When CandyshopVFX founder Evan Kouloukythas walked into Fiera Milano Rho on May 19–20, the scale of AI Week Milan 2026 was unmistakable: 17 stages, thousands of visitors, and a venue that hummed with the energy of an industry that has clearly moved past its hype phase. This year, the conversation wasn’t if AI matters, it was how.
Llion Jones, co-author of “Attention Is All You Need,” delivered the kind of keynote that reminds you why the Transformers paper changed everything. Karen Hao, author of “Empire of AI,” pushed harder: AI is ultimately about who controls knowledge, compute, and data. Alex Mashrabov, CEO of Higgsfield and former Director of Generative AI at Snap, offered a glimpse of creator-first AI, including a teaser of “Hell Grind,” the first AI-made film, showcasing generative video, virtual camera motion, and AI-driven directing. Brian Solis of .Monk (Media.Monks) made a compelling case for brands that embrace AI without surrendering their human edge.
Europe’s voice was clear too: the European AI Office and the AI Act signal a commitment to trust-based, transparent AI, a model that prioritizes accountability alongside innovation. Greek companies like Hack The Box held their own on the international stage.
The biggest shift? Conversations have moved from “Will AI take our jobs?” to “How do we redesign roles and workflows?” That reframing matters, and it’s exactly how we think at CandyshopVFX. Our approach has always been artist-led, AI-accelerated: AI amplifies our artists; it doesn’t replace them.
As a creative production house active since 2013, we came home from Milan with one conviction stronger than ever: the future belongs to studios that weave AI into craft, not the other way around.
(One honest note: many talks were Italian-only, and the AI-generated English translation was, ironically, terrible. Even AI events still need better AI.)
