Ari Emanuel, Executive Chair and CEO, TKO and Executive Chairman, WME Group, has represented names like Oprah Winfrey, Martin Scorsese, and Donald Trump. A few years ago, philosopher of technology George Gilder inspired him to think about what would happen when Silicon Valley met Hollywood and Vine…

As Connie Bruck told the story in The New Yorker, “Emanuel had been obsessively interested in technological change since the nineties, when he read “Life After Television,” a book by George Gilder, which predicted the revolution in digital media. He called Gilder and befriended him, as he widened his search for knowledge and connections.” (2021)

Gilder sensed back then that Emanuel wasn’t just pursuing fads. About online games, for example, “He has real animal intuition”: Once the technology was perfected, they would become a cultural hotspot. And Ari took care to remain a player in Silicon Valley as well as in Hollywood.

He doesn’t just rub shoulders; he ruffles feathers. For example, he broke with longstanding tradition by acquiring entertainment media and producing shows while remaining a talent agent. As Stacy Perlman put it, at the Los Angeles Times,

By sheer force of will and a slew of pricey, diversified acquisitions (Ultimate Fighting Championship, Frieze, IMG among them), Emanuel, 63, transformed the talent agency he founded 28 years ago into a powerhouse global media company with tentacles in every aspect of entertainment, from art and fashion to movies, books and TV to sports and technology.

“Ari Emanuel: Hollywood agent provocateur,” July 7, 2024

It was a controversial decision — a conflict of interest, many protested. But, what with the industry being reshaped and everything in a state of flux, it was becoming a bit harder for anyone to play by the rules of the mid-twentieth century. Drawing on his own version of Gilder’s theory, “the flywheel,” Emanuel developed a strategy for his company:

By owning a piece of every slice of the entertainment industry, Endeavor has the leverage to create multiple avenues of growth. At the same time, the strategy has positioned the company to compete head-on with the studios and streamers amid a host of new dynamics that have remade the industry. “Agent provocateur”

Will AI change Hollywood or dismantle it?

That depends on who you talk to.

Some tech writers warn of an “existential threat”:

New AI-powered technologies have democratized access to movie production and distribution and now anyone with minimal skills and a smartphone has the power to churn out cinema-quality content.

Dr. Jonathan Reichental, “AI Begins Dismantling Hollywood’s Grip On The Silver Screen,” Forbes, August 4, 2025

But at Bloomberg, Lucas Shaw interviews four experts and comes down in the middle: “Yet contrary to what Hollywood’s loudest alarmists say, experts don’t believe AI is going to eliminate most of the jobs in the entertainment business. But it will eliminate some and create others in the production, marketing and distribution of audiovisual content.” (August 18, 2024)

Shaw’s experts talk about new capabilities like de-aging, language dubbing, reanimating deceased figures. All of these techniques come with issues. Issues around deepfakes, copyright violations, and hallucinations will also remain contentious. Still, these workers don’t see Armageddon in their future.

And some even see Hollywood AI as a new golden age. At Forbes, Michael Ashley sees the reduced costs that AI promises as freedom from self-willed “patrons” who finance the arts: “What if groundbreaking technology could empower moviemakers—giving them tools to bypass patrons to produce great art as auteurs? And what if doing so could inspire a new cinematic golden age?” (February 19, 2025)

Ashley points out something significant. The culture is changing anyway:

Every year, fewer and fewer people watch mainstream releases or catch the Academy Awards. USA Today had this to say about last year’s show. “The 2024 Oscars were worse than bad. They were boring.”

But that doesn’t mean that people have lost interest in arts and entertainment:

Despite fears that AI will soon replace human creativity, its true potential lies in enhancement—empowering artists to break free from constraints to usher in the next cinematic golden age. For as Willy Wonka put it so nicely in his own film debut: “We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams. “Will AI Produce A New Hollywood Golden Age?”

Who’s right? Too soon to tell. But Emanuel is someone whose opinion we should surely want to know.

Emanuel predicts that such consolidations are the likely future for the whole industry:

I think you’re in a situation where you have Paramount, Warner, Disney, Comcast; there’s other players. I think there will probably be five or six remaining streamer or content providers. Netflix, Amazon, we’re all going to see what happens with Apple, YouTube …. and for some people that supply them — whether they be actors, writers, directors, non-scripted or sports — that’s a very good, healthy ecosystem with people that will have very big and deep pockets. That will take approximately two to three years to play out.

Yahoo News, September 11, 2024

So, especially if your work intersects with the world of arts and entertainment, check out his talk at COSM 2025, “Hollywood Meets the Algorithm: How AI is Rewriting Entertainment” at noon on Wednesday, November 19, 2025. That includes a Fireside Chat with George Gilder and investment manager Cole Smead.