Ann Greenberg is a digital media pioneer who has significantly advanced the democratization of media with her work as an entrepreneur, inventor and thought leader. Ann’s passion for empowering audiences through new forms of interactive entertainment has shaped her entrepreneurial endeavors and inventions.
In 1998, Ann co-founded Gracenote, the leading entertainment data company in the world. Gracenote connects millions of people to the content they love and handles billions of data requests daily for leading consumer electronic, software and automotive companies. In 2016, Nielsen purchased Gracenote for $560M and adopted Gracenote IDs as the standard content identifier across its audience measurement solutions.
At her new company, Entertainment AI™ Ann is building a patented platform that automates media generation, allowing anyone to collaboratively contribute to the content they love. Entertainment AI is a Decentralized AI company, and its Smart Content Marketplace uses a SmartScript™ to micronize all elements of any piece of content, making every element cryptographically secure. Anything made with a SmartScript becomes Smart Content. The system enables dynamic, scalable and deeply participatory co-creation. Entertainment AI’s consensus protocol is Proof of Participation™.
Ann also runs the Hugging Company, an incubator for Blockchain and immersive technologies providing cutting edge solutions for diverse industries.
Ann serves on the Mixed Reality Committee for the IEEE Global Initiative for Ethical Considerations in Artificial Intelligence and Autonomous Systems. Ann participates in the Innovation 4 Jobs (i4j) think tank, and she also mentors Korean accelerator SparkLabs. Sample startups, include Busby.io, Fem-Inc. (Prizma), MangoPlate (Korea’s Yelp), and the first shoot and share 360°app from Spherical, Inc. (TourWrist.) Ann designed the original immersive story-mapping concepts for a documentary about a tribe of Jews living in Ghana, West Africa and she produced hip-hop artist Blaqstarr’s SongPano (Ann’s concept for immersive album covers) for Interscope.
In 1992, Ann co-founded ION a pioneering digital studio to create “omnidirectional, interactive and immersive entertainment” which invented and patented early interactive cinema systems, enhanced CD formats and groundbreaking intelligent media players. ION partnered with BMG and published cutting edge work for artists including: David Bowie, Brian Eno, The Residents, Todd Rundgren and Primus. Clients included: Apple, Sony, Microsoft, Macromedia, Phillips, Interscope, Disney and House of Blues. Other projects included “Robecca a Digital Frankenstein” built from collective memory, “Digital Dante” and Ray Zone’s 3DWorld. Ann pioneered celebrity hosted chats and playlists, and worked on early Internet broadcasts for major brands.
Prior to founding ION, Ann headed marketing for Academy Award-winning Pressman Films.
Ann is a dynamic speaker. Sample conferences include: CES, NAB, SXSW, AWE, Cognizant Community, Digital Hollywood, Sundance, SMPTE + Stanford’s Computer Vision Summit and Stanford’s Future of Entertainment Conference.