Technology & Innovation Advisory

At the intersection of world-class storytelling and advanced technology.

I'm a technology executive and studio creative innovator with 25+ years building the future of entertainment. I've launched pioneering studio divisions—founding Disney's StudioLAB—and led large-scale product initiatives at NBCUniversal and Apple. My philosophy: building secure, horizontal innovation infrastructure that amplifies human creativity, enhances the consumer experience, and delivers real time and cost efficiency.

Emmy Award winner 8 patents & filings — AI, ML, AR Board, Creators Guild of America
Latest Articles

Field notes on media & technology.

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The LLM Wars — Who's winning the battle for your brain? State of the Union in AI, Article I of IV.

The LLM Wars: Who's Winning the Battle for Your Brain?

Three tech titans, one prize: the place people go to think. A look past the headlines into how people actually adopt and abandon ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude — and why loyalty is paper-thin.

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The Google Zero Era: the click collapse (64.82% zero-click), the Referral Quality Paradox, and the three-tactic GEO framework.

The Google Zero Era Is Here — and It's Rewriting Digital Marketing

Nearly two-thirds of Google searches now end without a click. A look at the structural shift to answer engines, the Referral Quality Paradox, and how Generative Engine Optimization captures what's left.

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Agentic Discovery: the shift from keyword search to agent-driven discovery, zero-friction in-chat commerce, and the new playbook for media and retail.

Welcome to the Era of Agentic Discovery

If you work in media or retail, the way customers find you is undergoing a massive rewrite. AI agents are now doing the hunting, reading, and shopping on our behalf — and that shifts the entire playbook.

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Areas of Focus

Where creative ambition meets engineering discipline.

01

Human-in-the-Loop AI

Architecting intelligent automation frameworks that optimize production speed while strictly maintaining artist agency and creative control.

02

Ethical AI & Governance

Designing secure IP perimeters and enterprise data guardrails that prevent proprietary studio assets from leaking into public foundational models.

03

Agentic Distribution & Discovery

Advising publishers and brands on integrating with agent frameworks and countering the traffic impact of an AI-mediated, zero-click search era.

04

Immersive & Interactive Content

Pioneering next-generation storytelling across AR, VR, and XR, built on real-time graphics engines and spatial formats.

05

Modern Media Pipelines

Engineering cloud-native, serverless infrastructure and automated metadata indexing to streamline asset-heavy studio workflows.

06

Distribution & Streaming

Leveraging spatial video, 3D streaming architectures, and unified delivery frameworks to optimize global content reach.

Current Portfolio

Accelerating next-gen platforms & industry governance.

Board of Directors

Creators Guild of America

Shaping industry guardrails for AI tools across the creative workforce.

Advisory Board

Infinity Festival

Guiding the intersection of Hollywood storytelling and Silicon Valley technology.

Advisor

Miris

Cloud-based, browser-native 3D spatial streaming platforms.

Advisor

Playbook

AI-driven asset management and automated semantic metadata indexing.

Advisor

IMGN.ai

Generative, LLM-powered script breakdown and pre-production visualization.

Advisor

Toybox Entertainment

AI-native TV production company focused on competition shows.

Services

How we can work together.

01

Board & Advisory Board

You've built something. Now you need someone in the room who's done it before — at scale, across disciplines, and at companies where the stakes were real.

I bring 25+ years of technology and product leadership to board and advisory roles, with direct experience founding studio innovation divisions, navigating enterprise AI adoption, and operating at the intersection of creative and engineering organizations. I ask the questions that challenge assumptions before they become expensive mistakes, and I have the pattern recognition to spot what's actually new versus what's a familiar problem with a new label.

Engagements range from formal board seats to advisory relationships structured around specific strategic inflection points — a platform decision, a fundraise, a partnership you're trying to pressure-test.

02

Innovation Strategy

Most organizations don't have an innovation problem. They have a prioritization problem — too many ideas, not enough discipline about which ones to pursue and in what order.

I work with leadership teams to build innovation infrastructure that's horizontal by design: frameworks that serve the whole organization rather than a single department, governance models that protect proprietary IP while enabling responsible AI adoption, and technology roadmaps grounded in what's actually shipping today rather than what's promised on a keynote stage.

Engagements typically begin with an honest assessment of where you are, followed by a structured strategy process that ends with something your team can actually execute — not a deck that lives in a shared drive.

03

Fractional CPO / CTO

Some organizations need senior product or technology leadership before they're ready to hire it full-time. That's the gap I fill.

As a fractional CPO or CTO, I operate as a working executive — not a consultant who delivers recommendations and disappears. I sit in the team meetings, make the prioritization calls, hire and develop the people, and build the processes that make a permanent hire successful when the time comes. My background spans product strategy, engineering infrastructure, and the creative-technical interface that most media and entertainment companies find hardest to navigate.

Engagements are scoped to fit the stage of the organization — from a 90-day sprint to establish the function, to an ongoing part-time role through a defined phase of growth.

Corporate Heritage

A career anchored in pioneering platforms.

Universal Pictures
2022 — Present

Global studio technology leadership across direct-to-consumer initiatives, serverless data frameworks, and workflow automation.

The Walt Disney Studios
2015 — 2022

Founded StudioLAB and established the Partner Innovation Model, building an elite innovation hub serving Disney, Lucasfilm, Pixar, Searchlight, and 20th Century Studios.

Apple
2003 — 2005

Product leadership driving mobile video platform development and the adoption of MPEG-4 as an industry standard.

NBC
1999 — 2001

Digital media and broadcast technology during the network's early push onto the consumer internet.

Netscape Communications
1996 — 1999

Early-stage technology evangelism for HTML4, the Document Object Model, and JavaScript during the dawn of the consumer internet.

Recognition & patents

Honors

★
Primetime Emmy Award Recognized for excellence in technology & innovation
  • Emmy Award nominee
  • Webby Award nomination

Patents & filings

Get in touch

Let's talk about what you're building.

Available for advisory work at the intersection of media, entertainment, and emerging technology.

me@benjaminhavey.com
Los Angeles · LinkedIn