Year two. The panel gives way to the work. Real briefs built live in the studio, see how hybrid work gets made.

We've all talked and planned for integrating AI for years. This is the part where we actually have to do it, and it's where most teams are falling short. The Hybrid Production Approach is back for year two at Leeds Digital Festival 2026, and this time the 'panel' gives way to the 'work' itself, built live in the room, on real briefs.

Everyone agrees creative and brand building are back at the top of the agenda. Almost nobody is showing you how it actually gets made now. And making it has never been harder. You're creating more than ever to feed the 'always-on machine', trying to make work that breaks through while most advertising has gone AI slop crazy, all on budgets that haven't moved. And now you're expected to have your AI approach worked out too? Er, no pressure, then!

So how are you meant to commission great work, or crack a genuinely hard brief, if you don't understand how it's getting built these days? That shouldn't be your job. It's ours. You bring the brief, the idea, the ambition. We'll work out how it actually gets made.

Last year we made the case, and the room said it back to us, we didn't know you could do that. This year we skip the argument and go straight to the proof. In the studio, in front of the LED volume, we take real briefs and build them live, using whatever the job needs, virtual production, CGI, AI, a traditional crew, and the judgment of which earns its place where. It's how we work every week. BPP, five worlds in two days a traditional shoot could never have reached. Kasai, summer made in December when a real shoot was impossible.

A person always makes the call on where automation earns its place, and nothing goes out that we wouldn't put our name to. You stay in control of how far it goes, from a small 'background fix' to 'no AI at all'.

Built for the people who commission and shape the work. Account Directors, Producers, Creative Directors, Brand Marketers, anyone carrying an ambitious idea towards something finished without the wheels coming off.

The new 'epic' isn't louder. It's smarter.

Why it's worth your time?

See how work that actually breaks through gets made now, built live rather than explained on a slide.

A straight answer to what 'authentic' even means now the tools have changed.

Real work from real briefs, small budgets through to big, with the honest problems and how they were solved.

A Chatham House chat with the Tungsten team about what you're actually wrestling with. Plus food and drinks, which, let's be honest, is half the reason anyone turns up to these anyway, we'll do a good spread!

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