Entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk’s annual VeeCon conference is underway this week, and the core mix looks familiar: panels and interviews featuring notable celebs, creators, and business leaders paired with concerts and activities, all set within a Midwestern NFL stadium.
But this year’s move from Minneapolis to Indianapolis comes with another change, Vaynerchuk told Decrypt: an expanding focus that’s less centered on NFTs and Web3. In particular, he said via video call, he's hyped about the rise of A.I. tools and their impact on business and creators.
Last year, Vaynerchuk described VeeCon to Decrypt as a “summer camp” of sorts, designed to educate attendees about NFTs—and entertain them, too. But this year, with the NFT market seeing a steep decline over the past year, he said the aim was to expand the event and turn VeeCon into the “coolest business conference in the world.”
“Cool” is meant to represent “contemporary voices and individuals that are representing the ‘now’ in business and in popular culture,” he explained, albeit within a conference framework that’s still focused on business, marketing, and entrepreneurial pursuits. Vaynerchuk further described the evolution as a “strategy shift” from the original event.
Broadly, the lineup of speakers hit a similar vibe as last year, with celebrities (Drew Barrymore, Neil Patrick Harris, Jessica Alba) plus NFT artists and project creators (Art Blocks’ Erick “Snowfro” Calderon and pseudonymous Deadfellaz co-founder Betty), along with musician Timbaland, spiritual thinker Deepak Chopra, and entrepreneurs from various industries.
But the NFT-ticketed event’s lineup of panels and chats has a wider scope, ranging from sports partnerships to the pairing of business and culture—and A.I. is also in the mix. Vaynerchuk said that A.I. conversations could’ve dominated the event if they’d approached it like VeeCon 2022.
“Last year, I was incredibly focused on the education of new innovation,” he told Decrypt. “If I was to do it this year, there would have been 80% of the panels on A.I.”
Vaynerchuk said that his Vayner3 consultancy has similarly expanded its focus from Web3 to broader tech innovations, including things like augmented reality and A.I. The firm is now helping brands navigate the new and potentially thorny generative A.I. space.