Bio
Charlie Fink is the producer and co-host of the AIXR Podcast. He writes a weekly column for AI Insider, and teaches Cinematic AI and the History and Future of Media at Chapman University and ASU's grad school for emerging narrative. He is the producer and showrunnner of the vertical AI-animated social media series, "Linda's Last Podcast." Fink is also CEO of Cinemation.AI, an AI animation studio he co-founded with film director Rob Minkoff.
Fink's forty-year career at the intersection of storytelling and technology began at Walt Disney Feature Animation, where he famously conceived the idea for "The Lion King" and became the studio’s youngest-ever creative vice-president.
Fink's work in immersive technology began in 1992 as COO of Virtual World Entertainment, a groundbreaking location-based VR company founded by Tim Disney. In 1995, he was recruited by AOL to serve as Senior Vice President and Chief Creative Officer of AOL Studios. After selling his subsequent venture-backed startup, eAgents, to American Greetings Interactive, Fink served as their President and Chief Creative Officer (2000–2004), acquiring its two biggest competitors, Blue Mountain and eGreetings, and transitioned the company from free to freemium.
Fink is the author of the critically acclaimed AR-enabled books "Charlie Fink’s Metaverse" (2017) and "Convergence: How the World Will Be Painted With Data" (2019). From 2016 - 2026 he covered AI, XR and The Metaverse for Forbes.
Fink spent a decade as Producer and Chairman of the New York Musical Festival, which nurtured Broadway hits "Title of Show," "Next to Normal," and "Guttenberg! The Musical"Fink’s career as a tech writer began in 2016, where his blog post about VR and AR attracted the attention of a Forbes editor. Since then, he has written over 1,000 stories, moderated dozens of panels, delivered keynotes and book talks all over the world.
