• The three-day event in Abu Dhabi will bring together more than 430 creators, artists, producers, and innovators shaping film, music, gaming, fandom, and performance across the global content economy, December 8 - 10  

Abu Dhabi: Media is entering a period of structural change, shaped by intelligent tools, shifting audience behavior, and new production models. BRIDGE Summit 2025 — the world’s largest debut media event — brings together figures from the technology, news, and creative industries to examine how credibility, communication, and cultural relevance can be strengthened in a faster, more competitive environment.

Held from December 8–10 at ADNEC Abu Dhabi, the Summit will welcome more than 430 speakers, 300 exhibitors, and over 60,000 participants. Its program looks at how content is created, financed, taught, and trusted, offering a clear view of where global media is moving and how organizations can adapt with purpose.

New media behaviors and intelligent systems

BRIDGE Summit 2025’s agenda looks at how AI is reshaping consumption, communication, and daily work. Its sessions, led by industry experts in technology and media, will explain how intelligent tools are becoming central to how people create, share, and understand content.

The keynote ‘The AI Avatar Era with HeyGen’ brings Wayne Liang, Co-Founder and Chief Innovation Officer of HeyGen, to explain how multilingual AI avatars help creators and public figures communicate across platforms without increasing production demands. His session looks at how presence can scale without losing clarity or intent.

Daniil Shuleyko, CEO of Yango Group, will deliver a keynote titled ‘How AI is Transforming Content Consumption Behavior’ highlighting how audiences who rely on AI in their everyday media habits form their views through personalized feeds, multimodal tools, and generative systems. He outlines what this shift means for attention, discovery, and trust.

‘The New Language of Work is Visual’ is led by Duncan Clark, Head of EMEA at Canva and Co-founder and CEO of Flourish, who shows how visual-first platforms and creator culture have reshaped how teams communicate ideas. He explains why short, expressive formats now dominate professional storytelling.

In the keynote ‘Superintelligence: The Next Frontier of Human Connection’, Derya Matras, Vice President for EMEA at Meta, explores how AI, messaging, and wearable technologies are merging, affecting daily communication and business. Her session looks at how these tools influence human relationships as much as productivity.

Saurabh Doshi, Co-Founder of OptimizeGEO.ai, will deliver a keynote, ‘From Search to Chat: How Media Brands Can Hack LLMs Conversation Results, ’  shining light on how large language models change online visibility. He outlines how publishers and brands can track and improve how AI systems reference them in conversation.

Creativity, craft, and the human touch
The Summit will also examine how creators balance automated tools with human expression, through sessions that look at what changes when scale, speed, and machine assistance enter the creative process, and why technique, judgment, and physical craft still matter.

The panel ‘Hand-Crafted Content in the Age of AI’ brings together Bart Yates, Co-Founder and Executive Producer of Blinkink, and Dr. Lee Bofkin, CEO of Global Street Art, to show why handmade work and physical craft remain powerful in an era of automated production. Their discussion looks at how tactility, imperfection, and emotion continue to anchor creative impact.

‘AI as a Creative Collaborator, Not Just a Tool’ features panelists Larry Adams, CEO of XStereotype and Chromatics.ai, and Cassiano Sala, Managing Partner at Journey. They will examine how artists and designers work with AI systems without losing authorship, focusing on practical ways to pair machine experimentation with human direction.

In the presentation ‘How to Tell Your Best Stories Ever’, Ali Cheikhali, Creative Strategy and Innovation Lead at Google, joins Hesham Ellabban, Writer and Chief Creative Officer at KAIRO for Ideas, to break down how ideas move from insight to finished work using today’s AI tools. Their session shows how story development speeds up while still relying on human taste and perspective.

Sam Englebardt, General Partner at Galaxy Interactive, will explain how adaptive AI can support empathy, creativity, and narrative depth. His fireside chat, ‘Advancing Human Possibility in the Agentic AI Era,’ looks at how creators can use AI to strengthen authenticity rather than dilute it.

The fireside chat ‘Building with Heartware, Not Just Hardware and Software’ features Dr. Pippa Malmgren, CEO of Geopolitica Institute, who examines how technology, media, and new economic models must account for human purpose and dignity. Her session looks at the risks of designing systems driven only by efficiency, asking how society can realign innovation with wellbeing, trust, and a clearer sense of collective responsibility.

Trust, media literacy, and the future of news

The panel ‘Navigating Journalism in a Changing News Business’ brings Faisal J. Abbas, Editor-in-Chief of Arab News; Mina Al-Oraibi, Editor in Chief of The National; and Luke Bradley-Jones, President of The Economist, to examine how newsrooms respond to platform changes, financial pressure, and new audience expectations. Their discussion will highlight how to maintain depth and trust while adapting to an evolving media environment.

In the fireside chat ‘Preparing Youth for a World of Infinite Information’, Sadeq Jarrar, Senior Media Advisor for Special Projects, addresses the challenges students face as AI-generated content becomes harder to distinguish from verified information. His session highlights the need for stronger media literacy education and clearer guidance for young audiences.

‘Avoiding — The Real — Em — Dash’ will host panelists Abdullah Alsabe, Digital Marketing Manager at Elm and TV Presenter at Alsharq Bloomberg, and Omar Kaskas, AI Strategist at Hona Tech, to discuss how empathy, intention, and clear communication are essential for responsible AI use, especially as creators and journalists rely more on automated tools.

Talent, skills, and the next media workforce

The panel ‘Future-Proofing Media’s Talent Pipeline’ brings together Abdulla Alsharhan, Manager of Creative Services at Sharjah Media City, and Dr. Joleen Liang, Co-founder of Squirrel Ai Learning and CEO of Squirrel Ai North America, to examine how new learning models and AI-driven production workflows can strengthen the next generation of creators. They will deliberate on building a workforce able to adapt to rapid technological change and diverse audience needs.

Virtual worlds, gaming, and the next interfaces

The future of immersive media takes center stage in the keynote ‘Worlds Without End’, where Brendan “PLAYERUNKNOWN” Greene, Chief Creative Officer of PLAYERUNKNOWN Productions, outlines how new engines and data-driven design can support vast virtual spaces. His session explores how players may one day create, shape, and inhabit planet-scale environments designed for millions of simultaneous participants.

Registration is now open via the official BRIDGE Summit website https://www.bridgesummit.com/en/ and through the BRIDGE App, the event’s unified digital companion connecting participants to schedules, speakers, and real-time updates.