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Amongst corporate leaders, AI is almost always framed around efficiency and optimization.

Artist Alex Reben encourages a different starting point: play.

As OpenAI's first artist in residence and founder of the new venture Phyzify, Alex argues that the people producing the most interesting work with AI aren't chasing efficiency — but rather, following curiosity. 

In today's newsletter, he explains why, and how to escape what he calls "the beige slop."

What’s Inside:

• Scale Story: Building the factory of the imagination
• Sponsored: Crypto doesn’t have to be complicated
• Masters of Scale Summit: Apply Now

URGENT INSIGHTS

Alex Reben’s work can probably best be described as collapsing the gap between idea and execution. The artist, who has exhibited at past Masters of Scale Summits, builds projects that use AI to turn human ideas — sketches, prompts, art — into physical objects like printed images, sculptures, and textiles. Now he's doing it at scale.

His new company, Phyzify, aims to automate everything between a creative idea and a finished product. We caught up with Alex over email.

You just wrapped a residency at Meta and launched Phyzify. What is it, and what problem are you trying to solve? 

Phyzify is an AI infrastructure company bridging that gap between human imagination and physical production. We enable people to describe an object, product, or experience, and then Phyzify handles the machinery of physically making it and bringing it into the world. It’s a true thought-to-thing pipeline.

Why launch Phyzify now?

We're at that inflection point with AI, and the window is wide open. Right now, we can still shape how these systems are built before it’s too late. The question isn't whether machines can think; it's what we choose to leave for ourselves at the apex of automation. The AI capabilities finally exist to build Phyzify in a way that actually serves creative intent. 

From “Speak Art Into Life” to the “Conceptual Camera,” a lot of your work has explored collapsing the distance between an idea and its physical form. How does Phyzify push that further — for entrepreneurs and creatives specifically?

I have spent my career studying the impact of technology on creativity. It taught me that when you collapse the distance between intent and result, people unleash their imagination because the penalty for trying disappears. Now with AI, that collapse is coming for entrepreneurship in engineering, manufacturing, logistics, and other industries. Suddenly, the scarce resource isn't the ability to execute; it's the imagination to originate.

From my own journey as an artist and technologist observing the evolution of AI, I know that creativity is undeniably human. But everything needed to bring ideas to life beyond human creativity is increasingly automatable. I set out to build a system that automates the process, and Phyzify was born from that dream. I’m inventing Phyzify from the inside as its first user.

Watch a demo of Phyzify's tool that creates textiles from live selfies with Fast Company's Kc Ifeanyi.

You’ve spent over a decade probing the edges of AI. What feels newly possible in 2026 that genuinely excites you?

I’m excited that the interfaces are finally catching up to the capability. For years, AI was locked behind text prompts and code. Now we're seeing AI that can work through gestures, voice, physical objects, even a rough sketch on a napkin. That means creative intent can flow through the channels humans actually think in. The bottleneck is shifting from "can a machine do it?" to "what can you imagine?"

Do you have concerns about how the human–machine relationship is evolving in the arts? Where do you see real risk?

Every new technology in the creative realm sparks panic — photography was going to kill painting; photoshop was going to kill photography; and now AI is going to kill everything. It never does.

The real risk isn’t the tool; it’s when people stop playing with it and let it run on autopilot. That’s how you end up with a world full of content but empty of meaning — not just in art, but across culture, products, and the things we surround ourselves with. The people who thrive will be the ones who treat AI the way painters eventually treated the camera — not as a threat, but as a new instrument that forces you to rethink what only a human can bring.

You’ve long been an evangelist for AI-driven creativity. If you could teach the world one thing about working with AI right now, what would it be?

Play with it before you optimize with it. Follow your own creative instincts. The people who make the most interesting things with AI are the ones who approach it with curiosity, playfulness, and a willingness to be surprised, not the ones trying to get the most efficient output. Efficiency gets you the beige slop, play gets you something only you would have thought to make.

Learn more about Phyzify.

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MASTERS OF SCALE SUMMIT 2026

Some of the greatest leaders of our time have shared their stories on our shows. Masters of Scale Summit — October 20–22, 2026 in San Francisco — is where those conversations come to life. Join us for three immersive days with an audience shaping the future of business.