Breakthrough in Creative AI
This months announcement that Decart has raised $100 million (at a $3b valuation) for an AI model capable of transforming live footage has set the world on notice: we are only just getting started in 2025. This marks a new class of AI once thought impossible – models that can take a live video feed (a basketball game, a concert stream, even a sales presentation) and instantly transform it, pixel by pixel, into something entirely new. Scenes can be aged 50 years, recolored in the palette of Van Gogh, populated with lifelike 3D animations, or overlaid with live data enriching every frame.
This is not science fiction. It’s happening now with Decart and others. We are stepping into an age where the boundary between “real” and “imagined” is negotiable, shaped instantly by audience desire, creator inspiration and AI capability. It is an age that will reward curiosity, boldness, and a willingness to see the world as a moving canvas – one where the brush never leaves the frame. And this renaissance is only just beginning.
Practical Examples of Creative AI in Action
The XV Research team highlights where these breakthroughs are already appearing – in sports arenas, shopping centres and even living rooms:
- Sports – During a live soccer match, AI can spotlight key plays in real time, overlay stats on players, or reimagine the game in a nostalgic black-and-white broadcast style.
- Fashion – As a model walks the runway, viewers can toggle outfits into different fabrics, colors or patterns – instantly and interactively.
- Retail – Shoppable livestreams where AI inserts clickable product tags in real time, tailored to a viewer’s history and preferences.
- Live Streaming – Streamers can transform their environments – a bedroom becomes a cyberpunk city or a golden-hour beach – mid-broadcast, no green screen required.
- Entertainment – Concert producers can surround performers with surreal AI-generated worlds, with fans influencing the visuals via live polls.
- Education – A lecture on ancient Rome can be accompanied by dynamically generated 3D reconstructions, blended into the professor’s feed.
- Fitness – AI coaches analyse posture live, offering real-time prompts: “lower your shoulders,” “widen your stance.”
- Gaming – Esports tournaments deliver personalised streams, spotlighting each viewer’s favourite team and updating stats in real time.
- Advertising – Live broadcast ads adapt instantly to a viewer’s location, demographics, or even mood.
- Media – Journalists can transmit raw video that AI instantly polishes into multi-format packages for global audiences.
Emerging Market Leaders
Alongside the obvious pioneers – OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI and now Decart – a wider wave of innovators is pushing Creative AI into the creator economy:
- Suno – A rising favourite in AI-driven music, blending sound and video, backed by $125m in Series B funding.
- Synthesia – Lifelike AI avatars enabling brands and individuals to produce personalised, on-camera content; raised $156.6m.
- Kaiber – Transforms simple videos or text prompts into richly styled narrative animations, widely used in TikTok ads and branded campaigns.
- MagicHour – Specialises in ultra-fast, real-time video style transfers with cinematic and artistic filters, used by creators and agencies.
- Pika Labs – Optimised for mobile, delivering quick compilation and stylisation of short clips for social or broadcast.
- Luma AI – Converts static images into cinematic moving sequences through its Dream Machine AI.
- EbSynth – Open-source tool for frame-by-frame style transfer – ideal for animation and commercials.
- Pixop – Real-time video enhancement for live, archive and studio workflows, used in sports and news.
- Cortex AI – Adds real-time overlays, analytics, and visuals to live streams, boosting engagement mid-production.
- Dashverse – Mobile-first platform that uses AI to remix and stylise short-form video stories.
- Veed.io – Expanding into video-to-video with instant background removal, auto-captioning, and real-time language translation.
Bottom Line
The Creator Economy has been building for years, but Creative AI has arrived in 2025. For decades in sport, digital experiences were fixed: one broadcast, one universal view, the same feed for all. Creative AI is breaking that uniformity. Now reality can be personalised without losing its live essence. One game, one concert, one lesson – yet a thousand different perspectives.
Skeptics will raise questions about authenticity, privacy and saturation. These are valid concerns, but history shows that when technology expands the vocabulary of human creativity, entirely new cultural forms emerge. Just as the printing press democratised knowledge and photography reshaped how we see, live Creative AI is set to redefine how we experience.
If 2025 is any indication, this change won’t be gradual – it will unfold in breathtaking leaps across the entire sports landscape, from elite stadiums to little leagues.
