About Us

What is AI on the Lot

AI on the Lot is the world’s largest conference about the impact of AI on media and entertainment. Held annually in Los Angeles every May, it brings together the most ambitious artists, companies, and entrepreneurs working on the frontier of media.

AI on the Lot connects top talent with each other and showcases the most important work in the field of AI media. We hold an annual conference every May in Culver City that serves as the industry’s premier platform. We have a year-round office on the Culver City town plaza where we host private events and incubate talent.

Each May, thousands of filmmakers, founders, studio executives, creative technologists, investors, engineers, creators, and artists spend two days in downtown Culver City. They come for many different reasons. To scout the latest tools. To show off the latest tool they’ve built. Some come to hire, some to get hired. People pitch, people argue, people find collaborators. Everyone comes to learn.

History

AI on the Lot was started in 2023 by Todd Terrazas, Mike Gioia, and Ian Eck. Happening only weeks after the WGA strike, the conference became a hotbed for the discussion of generative AI’s role and impact on Hollywood. Since 2023 the conference has grown substantially every year. It is now the largest AI media conference in the world by attendee count, and by the number of companies in the room. Our 4th annual conference in May 2026 brought 2,500 people to Culver City.

Attendees

AI on the Lot draws Hollywood studios, AI startups, and major tech companies to Culver City to create a dense epicenter of the AI media industry. The conference is designed to be the best place for professionals in the field to meet each other, share ideas, and start meaningful collaborations. Dozens of companies and projects began at AI on the Lot as “Hi, nice to meet you.” These connections are our conference’s most significant metric each year and the guiding principle behind our decisions.

Attendees range from executives at major studios looking to hire AI talent to entrepreneurs looking for co-founders. The single largest cohort is filmmakers creating with AI tools. Filmmakers make up a plurality of the audience and are the spiritual backbone of the conference. The second largest cohort is media executives funding projects, building out departments, and making deals to bring new technologies into the media and entertainment industry. This segment is responsible for making trends at the conference trickle into the industry.

The field of AI media is full of multi-hyphenates, and our rooms reflect this collision. Studio executives sitting next to artists. LA filmmakers debating SF devs about agentic workflows. Investors talking to artist-engineers about what they’re building on the weekends. Left alone, these groups don’t mix often. Here, they have to.

None of this mix is accidental. It’s a balance of money and vision. Select artists and film students get in free, because a room made only of people with budgets tends to forget what the budgets are for.

What happens at AI on the Lot

AI on the Lot is a two-day conference held annually in Culver City, across a collection of venues encircling the town plaza. Panels, talks, and workshops happen on the Amazon MGM Studios lot and in auditoriums at the Culver Theater. Networking parties and happy hours happen at the Culver Hotel and the Simonette. A constellation of satellite events and activations runs across the 30-plus bars and restaurants within a few blocks of the plaza. Everything is walkable inside a small, dense area.

AI on the Lot is also a platform for companies and projects to find funding. Through our Startup Showcase, Studio Spotlight, student film pitch contest, Cinema Synthetica competition, and other special programming, we have connected talent to more than $20 million in capital and countless job opportunities.

A launching pad for AI media

Companies and studios plan big launches for AI on the Lot. In 2026, Amazon MGM Studios greenlit three animated AI kids’ shows. ElevenLabs announced a partnership with the Stan Lee Universe. Dreamina introduced Dreamina Octo, their agentic filmmaking tool. And Higgsfield held the North American premiere of Hell Grind. AI on the Lot is AI media’s largest platform to drop news.

Covered by Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, The Information, The Guardian, Forbes, and more.

The team

Todd Terrazas, Ian Eck, and Mike Gioia started AI on the Lot in 2023 because they wanted to find other people to nerd out with. AI on the Lot is an independent entity, operated by a small team highly aligned on producing the world’s best conference of its kind and making Culver City the center of AI media. All three believe an AI future looks better with real humans at the center.

• Todd TerrazasCo-Founder | PartnershipsTodd founded Artificial Intelligence Los Angeles (“before it was cool”), and it grew into Southern California’s largest AI education nonprofit. Todd leads partnerships and real estate development for AI on the Lot.
• Ian EckCo-Founder | Creative DirectionIan co-founded Pickaxe, an AI chatbot company, which turned into a successful exit and years of subsequent AI media experiments. Ian leads creative direction and special projects incubation for AI on the Lot.
• Mike GioiaCo-Founder | ProgrammingMike worked in TV writers’ rooms and AI workflow architecture before being acqui-hired into Sean Parker’s AI media lab Cantina. He writes about AI media on his blog. Mike runs programming and mentorship for AI on the Lot.

A permanent hub

AI on the Lot has a year-round space in Culver City at the center of the emerging cluster of AI media companies settling in the city. Our headquarters serves as a working space, an event space, and a laboratory to incubate projects (refer to Ian Eck, head of special projects incubation). More than anything it is a clubhouse for the best talent in the AI media industry to hang out and meet each other. Check out our event calendar for upcoming events.