/ About this event
AI is making creative work faster, cheaper, and more abundant than ever.
But when almost anything can be generated in seconds, what becomes more valuable?
We already pay more for handmade goods, artisan food, and experiences where craftsmanship and human effort matter. Could creativity be next? Will “Made by Humans” become a premium — or, if the final result is just as good, will audiences simply choose what is cheaper and faster?
Join us for a candid, collective conversation bringing together filmmakers and creators, AI builders and technologists, investors, and the audiences who ultimately experience and pay for their work.
We’ll explore:
When does AI empower a creator — and when does it replace one? Does knowing how something was made change how much we value it? Would you pay more for something created by humans? If AI lowers the cost of creation, where does the value move? Could “Made by Humans” become the next mark of craftsmanship? And in the AI gold rush, how do we capture new opportunities without losing the originality and human connection that make creativity matter?
This won't be a conversation where experts talk and everyone else listens. Your perspective is part of the discussion.
Creators tell us what they want to preserve. Technologists show us what is becoming possible. Investors help determine what gets funded and scaled. And audiences ultimately decide what they watch, love, share — and pay for.
The People Who Make × The People Who Build × The People Who Experience
The future of creativity won't be shaped by any one group alone.
We're bringing these different perspectives into the same room to explore what human creativity is worth in an age when machines can create too.
Speakers:
Lalit Gangwar is Chief Operating Officer and founding team member at Pocket FM, a Pocket Entertainment company, where he leads global operations. Pocket Entertainment is the world’s leading AI entertainment platform building products that help creators create, produce, distribute and monetize entertainment at global scale. Its portfolio includes Pocket FM, the leading AI audio drama platform, and Pocket Saga. Since joining in 2021, he has led growth in India and globally, then ran the company's U.S. and Latin America business, helping expand Pocket FM from 8 countries to more than 20. A former product leader at Zomato, HealthKart and Dineout, he is focused on proving Pocket FM can scale globally without compromising the quality of its stories.
Sumbry is the Vice-President of Engineering at Upbound, the company behind the open source project Crossplane. Sumbry has over two decades of experience working in the platform, infrastructure, and reliability engineering space. He started his career as a software engineer and has taken on various roles in that time: founder, network engineer, platform engineer, system engineer, reliability engineer, engineering manager, engineering leader, and more. Sumbry started his early career at several startups as the Internet grew in popularity. He quickly learned how to build and scale infrastructure, striving to strike the right balance between solving the right technical challenges and ensuring the business continued to grow. Sumbry started several companies in that time because he thought he had some excellent ideas but wanted to learn more about problem-solving from a product and customer perspective. Some great (and expensive) lessons learned are why he is heavily customer-focused today. Sumbry is also an Electronic Music DJ and producer in his free time, as spending this time away from computers helped preserve his sanity. Well, that was mostly true until computers and software heavily invaded the music scene as well.
Verena Puhm is the Founder 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 and experienced in the age of AI. Former Head of Dream Lab LA at Luma AI, Verena built the industry's first next-generation cinematic R&D studio, pioneering scalable AI-driven production pipelines across live-action, animation, and hybrid formats. At Matriarch, she's spearheading Affective Content Intelligence, the studio's proprietary approach to understanding audience response by combining biometric signals, self-reported emotional intent, and content data, moving beyond clicks and completion rates to inform creative development, discovery, and greenlighting. Alongside Matriarch, Puhm advises Hollywood studios on AI workflows, works on several undisclosed studio projects, and programs Sundance's AI education efforts through Sundance Collab, both online and at the festival. Verena is a regular speaker, panelist, and judge across the industry, with credits including MIPCOM Cannes, the Cannes Film Festival, CES, the AI for Good Global Summit and Film Festival in Geneva, Realscreen Summit, NATPE Global, the Croma Awards, and Curious Refuge. Her work has been recognized by Deadline, Forbes, The Hollywood Reporter, and The Los Angeles Times.
Abigail Hing Wen is an author, film producer and director, as well as former tech executive. She is the New York Times bestselling author of multiple novels for young people, including LOVEBOAT, TAIPEI, which has been adapted as the movie LOVE IN TAIPEI, now on Netflix. Abigail served as an executive producer and on set during production. Her novel KISSES, CODES AND CONSPIRACIES, a thriller and romantic comedy novel featuring three teens on the run through the Bay Area, is an instant national bestseller, USA Today bestseller and Amazon Editor’s Pick for YA Book of the Month. Abigail directed her first short film starring Lea Salonga, a prequel to her New York Times bestselling middle grade debut THE VALE, featuring an inventor family that builds an AI-generated virtual world. She serves on the board of Harvardwood. She is a member of Dan Lin’s Rideback Rise Circle, and serves as a judge for the Golden Trailer Awards, recognizing the industry’s most outstanding film trailers.
Minh Do is an entrepreneur, filmmaker, and educator working at the intersection of artificial intelligence, storytelling, and culture. He is the co-founder of Machine Cinema, a global community and creative platform bringing artists, filmmakers, and technologists together through workshops, competitions, and collaborative productions to explore how generative AI is transforming filmmaking and visual storytelling. He is also co-founder and Head of AI at Fantastic Day, a hybrid AI studio producing AI-driven media with musicians, brands, and filmmakers. Earlier in his career, Minh worked across venture capital, journalism, and media. He was an early Editor-in-Chief at Tech in Asia and co-founded Vietcetera, a digital media platform focused on business, culture, and society in Vietnam. Today, he works with leading AI labs through creator partner programs including Google Labs, OpenAI, Pika, and Luma Dream Machine, exploring how emerging tools can expand the language of film, art, and games. Drawing on his background in theater, audio storytelling, and years of study in Zen Buddhism, Minh explores how AI challenges traditional ideas about authorship, mind, and imagination.
More speakers to be announced, representing AI and creative technology, entertainment, investment, and the broader creative economy.
Come for the Conversation. Stay for the Dim Sum.
We'll gather at Taste of Beauty, West Hollywood’s plant-based fine dining destination, where plant-based dining is designed to feel indulgent, creative, and unexpected.
It’s an especially fitting setting for a conversation about craftsmanship, innovation, and how we decide what something is worth.
And because a signature DIMSUMX gathering always comes with something delicious to share, light plant-based dim sum will be served as we continue the conversation and connect around the table.
About DIMSUMX
DIMSUMX creates curated gatherings designed around meaningful conversation and unexpected connection.
The name dim sum is often translated as “touch the heart.”
AI may change the cost of making things.
Together, we’ll explore what the human touch is worth.
This event is part of #LATechWeek — a week of events hosted by VCs and startups to bring together the tech ecosystem. Learn more at www.tech-week.com.
Thank you to our Sunday sponsor:
We’re grateful to HPL Intellectual Property Law and Marc E. Hankin for helping make Sunday’s gathering possible. HPL helps inventors, startups, and growing businesses protect their intellectual property through tailored patent, trademark, and copyright services, including litigation.
