Webit 2026: Make (Hi)story with AI - A Brand™ New World - Strahil Jordanov

In this keynote, Strahill Yordanov, co-founder and CEO of Space Dive Productions, discusses the transformative impact of artificial intelligence on storytelling and brand experiences. He explores how AI has not only enhanced visual storytelling but also created opportunities for brands to develop immersive narratives that engage audiences on a deeper level. By utilizing AI tools, creators can revive historical events, craft new realities, and create visually rich worlds that resonate with modern viewers. Yordanov shares insights from his extensive experience in visual production, including successful projects in projection mapping and immersive installations. He emphasizes the importance of storytelling and how AI can help brands construct intricate narratives that are compelling and relevant to contemporary audiences.

We now move into the creative frontier of the AI economy. How stories, brands, and immersive experiences are being transformed by artificial intelligence. Please welcome Straill Yordonov, co-founder and CEO of Space Dive Productions and creative director at MP Studio with [music] Make History with AI: A Brand New World. From the TV writer room to large-scale projection mapping and immersive experiences, Straw Hill has spent his career building worlds

through storytelling. In this keynote, he will explore how AI is pushing the limits of visual language, helping creators revive history, imagine new realities, and turn brands into living universes where people genuinely enjoy spending time. Because in the AI era, companies will not only tell stories, they will build worlds. Please welcome to the stage Strahill Yordanov. Thank you. Thank you guys. It's a great pleasure to be here

among you. Hello Webbit. Let's see a video. Bulgaria. a victory. for make a Fore. Thank you. Thank you so much. Um, it's a pleasure to be here among you today. Hello again. Um, the video that you just saw is a teaser. It's entirely it's visual part. It's entirely produced with AI. Not the screenplay, but everything visual that you see behind it. It's a part of a video

sequence that we did of short of four short films that we did with AI production uh for the 150 years of the April uprising in Bulgaria. Um, today we're going to talk about and what they can do, how AI has changed the visual story and also sorry I skipped the slide. Okay, we're going to talk about how AI has changed the visual industry and what kind of

opportunities are there available for brands right now. But before we get any deeper into that, let me please introduce myself uh real quick. My name is Tru Hill Jordanov. I'm a screenwriter, director. I'm a founder and CEO of Space Dive Productions, which is a company for video and film production like visual journeys. The the ones that you just saw with AI and all kinds of other approaches.

I'm also the creative director of MP Studio. It's a global studio for immersive projections, um immersive experiences, large scale projection mapping. Uh we've had like 800 projects all around the globe and also um amazing uh amazing different buildings, amazing a lot of venues that we've projected on. We're mostly known in Bulgaria for Lunar, the Festival of Lights. Maybe you've seen it if you were in Bulgaria at

that point. Uh it's one of the biggest uh events, the biggest event in Bulgaria by attendance, the biggest cultural event. I've also had the pleasure to be the creative director of the Bulgarian Pavilion uh in Expos Saka 2025. Um and I've done more than 15 years in uh prime time television, done some advertising, advertising, some film. Well, basically my expertise is story in all kinds of formats.

I remember when Martin Pkco called me, he's the founder of uh MP Studio. We were together was studying together in Germany in in the university. Then I started working in TV. He founded the studio. I was like screenwriter directing Lords of the Airbud as we say it in Bulgarian. So one day he called me and say let's do a narrative projection mapping show. Let's do a projection

mapping with a voiceover. And so we did and three years later we won the first world championship in in projection mapping in Berlin. It was 2015. It was the only show with a voiceover. So it kind of became our signature style. I've had the honor of telling global stories like those of Vincent Van Go and Rembrand Van Ryan in the northern church in Amsterdam. Um, our 40inut

immersive narrative spectacle based on the letters between Vincent and Teo Vanok uh is really an amazing piece. It's set in the amazing northern church where both artists used to visit and actually it's one of the major tourist attractions in Amsterdam. So, it's been there for the last five years. Well, some years uh will be still to come. So, if you're traveling to Amsterdam, please check it out.

It's a beautiful dramatic piece. Then there's Vienna. In Vienna, we've had the pleasure of telling the story of creation. And we've also had the pleasure of working with an amazing composer from Hans Timmer Studio. Um his name is Adam Lucas. He's a Grammy winner. and he compos composed really amazing music which was recorded by a 60 member orchestra in Synron stage studio in Vienna the emblematic studio

where the music for Dune was also recorded so it's also a long-term installment if you're there please check it out it's some years to come yet and here's the Bulgarian pavilion in Osaka which was a great success at the expo it had a two-hour queue every day was visited by a great lot of people it was praised a lot and we there we told the story of

bacteria actually we're living on the planet of bacteria earth contains nonillions of bacteria non is a number with 30 digits so bacteria also have sparked the sparked the evolution wheel they saturated the atmosphere with oxygen and so we evolved a bit later after that but we were mesmerized but about something else about bacteria and the fact that when bacteria are in danger, they forget their primary functions.

So they unite to overcome the threat. And we thought that this microscopic lesson would be very interesting lesson for humanity nowadays. And this was one of the stories in the Bulgarian pavilion united by the motto evolving with nature. when it comes to visual things, talk is a bit cheap. So, let me play you a bit. Let me give you a glimpse of what we do. >> [crying]

>> We may be invisible but will [music] beable. Maybe [singing] invisible. They may be blinding me. Just wait. >> wait. Turn it out. >> [music] >> back. Hey >> [applause] >> Thank you. Thank you. Well, our world runs on stories. No matter the format, it's in our DNA. Yeah, since the beginning of time at in the caves when pe when stories were shared among our ancestors and

then when before bedtime when our parents told us stories and then every film, book, song, every memory with friends, there's stories all over us, all around us and it's actually pure chemistry. A story that's built tension actually releases oxytocin in the brain which is really interesting. That's the chemical that turns attention into empathy and empathy into action. And we remember stories. According to a Stanford study, 63%

of the people remember stories and only 5% remember statistic. What I'm what I'm really passionate about right now is what kind of stories we can tell with AI. Of course, we've been using machine learning, language models, a lot of visual AI tools since their launch. uh it's how it's what we do but right now AI has evolved so much that the whole the whole new stalling storytelling

opportunities are here so of course well we can revive history with AI like the project that I just showed you it's a really interesting opportunity because recreating a period piece with classic cinematic approach would have been really really expensive like um wardrobe locations um studio sets, costumes, props, casting, actors, etc., etc. You name it. Would have been impossible to create such such a thing for such a

budget. But this kind of production is not only entertainment, it's also educational. And video by itself is really impactful and accessible. It's a combination of motion, of image, of audio. It's multi-ensory, so better understood and better remembered. And it's also kind of the language that a new generation speaks. Uh Gen Z and Gen Alpha like really prefer video. About 65% of them preferred video over textbased material.

that's really a way to uh transform this legacy and make it more accessible to the newer generations. But yeah, that's one thing. How about companies? How about brands? What can they do? Brands have unique opportunities now not only to share their brand story but to have an entire universe built around their brands about their brand around their brand's values. Brand content is can already be on another

level. Content that is naturally interesting for the audience. Not only positioning brand the brand in the story but also building high quality complex especially to achieve what the brand needs. Content that sells builds brand awareness creates a positive image boost prestige. AI visuals have empowered storytellers to tell all kinds of stories right now to go beyond the usual stories but something more. AI visuals have empowered brands

to afford a Hollywood style, Hollywood visual style, Hollywood quality stories and visual worlds. So, let me give you an example with the intro video that we created for web this year. Let's watch it again and it will be a slightly different version from the one in the morning. >> The AI decade has begun. You feel the world changing, every industry, every system, every decision being re-imagined in

real Innovation is inevitable. Could Sophia be Europe's AI and innovation gateway? Who will lead the way? The richest, the fastest, the smartest. The adaptive will shape what comes next. The AI decade belongs to you. Take your seat in the Webbit community and let's define what's next before it defines us. We can solve the challenges of the new decade before they come up. For 20 years, Webbit has

been more than a gathering of minds. It's where the future finds its architects. Meet global leaders, decision makers, and AI pioneers. Welcome to Webbit 2026. It's a really dynamic video. I don't know if you spotted the difference, but there was a digital lady who created who made AI decisions uh in real time in the video. And in this version, she is Mrs. Sierusa, the CEO of Webbit.

Of course, positioning a CEO of Webbit as a character in the video would have been too self-centered for a brand focused on sharing knowledge and building the future. That's why we didn't position it, even though she's way more appealing than the uh AI version of it. But this is just an example how custom characters can be positioned in video. But yeah, of course, you know that already.

You've seen it online. And there are such videos we have been going on for months. But now imagine this. Imagine building a character especially for your organization. A character that doesn't communicate your brand. A character that proves your brand's existence. Imagine a tailor-made story built for your company's vision with cinematic storytelling, but designed to perform on social media, distributed in the right way on all social media

channels, built for that. A story that's interesting enough for the audience to see, but also a story that performs for the brand. If I have to give you a quick example with webbit because I don't have time already, I would probably pick a dystopian story set in the future in the near future where people are trying to go back to the past and maintain balance between humanity

and technology before it's too late. It would be a webit miniseries that you would enjoy watching because it reveals a possible future. It's also features realistic contact. It looks like Hollywood and is relevant to the present day. And it also positions Webbit as a brand that's exploring solutions to the problems of the future. And there's a native story for every company, a genuine one, an engaging one.

Your brand story is your unique access to the hearts and minds of your So use it wisely. Build culture around it. Build a community. Now it's easier than ever. Thank you for your attention.