within the different media spaces.
05:48That was one major issue that we had to overcome as well too.
05:55I'm very indifferent when it comes to the AI,
05:57so I do use it when it is beneficial,
05:59but I can see it being overused
06:01and it being a problem as well too.
06:04How long does it take from start to finish
06:06for you to create one of your videos usually?
06:09It's independent of the video.
06:11I was talking with you also.
06:14You make advertisement for this good game
06:16and you told me you need eight weeks for one video.
06:20In my case, some videos that took me five days or six days,
06:25but if they're easy trends or something like this,
06:28it took me 20 minutes or an hour.
06:30It's independent of the video.
06:33Also, I knew some AI creators
06:37and they do good stuff, good work on social media.
06:41Also, on TikTok, there are some big AI influencers,
06:45but they're not looking like normal humans.
06:47I think there was one alien influencer on social media.
06:51They do TikTok dances and something like this.
06:54They go really viral,
06:56but I think in the future you can't change AI creator
07:01with the Wii creator because you have to know we are humans
07:05and we make mistakes.
07:07This is what we are like.
07:09People can touch us because we make mistakes
07:12and we are humans.
07:14AI creators, it's not the same.
07:17It's like a robot.
07:19You're speaking with a robot and not like a human
07:22and it's so different.
07:24Do you think there'll be AI tools in the next couple of years
07:28that maybe what took you 10 days to create a video,
07:32maybe it can do the grunt work
07:34and then you might be able to do it in a few hours?
07:36Are you looking towards that?
07:38Of course, it can happen.
07:40Also, for us creators, I think it's a good opportunity.
07:43It depends from which side you're watching.
07:47Also, for us creators, it's a good competition.
07:57It's also a good thing.
07:59For me, I'm not afraid about AI creators or something like this.
08:04I see them like a good competition,
08:06maybe also like good opportunities for our content.
08:11Maybe you need two years, not eight weeks for the video.
08:17Maybe you need five or three hours or something like this.
08:20When it comes to the editing, I think that AI could really be beneficial.
08:25I think it's the difference between driving a stick shift
08:27and driving an automatic car.
08:29You don't want to have to sit there and do this the whole time
08:32when you can just easily change the gears.
08:34I feel like if you just...
08:36But you're still driving the car, essentially.
08:38It's not driving it for you.
08:41No shade to people that have cars that drive themselves.
08:44I think it's just more so being able to use AI as a tool
08:49to make things easier but not necessarily do everything for you.
08:53I know songwriters that use AI for melodies,
08:57but then they write their own lyrics.
08:59There's ways to...
09:01If you're a creative soul and a creative person,
09:03there are ways to be inspired by AI
09:05but not be so reliant upon it to where it does the whole process.
09:11Brennan, what do you think?
09:13I love the word competition.
09:14I think competition is great because, boy, are we about to face it.
09:17I think why I'm so excited about it,
09:20I feel like we're currently at the cusp of where Netflix was
09:23just over a decade ago.
09:25And when new challenges arise,
09:27what actually happens is it sparks opportunity.
09:29And what we're going to see is some of the biggest creators
09:33rise to the very top,
09:35and unfortunately, lots of creators who won't adapt
09:37and learn new ways will stay where they are as times move on.
09:41I'm really excited about AI.
09:43The reason I love it so much is because I think
09:45it democratizes creativity even further.
09:48If you think about how I got into creating content,
09:50it was because I had a PC at home,
09:52I could do all of these intricate editing and visual effects softwares,
09:55and I was very lucky and fortunate.
09:57Now, that doesn't exist for most people,
10:00except now with tools like AI,
10:02suddenly these new kids learning how to create these videos,
10:05they can create these incredible things at a touch of the button.
10:08We live in a world where there are more mobile phones than toothbrushes.
10:12So we're about to allow so many more creatives to come in.
10:15Especially in England.
10:18Exactly.
10:21So yeah, I think this is actually one of the most exciting times
10:24in content creation ever.
10:26I think we're about to see some of the biggest talents
10:28come up and rise to that top.
10:30And I think one thing's always been true
10:32in every medium in the world,
10:34which is the cream always rises to the top.
10:36As social platforms suddenly become bombarded
10:39with saturations of content,
10:41the best creative and the best stories
10:43will always rise to the top.
10:45I have a question.
10:46So let's say in a year or two years,
10:49with AI tools, it can make your workload half the time.
10:53Like, instead of taking two days,
10:55you can publish a video in like an hour.
10:58Would that make you guys, would you create more?
11:02Would you take a break and just like,
11:04oh, I'm on easy street?
11:06Or would you use it to create better?
11:08Do you think, if it can make it easier,
11:10is that going to make quality go up for what you make?
11:12Or is it quantity or both?
11:13Like, what do you guys see with that?
11:14If you have that free time, if it takes,
11:16you know, if the plane can fly twice as fast,
11:19what are you doing with that?
11:20I mean, first of all, you have to know how to use AI.
11:24Of course, yeah.
11:25It's very important.
11:26And I think right now,
11:27we have a lot of opportunities to use AI
11:30and to make your content better.
11:32But yeah, of course, you have to know how to use it.
11:36And it's not that easy right now.
11:38And of course, I mean, if I have the opportunity
11:41in an easy way to make my content
11:45in half of the time than right now,
11:48and the quality at the same time or better,
11:52bro, I'm a stupid man if I don't do this.
11:55So of course, I will do this.
11:57And yeah, but I think, as I'm saying,
12:01the most important stuff is that you know
12:04how to use the AI tools.
12:07That's the most important stuff.
12:08Yeah, no, I have to agree with that.
12:10I think if the tool were possible, 100% sign me up.
12:14But I think me being me, I can only speak for me.
12:18I'm sure you guys are the same way.
12:19But I'm such a perfectionist that even if I did rely on AI
12:23to do 100% of everything,
12:25I'm watching the video down to the microsecond.
12:28Like, okay, making sure, oh, you misspelled that word.
12:31Let me just go back.
12:32And like, I'm just, I'm that type of person
12:34where I feel like I have to do everything
12:36with such a fine tooth comb that it's really just,
12:38it's not like I'm editing it myself,
12:40but I'm going through and editing
12:41whatever the AI decided to edit as well too.
12:43So I feel like it would be great to have that tool,
12:45but it wouldn't necessarily slow down the workload.
12:48It wouldn't necessarily cause any breaks.
12:50I feel like I would, wherever I am having less time to,
12:56wherever there's less time,
12:57I would probably put, dedicate more time
12:59in those specific areas, you know?
13:00Like wherever the AI is probably lacking,
13:02I'll probably put more times in those.
13:04Gotcha, smart.
13:05But the problem is also,
13:06if it's gonna be easy for us creator
13:09to make a big video or something like this,
13:12so every creator will do this.
13:16Well, I think we're actually starting to see
13:18the opposite happening at the same time.
13:20As AIs become bigger,
13:21people can basically do anything at this point.
13:24There almost isn't anything that you could want to create
13:27that you couldn't create.
13:28And what we've started seeing
13:30as the spectacle value of content
13:32is going up and up and up
13:33is actually the resurgence of vlogs,
13:36the complete polar opposite.
13:38And I don't think that's by any accident.
13:41I think spectacle has become so out of touch and so high
13:45that actually vlogs have become so real
13:47and mean so much to us again
13:49because people crave that human connection.
13:51It's kind of like as video games get more and more realistic,
13:55everyone thought like, oh, the graphics are so good,
13:57and people are going back to like pixelated,
13:59low-quality games.
14:00It's almost like that, like in the world of perfect,
14:02let's be more human, more sloppy,
14:04kind of more, I guess, more TikTok-y in some ways.
14:08We talked about this AI and creativity,
14:11but everyone here, everyone in this room is,
14:13you're all entrepreneurs, you're amazing business folks.
14:15How is AI going to change
14:17or maybe improve how you all make money?
14:22I think AI can be beneficial
14:26in terms of helping you figure out things
14:28like target audience,
14:30whoever you want to touch on,
14:31because any data that you feel like you need to grab,
14:34AI 100% can grab that for you and then some.
14:38I think that's probably the best way
14:40to utilize the AI tool.
14:42I'm actually in the works
14:44of bringing out my own clothing brand very soon.
14:46I'm launching in spring, shameless plug,
14:49but anyways, I-
14:50You said free samples.
14:51Everyone here gets free samples.
14:52Free samples, yes.
14:54But I started to utilize AI a little bit more
14:57because my brand has more of a futuristic approach,
15:00so I put a lot of my garments into the AI
15:04and it helped me create different types of videos.
15:07I think AI can be a very fun tool
15:09and it can be very utilized in numerous ways,
15:12especially in the business aspect.
15:14Very cool.
15:15How about you guys?
15:16How are you going to make more money?
15:17I think it would be not that easy
15:19that you write how to become a millionaire
15:21and then the next day you are a millionaire.
15:24I think it's not that easy,
15:25but of course there are some opportunities.
15:27As I said before,
15:28if you know how to use AI in a wide way,
15:31you can explain to other one,
15:32you can explain to companies or something like this.
15:35I mean, I have some companies
15:37and we do this right now to other companies
15:39to explain how to use social media,
15:41how to reach the generation Z
15:44and something like this.
15:45And yeah, you can do this also the same with AI
15:49to explain other people and yeah.
15:53I think this is one of a part.
15:55Yeah.
15:56One of the big problems,
15:57so I run a creative agency as well,
15:59as well as being a creator.
16:01And one of the big problems that we're running into
16:03when we work on briefs
16:04is in most of our large contracts,
16:07brands actually don't want us to use any AI
16:09and we've become so integrated.
16:11They don't want.
16:12Don't want AI.
16:13Because they're like, oh, why am I paying this person
16:14when they're just throwing it into the machine?
16:16Not because of that.
16:17It's actually because of the license and who owns it.
16:19If content, if AIs create content
16:22because they're trained on data
16:23that is owned by someone else,
16:25when the AI then spits out a video,
16:27who owns it?
16:28Is it the data it was trained on?
16:30Is it the prompt artist?
16:31Is it the brand?
16:32And it's kind of like this gray area in the middle
16:34where no one really knows.
16:35The lawyers are getting nervous.
16:37Exactly.
16:38But one thing every creator sitting in this room
16:40is sitting on is a goldmine.
16:42We have created thousands of videos
16:44that we have data attached to
16:46of how each one of those are performed.
16:48So what we're currently doing internally
16:50is we're building our own AI engine.
16:52So we're building a model
16:53trained off of all of our own data
16:55so we can then create diffusion-based models
16:58that we can say we 100% own
17:00and we can spit out other content for.
17:02And they're optimized
17:03because you know it worked in the past.
17:05It's going to work in the future.
17:06Exactly.
17:07That's wild.
17:08If we're sitting here,
17:09well, we're going to do it.
17:10We're going to bring this group back
17:11in two years in Dubai again
17:13and we're going to do a refresher.
17:14What are we talking about
17:15when it comes to AI, money, and creativity
17:18in two years from now?
17:20Put on your futuristic hats.
17:23I'll be wearing the same suit in two years.
17:25I got this tailored for today.
17:27I'll be doing the same.
17:28Looking good.
17:29Yeah, maybe in two years
17:31every creator will have his own AI creator
17:34and make money with his AI creator.
17:36Why not?
17:37So other people or other companies,
17:39as I said,
17:41there are some AI creators right now
17:43on social media
17:44and maybe it would be like a second step
17:48for us creators
17:49to have our own AI creator.
17:52Why not?
17:53Very cool.
17:54Laurent, what do you think?
17:55I think in the next...
17:56Get your crystal ball out
17:57and make predictions.
17:58Oh, man.
17:59If we're not all sitting here
18:00as holograms in the next two years,
18:03I think AI will probably
18:05be a little bit more personable.
18:07I think that's one thing
18:08that AI kind of lacks now
18:09is the ability to actually respond
18:14as a human with human emotions.
18:16So I feel like in the next few years,
18:18whenever AI masters that,
18:19it will be a little bit more of a useful tool,
18:24I guess you could say,
18:25because I feel like that's the one thing
18:26that it really lacks
18:27because, you know,
18:28AIs are essentially computers.
18:29Computers run on facts and facts alone
18:32and they don't really,
18:33like, you know,
18:34it's all the whole facts over feelings
18:35when it comes to computers.
18:36So I feel like that'll be one thing
18:37that they learn to master.
18:39Wow.
18:40You get the final word here.
18:41I don't know.
18:42I really hope in two years
18:43we aren't still banging on about AI.
18:45I feel like it's all we've spoken about
18:46in the past two years.
18:47I think what AI does
18:48is it gives us the ability to do anything.
18:50And I think what that then means
18:51is it puts the right question
18:53in all of our heads,
18:54which is,
18:55when you can do anything,
18:56what do you actually do with it?
18:58And the answer is always
19:00entertain and tell stories.
19:02I think AI is a tool in the toolkit
19:05and I think we need to get back
19:06to the conversation of
19:07what are we actually creating
19:09and what are we actually doing it for?
19:11That's a perfect spot to end.
19:13I want to thank you gentlemen
19:14for joining us.
19:15Thank you so much.
19:16Thank you guys for your attention.
19:17Nice view.