The 2026 ETC Synthetic Media Summit: The AI Playbook for Media

Taking Back our Future

Media has always been a technology industry. And yet too often the past three years have felt like the industry was stuck in a reactive position against whirlwind advances in artificial intelligence.

This view is not quite right, and on March 6, 2026, we’re going to show you why.

For the second time in 3 years, the Entertainment Technology Center’s Synthetic Media Summit is bringing together some of the most senior media and technology leaders, to not only lift the veil on the industry’s true efforts to develop and implement AI applications, but chart a detailed playbook for its AI-augmented future.

The Summit is organized by the Entertainment Technology Center at USC’s School of Cinematic Arts. Funded by major Hollywood studios as well as technology companies, the ETC is a sandbox for media and technology to cooperate, experiment, and invent its own future.

This year, we are proud to partner with Carnegie Mellon University, United Talent Agency, and Machine Cinema (the world’s largest community of Generative AI creatives), to deliver a second, industry-leading event.

The Synthetic Media Summit isn’t one more conference on AI in media. The Summit digs deep. It’s a workshop, a roadmap, it’s a love letter to the future of an industry that is being reinvented and supercharged.

Come hear what the tech and media industry's most senior leaders have to say about the AI playbook for media, with speakers from: OpenAI, UTA, Google, Paramount, Fox, Universal, Disney, The LEGO Group, BBC, Unilever, WPP, USC, Carnegie Mellon, Meta, Dolby, Adobe, Moonvalley, Coca-Cola, Mattel, etc.