BRXND LA 2025: Full Agenda and Wildfire Response // BRXND Dispatch vol. 066

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Luke here. Many of you have reached out about our team in Los Angeles amid the devastating wildfires—thank you. I want to let you know that our LA team members, myself included, are safe, although we are all deeply distressed by the unprecedented destruction. Our hearts go out to everyone impacted by this disaster. For those looking to help, we’re supporting relief efforts through the California Community Foundation's Wildfire Relief Fund, which provides critical assistance to affected communities. If you’re able, we encourage you to join us in contributing.

I wanted to address the questions many of you have raised about next month’s BRXND LA event given the wildfire situation. As of now, we’re moving forward as planned while carefully monitoring conditions on the ground.

A week into this crisis, we’re seeing some encouraging signs. Schools across the city reopened yesterday, and air quality in central LA (including our venue in Hollywood) has actually improved to better than average for a major US city. While the two major fires aren’t fully contained yet—and it’s worth noting that “containment” measures a fire’s growth potential rather than how much has been extinguished—firefighters are making steady progress despite challenging conditions.

The reality of LA’s sprawling geography means this crisis has affected different areas very unevenly. While some parts of the city are returning to normal, communities in the far west and east have faced devastating losses, and some areas remain under threat. It’s a stark reminder of how localized these disasters can be.

At this challenging moment, we believe one of the most meaningful ways we can support LA’s recovery is by moving forward with our event and supporting the local economy. We’ve just released the full agenda for BRXND LA, which you should check out (backstory below).

We’re taking BRXND to LA on February 6th. After two sold-out NYC conferences, we’re excited to bring our marketing x AI gathering to the West Coast. Like our previous events, we’re keeping it intentionally small – about 200 people – because we’ve found that’s the sweet spot for real conversations and practical learning. Our past events have filled up quickly with marketing leaders and CMOs (with quite a few folks on the waitlist), so if you’re planning to join us, we suggest grabbing your spot soon.

We have designed the programming to be based around a few key themes. You will hear from a mix of marketing practitioners and builders defining the future of marketing x AI. We don’t have all the answers, but we hope that by exploring the questions and encouraging hands-on experimentation we can all build intuition for this new and exciting technology.

• Airtable CEO & Co-Founder Howie Liu on building new AI interfaces

• Amazon Creative Director Mike Houston on implementing AI programs inside large organizations

• Zillow CMO Ravi Kandikonda and Canvas Worldwide CEO Paul Woolmington in conversation about the huge opportunities AI offers brands and marketers

• Getty Images CPO Grant Farhall on navigating the legal landscape of image generation in a commercially safe way.

• Gatorade’s Rob McCutcheon and Work & Co’s Christina Kalsow-Ramos on making generative AI feel familiar for CPG consumers

• The Brandtech Group’s Ciara Schoenauer demonstrating a text-to-image tool for rapid ad creation

• Langchain’s Lance Martin on the reality (and lack thereof) of agents

• Kolena CEO & Co-Founder Mohamed Elgendy demonstrating AI for unstructured data analysis

• Bloomberg Beta Partner James Cham on AI investment trends and the outlook for agents

• Jellyfish CSO Jack Smyth on share of model and the most important audience you will never meet

• McKinney Executive Director of Strategy Anita Schillhorn and Blue Diamond VP of Marketing & Innovation Maya Erwin on using AI to analyze a brand’s potential to capture attention.

• Steve Kazanjian of the Social Dept. on accelerating social content for entertainment marketing

• Springboards CEO and Co-founder Pip Bingemann demonstrating an AI-driven creativity enhancement tool

• The New Consumer’s Dan Frommer on how consumers are thinking about (and using) AI

I’d also like to offer a word of thanks to our sponsors: Airtable is pioneering digital operations for the AI era. Getty Images is a preeminent global visual content creator and marketplace that offers a full range of content solutions to meet the needs of any customer around the globe, no matter their size. The Brandtech Group is the #1 gen AI marketing company. Canvas Worldwide provides innovative marketing solutions for brands looking to challenge conventional thinking, and is the world’s second-largest independent media agency. Springboards is a suite of AI-powered tools built to turbocharge the creative process.

If you’re interested in joining them as a sponsor, we’d love to hear from you.

Don’t miss your chance to be part of this conversation. Tickets are currently 10% off.

We’ll be back soon with more thoughts and news. As always, if you have any questions or want to chat, please be in touch.

Thanks,

Luke