WAVES 2025: AI is going to amplify us as creatives and creators, says YouTuber Brandon B

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to inaugurate WAVES 2025 at the Jio World Centre in Mumbai on May 1; and YouTuber Brandon B (right) says that 'we'll see the new fleet of AI tools unlock a new tier of storytelling'. (Images via X and Brandon Baum)

At 25, YouTube creator Brandon Baum has been experimenting with VFX for roughly half his life. Baum, who goes by Brandon B on YouTube where he has more than 15 million subscribers, says he started teaching himself VFX with After Effects when he was 12 years old.

Baum is in Mumbai for the inaugural World Audio Visual and Entertainment Summit (WAVES), being organized by the Indian Ministry of Information and Broadcasting from May 1-4. While here, he will join in a panel discussion on creator economy in the age of artificial intelligence (AI).

This is Baum's first trip to India, and he says he is also looking forward to making videos, travelling to food markets and hotspots and generally immersing himself in the culture.

"We've got such an incredible Indian fan base and this is the first time we've been out here. So I've brought my team with me. Our plan is to shoot at least 10 videos whilst we're here. We're going to be travelling around and collaborating with other incredible creatives and creators, travelling to hotspots all across India and making sure we absorb ourselves in the culture as we're out here. Lots of food markets, lots of incredible hotspots and just making sure that we're really making the most out of our time," he tells Moneycontrol over video call. Edited excerpts from the interview:

You're in Mumbai for WAVES 2025. What you are hoping to do and make while you are here?

I'm going to be doing a panel which I'm very excited about. I'm doing it alongside some incredibly talented creators. We're going to be talking about how AI (artificial intelligence) is going to completely revolutionize the creator economy and the creator space, and talking about some of the innovative ways that we've been using it.

And how have you been using AI? Are you concerned that AI is going to come for your job at some point?

Will AI come for my job? Maybe at some point over the next century. I think for a while we're OK.

Something I'm very excited about is to see how AI is going to amplify us as creatives and creators. A big part of becoming a storyteller within the visual landscape is a very heavy reliance on technical knowledge and skill sets. Now, of course, the reason myself and most other creatives, the storytellers, get into the game isn't because they're obsessed with these technical skills, and wanting to really nail those technical abilities. It's because they want to tell awesome stories. And I think that's one of the greatest unlocks we're about to see, as the barrier to entry gets demolished by no longer needing really big powerful computers, years and years of training on very technical softwares, and also the expense of paying for all of those very expensive softwares.

Suddenly we're giving world-class tools to billions of potential storytellers. And then the result of that is we're going to see the greatest storytellers emerge from all across the globe, not just the hotspots that we're used to seeing them from.

You're self-taught and you're working in VFX, which is arguably one of the more challenging spaces to do videos in. Does it not make you angry or anxious that this entry barrier is going to come down?

Not really. I think artistry is always important and no matter what, these technical skill sets always exist. I think they'll just change. There is a great deal that you teach yourself when you dive into this very technical skill sets. So much of what I understand and know about composition and framing and real visual storytelling comes from spending hours and hours really getting into the detail of what a shot looks like. And that comes from that very technical side. So I do believe they're are really valuable skill sets that all future filmmakers will benefit from diving down that rabbit hole. I just don't think it's a necessity anymore. And that's the bit I'm excited for. It's there if you want it and it will level up your storytelling, but it's no longer the make or break of whether or not you are able to tell stories.

So, with storytelling back at the center and the technical ability perhaps getting a boost from AI, what are your biggest considerations when you're thinking about a video, from conceptualizing to the design of it, the technology of it, and the execution?

My first question before we make any video is if this wasn't a video, if this was a short story, would it be a good short story?

Sometimes we get a little carried away in the spectacle of our content and we get lost in the idea of, 'Oh, it's OK, because we're going to have this awesome visual on screen.' Therefore, it doesn't matter if the story isn't a solid. That's one of our common pitfalls.

Something that we are very, very cautious of and we really crack down on is make all of the specs go away, take the visuals away. If this was just words on a page, does this excite you as a story?

That's the one really important evolution we're about to see over the next decade, as spectacle becomes more common and we see these new fleet of AI tools unlock a new tier of storytelling for creatives.

I think the most important then won't be how grand your shots can be, how epic your simulations can be, how crazy your 3D animation can be. I think.. we'll go back to the thing that was the most important at the very start, which is how good is your story?

When did you begin experimenting with VFX, and why YouTube?

My story started as a 12-year-old. I downloaded a dodgy version, like a cracked version of After Effects and taught myself After Effects. Over the next few years, I would upload these videos to YouTube. Of course, at the time, I was getting absolutely no views, no traction, but I carried on kind of exercising this muscle. I spent every waking moment either watching, learning via After Effects tutorials, or just actually uploading and creating these videos.

Eventually I jumped into the world of TV, spent four years working in the TV industry learning, I guess, the more traditional scope of how content is created and then went, 'Nah, I know what got me into this creative space and it was YouTube.' And that's where I want to tell my stories.

So I found some creators that I started working with full time, helped them build their channels until COVID happened and I saw it as an opportunity to tell brand new stories and build new worlds filled with new characters and eventually actually set up my own pages, which thankfully has led me to where we are today.

Are you thinking about what Gen Z viewers want to watch? Are you thinking about what will get seen, or picked up by the algorithm?

It's something I heard Mr. Beast talk about, and I really liked it: Anytime you use the word algorithm, swap it out for the word audience.

All the algorithm is a reflection on what the audience want to watch, and it's a discoverability system that's been built to serve the consumer, i.e., the person watching the videos. So no, the algorithm doesn't scare me in any way. It is a system that's been created to help my content get served to the audience it was intended for. I think it's our job as creators.

Gone are the days of creating led by ego and going 'My idea is the best idea, therefore we shall create it.' We as creators and YouTube content creators can sit there and go: 'I have a hypothesis. My hypothesis is that this video and this idea will perform very well, but I'm also going to create three other videos and three other verticals.' We get such detailed reporting off the back of every piece of content that we create that we can view our hypotheses and our experiments and then have real life data and reports off the back of it to then inform our next experiments. And that's all the content creation cycle is. It's coming up with wild, wacky ideas that excite our creative muscles, testing and then putting them out into the world, learning from that data set, and then informing our next set of ideas based off of what we've just seen.

As a creator as well as a viewer, what would you say Gen Z really wants from videos?

So yes, we have a big Gen Z audience, but we don't specifically create for Gen Z. We create our content completely universal. Most of our videos, we try and include very little language whatsoever, so we can make sure we're keeping our content open for an international audience. And that is kind of the same for age demographics as well.

Is this your first trip to India?

First time in India. We've got such an incredible Indian fan base and this is the first time we've been out here. So I've brought my team with me. Our plan is to shoot at least 10 videos whilst we're here. We're going to be travelling around in the collaborating with other incredible creatives and creators, travelling to hotspots all across India and making sure we absorb ourselves in the culture as we're out here. Lots of food markets, lots of incredible hotspots and just making sure that we're really making the most out of our time.

Which cities are you travelling to?

We've got all of our video ideas. We have booked our outgoing flight. We're starting in Mumbai and we're leaving from New Delhi. Everything in between will be a mystery, depending on where the wind takes us each day.