BRXND LA 2025: Speakers & Early Bird Ends Tomorrow // BRXND Dispatch vol. 062

First round of speaker announcements for 2/6/25.

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Today, I’m excited to share the first batch of speakers for BRXND LA 2025. But before diving into the announcement, here’s something time-sensitive: early bird tickets are on sale until TOMORROW (12/20) for 15% off. If you’re planning to join us for our first West Coast conference on February 6, I strongly recommend securing your spot now.

For those new to BRXND events, I’d like to share what makes our conferences different. While most AI marketing events get stuck in theoretical discussions, we focus on practical applications and real-world experiences. After our first NYC conferences, I crystallized this approach into five core principles:

• Doers > Speculators: We want BRXND to be about doing and learning, not talking and speculating. We are too early in this journey, and the technology is too different from what we’ve seen before to get stuck speculating about its future impact.

• Curiosity > Overconfidence: We embrace the unintuitive nature of AI and its future implications. We're all learners in this new era of technology.

• Conversations > Panels: Whenever possible, it’s better to have just two people on stage talking to one another rather than a whole set of speakers competing for time and attention. Go deeper with fewer people so that the audience can learn from their thinking and experience more than just their opinions.

• Show > Tell: It’s always better to show people something than to tell them about it. While other conferences try to urge people away from showing specific products, we think it’s most useful for people to see what’s real and possible.

• Process > Perfection: Take your audience on a journey, even if it’s something that didn’t work out. This is an audience of doers and experimenters, and understanding the journey is often more important than just seeing the outcome.

With these principles in mind, I'm excited to announce our first wave of speakers for LA:

• 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 future of work

• McKinney Executive Director of Strategy Anita Schillhorn on using AI to analyze a brands’ potential to capture attention.

• The New Consumer’s Dan Frommer on trends in AI

Plus, lots more. I still have a few slots open for interesting demos and case studies. If you’re doing something compelling at the intersection of AI and marketing, please reach out.

I’d also like to offer a word of thanks to our early bird partners: 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. Canvas Worldwide provides innovative marketing solutions for brands looking to challenge conventional thinking, and is the world’s second-largest independent media agency.

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

Remember, early bird pricing ends this Friday. Don’t miss your chance to be part of this conversation.

I'll be back soon with more thoughts and news. As always, if you have any questions or want to chat about speaking or sponsorship opportunities, please be in touch.

Thanks,

Noah