UPSCALE CONF SAN FRANCISCO 2026

Often companies believe they have “marketing issues” or “need a better brand”, but these are misdiagnosed problems. What you really need is a universe with a great product at its core. With the right universe, these problems don’t exist.

What you will learn:
• The biggest paid opportunities in the Creative AI market right now
• How to land your first paying AI client (and what to charge)
• Pitch and sales strategies that are actually closing deals today
• The specific skills to start learning now to become more employable
• How to position yourself for a raise or promotion using AI
• How to turn Creative AI into a full-time career

In this session, he'll show you how Magnific Flows turn complex workflows into simple input/output interfaces your team can share and reuse.

niceaunties traces four narrative threads through the Auntieverse, from environmental collapse to jelly city fashion and care, to beauty and reflection, to domestic divinity, revealing how speculative storytelling with AI can reframe ageing, identity and invisible labour.

As generative AI transforms filmmaking, a new creative language is emerging. In this conversation, Emmy-nominated filmmaker Eliza McNitt unpacks the creation of ANCESTRA, her short film made in collaboration with Google DeepMind, Creative Lab, Primordial Soup and executive produced by Darren Aronofsky.

Premiering at the 2025 Tribeca Film Festival, ANCESTRA blends live-action performances with generative AI visuals to tell a deeply personal story inspired by McNitt’s own birth experience — a story in which, as she describes it, “a mother’s love becomes a cosmic force in order to save her daughter’s life.”

McNitt will explore how the team developed the film. Part creative process, part technological exploration, and part reflection on the evolving role of the artist, this session examines how prompting is becoming a new creative medium, and why human intention, taste, and meaning remain at the heart of the work.

Learn how to produce a complete suite of high-performing e-commerce assets with AI, from product photography and paid ads to UGC and cohesive brand visuals. You’ll learn how to create any e-commerce asset, for web, social, email, or in real life use, built entirely from scratch using AI.

A full cinematic pipeline, end-to-end. We'll walk through the exact workflow used to produce Cinematic AI ads; starting from a rough storyboard, locking visual direction, building consistent characters that hold across every shot, and finishing with cinematic motion that actually looks like film, not AI.

How to use technical, time, and production limitations as part of the creative process to build a distinctive visual and narrative direction.

In this session, he'll show you how to extend your own skills using the agentic side of Magnific Spaces: Assistant Nodes and Magnific Agents to provide logic-driven processes and automated workflows.

artin LeBlanc, CXO at Magnific covers the current state of AI video: multi-shot generation, reference-based characters, motion control, and the model releases reshaping what's possible.

A live, from-scratch build inside Spaces. We start by generating a single source image that defines a scene and character in a specific art style, then derive a headshot and a character sheet for consistency. In parallel, we generate a storyboard using the built-in tool in Spaces. From there, we produce the video clips inside Spaces, referencing the storyboard and the character sheet, with each clip continuing from the last. Voiceover is layered in where the story calls for it. The clips chain into a complete narrative arc, with the assistant LLM node guiding the prompting throughout. Everything runs in the browser.

Who is this workshop best for? (AI skill level + industry / roles) Beginner to intermediate AI creators, with a strong fit for filmmakers, AI storytellers, and narrative-focused content creators who want a repeatable pipeline for taking a single source image and building it into a voiced narrative short. Also useful for animators, art directors, and motion designers exploring character-consistent storytelling. Comfortable with basic prompting helps but is not required. Bring a laptop if you want to build along.

You will learn how to generate a strong source image that defines a scene and character in a specific art style, then build the full narrative pipeline live and from scratch: deriving a headshot and character sheet for consistency, generating a parallel storyboard inside Spaces, producing the video clips with continuity references back to the storyboard and character sheet, layering in voiceover, and chaining everything into a complete narrative arc with the assistant LLM node guiding the prompting throughout. You walk away with a finished narrative short and the Space you built yourself, ready to reuse on future projects.

Generative AI is rapidly transforming how creative, marketing, and production teams work, forcing executives to rethink leadership, strategy, and competitive advantage. This presentation explores the ten most important considerations leaders must address to successfully integrate GenAI in their workflows.

This talk explores how artists can maintain their unique perspective and not let AI models and datasets dilute their voice.

In this hands-on workshop, TechHalla will teach you how to create a complete, high-quality 1-minute AI-generated video from start to finish using Magnific Spaces. You'll learn the full professional pipeline: character creation, character consistency, environment design, cinematic camera movements, timeline prompting, and storyboard prompting to achieve precise creative control over every element of your video.

Perfect for intermediate to advanced creators with some AI image or video experience. No prior experience with Magnific Spaces required, but basic familiarity with AI prompting will help.

By the end, you'll walk away with your own complete 1-minute AI-generated video featuring consistent characters, cinematic camera work, and professional storytelling, plus a repeatable, step-by-step Magnific Space to reuse on future projects.

Upscale Conf ticket is required to participate.

If you're a builder or creative who's obsessed with AI, this one's for you.
Come hack with us at Upscale Conf, powered by Magnific and Google Cloud.

Hosted by Adam Chan from HackerSquad.

​🏆 + $7000 in prizes

by Magnific, Google Cloud, Replit and Alibaba Cloud.

SPOTS ARE LIMITED. SIGN UP TO RESERVE A SPOT.

In a moment when AI seems to be disrupting every part of filmmaking, writer/director Noah Wagner looks past the panic and hype to offer a grounded, hopeful lens on what filmmakers can build next.

For the first time, everyone has access to the tools. The race in AI animation is no longer in execution — it’s in imagination. In this keynote, animation director and IP creator Momo Wang maps out what the new animation studio looks like in the AI era — where small teams can build cinematic worlds, scalable franchises, and globally resonant characters faster than ever before. Drawing from large-scale AI animation productions, Hollywood development, original IP creation, and cross-cultural franchise experience across the U.S. and China, Momo shows how storytelling, world-building, and franchise thinking are becoming the new foundation of animation. This session is for creators ready to stop thinking like a content factory and start thinking like a world-builder.

From a blank page to a finished AI-powered asset. Sebastien walks through his workflow for turning rough sketches into polished, production-ready content using Magnific.

Description: AI is already transforming how the world's leading brands in media and advertising operate, nd more companies are integrating it into their creative and marketing workflows every day. In this workshop, we'll walk through real-world inspired use cases showing how companies are using AI to produce content faster, at scale, and with less friction. You'll get practical prompting insights, see end-to-end workflows running live inside Magnific Spaces, and walk away with a ready-to-use Space you can plug into your own projects from day one.

Best for: Marketers, designers, freelancers and creative professionals across media and advertising. Beginner to intermediate level. No technical background required.

What you'll learn:
How top companies in media and advertising are adopting AI today
Use case walkthroughs: from brief to final output
Practical prompting techniques to get better results faster
A Magnific Space with ready-to-use workflows to take home

We have entered a world where anyone can generate content, but not everyone can tell a story. In this keynote, filmmaker and creative entrepreneur Nik Kleverov shares lessons from the front lines of AI-powered filmmaking, advertising, and original IP creation.

From creating the first ever AI commercial (ToysRUs), to building AI-native IP Critterz, Nik demonstrates why technology is lowering the cost of production while raising the value of taste, judgment, and storytelling.

Part creative masterclass and part business roadmap, this talk explores how artists and studios can thrive in the age of AI by focusing on the one thing machines still can't do: create meaning.

Exploring how remixing, experimentation, and technology as a creative collaborator can help us navigate the latent space between the familiar and the unknown to discover new ways of thinking and creating.

In this session, Nicklas and Issa will showcase how Magnific Studios supports creative teams through onboarding programs, workshops, and tailored consultancy, acting as an extension of in-house creative departments to accelerate AI adoption and creative production.

A first look at Magnific Originals and the vision driving it, followed by the screening of The Chronicles of Bone, introduced live by its creator, Kavan The Kid.

In this session, Gabe will show you how to craft context-rich prompts for multi-reference video models, sharing the techniques he uses to get consistent, controllable results across shots.

In this session, he'll show you how to use references across image and video models to keep characters, locations, styles, and props consistent throughout a film.

Join Alibaba Cloud for a dynamic one-hour workshop exploring how Alibaba AI models (Happy Horse, Wan and Qwen) can move beyond experimentation and become practical, production-ready creative workflows.

Led by Xavier Lou, Lead of AI Creatives at Alibaba Cloud, the session will introduce Alibaba Cloud’s AI ecosystem and show how its models can support the next generation of creative production. The workshop features two award-winning creative talents: Paige Piskin, Creative Technologist and VFX/AI Artist, who will demonstrate an AI-powered product marketing workflow for fashion and beauty; and Jagger Waters, AI Storyteller, who will present a cinematic storytelling workflow for short AI clips.

Powered by Alibaba AI models and the Magnific platform, this session will show how creators can turn sparks of imagination into polished visual outcomes for brands, stories, and screens.

Hot or Slop is a personal talk about why “AI guy” is a dangerous identity, and why the real opportunity for creators is using new tools to build authentic unmistakable stories, worlds, and IP.

What happens when you reinvent a brand for the AI era? AREA 17, the agency behind the Magnific brand, shares the story behind the recent launch—how it pushed them to challenge all previous assumptions and rethink their creative process.

What does it actually look like when AI changes your work? Two Magnific Creative Partners trade the unfiltered story: the wins, the surprises, and what they've made that didn't exist before.

In this session, Mikhail Avady and Monty Robins, CEOs of Prodia, trace the history of AI inference and shows what becomes possible when latency drops below 500ms: new tools, new workflows, and a fundamentally different creative experience. AI image generation didn't get faster overnight, and understanding that evolution changes how you work.

Perfect for designers and developers who want a clearer mental model of how AI inference has evolved and why speed is the defining variable in 2026.

By the end, you'll understand the real use cases that only unlock at real-time speeds, including live creative tools, instant personalization, and interactive generation, and how to think about prompting, iteration, and model selection in practice. Every attendee creates something during the session using Prodia and Magnific tools, leaving with a tangible output and an API key to keep going.

Three pioneering filmmakers share the real workflows, hard-won lessons, and economic models behind hybrid AI filmmaking and what it means for creativity, ownership, and the kinds of stories that are finally possible to tell.

At Hibernia Bank, 1 Jones st., San Francisco

UPSCALE CONF ticket is required to entry!

​Join us for the official Upscale Afterparty, sponsored by Alibaba Cloud.

​After a full day of conversations around AI, creativity, and the future of the industry, we’re bringing everyone together for a night to unwind, connect, and celebrate with the Upscale community.

​Featuring a live set by DJ heyLove, plus food, drinks, and great company throughout the evening. Expect creatives, founders, filmmakers, marketers, and industry leaders all in one space.

​Come for the conversations. Stay for the music.

In this session, he'll show you how Magnific Apps turn complex workflows into simple input/output interfaces your team can share and reuse.