What happens when technology and creativity stop working side by side and start working together? That is the question we explored at the Bertelsmann Tech x Creative Summit in Berlin on November 2 and 3, 2026. Under the motto "CL/SH – Tech meets Creativity," experts from media, technology and the creative industries came together at the Bertelsmann Representative Office Unter den Linden. For us, it was a special occasion: we had the chance to present Storyvolt and had many in-depth conversations.

A summit with a clear focus

The summit was built around four themes that together show how AI is changing work and creation:

  • CREATE: How AI expands creative possibilities, from video production to text publishing.
  • CODE: How development and prototyping are changing when creatives can also build.
  • CO-WORK: How AI is transforming workflows, collaboration and organisational structures.
  • CONTROL: The trust, governance and responsibility needed to scale innovation safely.

What impressed us most was the mix of external perspectives and real practical examples from across the Bertelsmann group. Rather than abstract visions of the future, the focus was on what teams are already building today, in production, editorial, product development and day-to-day business.

Storytelling with AI: our session

Storyvolt was represented in the summit program with the session "Future of Storytelling," together with woven. It explored how serial entertainment changes when AI takes part in storytelling, production and distribution. Our view: the story remains at the center. AI changes how quickly, how individually and how diversely stories can be created and reach people.

This is exactly where our approach at Storyvolt comes in. With the SEF platform (Smart Entertainment Factory), we automate the path from trend analysis through text, audio and video production to individualised distribution. Our content, the LelaShorts, is produced in series of around 50 episodes of 1 to 2 minutes each and is available as text, audio or micro drama. The creative framework remains deliberately at the heart of it.

Conversations that continue

The summit enabled many good conversations: with colleagues from the Bertelsmann ecosystem, with teams facing similar questions, and with people who already use AI in media production in their everyday work. Many of these encounters have led to concrete follow-up meetings. We look forward to turning the ideas from Berlin into pilot projects and partnerships.

Our key takeaways

We are bringing three thoughts back from Berlin:

  1. Creativity needs structure, not less of it. The best examples showed that AI works where processes are clearly defined and creatives keep control over the artistic core.
  2. The line between tech and creative is becoming more permeable. Those who produce content increasingly need to understand how systems work, and those who build systems need a feel for narrative and impact.
  3. Trust is a prerequisite for scale. Governance and responsibility were discussed not as a brake, but as a condition for innovation to work sustainably.

Outlook

The summit reinforced our conviction that Europe needs its own scalable answers to how serial entertainment is created in the AI era. We take many new contacts, impulses and conversation partners from Berlin. And we look forward to feeding these insights into the further development of Storyvolt and the SEF platform.