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Generative AI Pioneer | CEO of WaveAI | Professor at Santa Clara University
As AI rapidly transforms every industry, the ability to innovate has never been more important. Success in the age of AI is not just about learning new tools, but also awakening the uniquely human creative spark that drives breakthrough ideas. In this inspiring and practical talk, AI researcher and entrepreneur Maya Ackerman shares powerful techniques for unlocking creativity, silencing the inner critic, and using AI as a partner in innovation. Based on her leadership in building creative AI tools that serve millions of creators worldwide, along with her own creative pursuits, she shows how individuals and organizations can combine human imagination with AI to unlock new possibilities and lead their industries in the age of AI.
Once the stuff of science fiction, creative machines are now reshaping culture and daily life. Can AI really be creative? What does it mean for machines to engage in artistic expression? And how do we forge a human-centric future in this new era? Maya Ackerman invites us to rethink the relationship between humans and machines, seeing it not as a tale of replacement but as a story of imagination, expression, and the future we choose to build together.
Dr. Maya Ackerman is a world-renowned AI researcher, entrepreneur, and opera singer named "Woman of Influence" by the Silicon Valley Business Journal. She serves as a Computer Engineering Professor at Santa Clara University and CEO/Co-founder of WaveAI Inc., where she developed ALYSIA, a groundbreaking AI system for songwriting that has served millions of users globally through products like LyricStudio and MelodyStudio.
Her career began with fundamental machine learning research at the University of Waterloo, where she earned her PhD in Computer Science, followed by postdoctoral fellowships at Caltech and UC San Diego. She later pivoted to computational creativity research, leading founding one of the earliest generative AI music startups, WaveAI's, in 2017. With over 50 peer-reviewed publications cited more than 1,500 times, her research spans text, music, and art generation. She is also the author of "Creative Machines: AI, Art & Us" (Wiley, 2025), a book exploring the intersection of artificial intelligence and creativity.
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Creator of Siri and 5x founder at the intersection of AI and human potential
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Visual AI pioneer who has keynoted at Davos, Milken Global, the Vatican Academy of Pontifical Sciences, and the world's most prestigious stages
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