Two conference days and one SPRINT day in Potsdam-Babelsberg with Creative Europe: AI is everywhere, and craft makes it better.
If AI is destroying the craft, someone forgot to tell the people actually doing the work. I spent 29 and 30 September with them at the MediaTech Hub Conference (MTH26, #MTHCON26) in Potsdam-Babelsberg, just outside Berlin. After a month of building Creative AI Mastermind on screen, I was in the room with the industry.
It was one of the most interesting conferences I have been to this year. The programme ran from immersive, social, marketing, journalism and film productions at the highest level to solutions for smaller companies. I met old colleagues, made new connections and had great conversations with people hungry to learn, experiment and adapt.
AI is everywhere. What keeps coming back is craft: the experience, the professional background, knowing how to tell a story, direct, design, shoot, edit, produce. AI does not replace that. The craft is what makes the AI better. The resistance in our industry is real. So is the change.
On 1 October talking turned into building. The MediaTech SPRINT, in its eighth edition, is a one-day innovation workshop at the German University of Digital Science in Potsdam. Four European audiovisual companies bring a real business challenge, and 35 Co-Creators from nine countries work on them. The Creative Europe Desks organise it together with the MediaTech Hub Conference, and the next edition is in Barcelona in 2027.
I was one of four participants selected from North Rhine-Westphalia, as a content and AI specialist with my practice, Rapid Stories AI, and I worked in the Live Animation Studio team, the challenge from our own region: Rivers and Wine is building a tool for an innovative animation workflow with transmedia integration. The other challenges came from Arkino in France, Festival Bez in the Czech Republic and Localmeta in Italy.
For Creative AI Mastermind and the collective in NRW, that is the direction: creators with craft at the centre, working with companies that have real work to do, and AI making the craft better.
Stay curious. Adapt. Keep learning. Keep creating.
The short version
- —The MediaTech Hub Conference (MTH26, #MTHCON26) ran on 29 and 30 September 2026 at Studio Babelsberg in Potsdam-Babelsberg, just outside Berlin
- —The MediaTech SPRINT 2026, on 1 October, was its eighth edition: four European companies and 35 Co-Creators from nine countries, organised by the Creative Europe Desks with the MediaTech Hub Conference
- —Javier Amaya of Rapid Stories AI was one of four participants selected from North Rhine-Westphalia and worked in the Live Animation Studio team (Rivers and Wine, NRW) on an animation workflow tool with transmedia integration
- —The takeaway from two conference days: AI is everywhere, and the craft is what makes the AI better