Where human imagination meets AI: The One Club’s Tay Guan Hin inspires CMS 2025 opening in Seoul
The Content Marketing Summit (CMS) 2025, celebrating its 10th anniversary, kicked off in style at the Seoul Dragon City. Over 1,000 global marketers, creators, and agency leaders attended for two full days of innovation, culture, and bold ideas.
John Park (pictured below left), the founder and organizer of the most prominent and influential Knowledge Conferences in Korea, set an inspiring tone for the anniversary edition: “As CMS marks its 10th anniversary, content marketing continues to evolve with AI and shifting consumer trends. CMS is where we pause, reset, and gain fresh perspectives. Our speakers inspire us with diverse insights and experiences.”
Tay Guan Hin (pictured below right), APAC Regional Director at The One Club for Creativity and best-selling Penguin author of Collide, opened the summit with a keynote centered on the electrifying collision of human creativity and artificial intelligence.
“Today, I want to talk about something powerful: where creativity and AI collide. This isn’t just a trend; it’s a transformation. A collision between the emotional and the artificial.”
He shared a personal creative struggle that led him to embrace conflict and uncertainty: “This collision taught me one important lesson: to stay true to my creative passion despite the pressure. It taught me something powerful that creativity is born when we dare to enter the unknown.”
Guan Hin reframed AI not as a tool but a partnership: “When we collide human imagination with AI, something amazing happens. Our ideas don’t just grow… They get amplified. I call this Amplified Imagination.
“AI is the amplifier. Imagination is the song. AI doesn’t create for you — it only amplifies what’s inside you. You can’t amplify imagination if there’s nothing to amplify.”
To bring these ideas to life, Tay shared examples from award-winning One Show 2025 and recent One Asia Award case studies, illustrating how real-world creative collisions, amplified by AI, are reshaping storytelling, branding, and cultural impact.
He summed up his keynote with three clear principles:
• Collide to Create – Innovation starts in the mess. Don’t avoid tension, embrace it.
• Collide with Purpose – AI can make anything, but only we can give it meaning.
• Collide Beyond Comfort – Step past the safe zone; courage sparks the future.
“The future isn’t man or machine, but man colliding with machines to create ideas worth amplifying. It belongs to those who dare to collide.”
CMS 2025 Highlights: Innovation, Performances, and Breakout Sessions
Exclusive Author Signing: Directly after his keynote, Tay held a book signing for Collide during the morning break—limited to the first 30 attendees. The books sold out within minutes, forming a lively queue of excited readers.
• Unforgettable Performance by Lisa – “The Queen of Musicals”
Korea’s iconic musical theatre star Lisa captivated the audience with powerful vocals, magnetic storytelling, and emotionally charged charisma—earning a standing ovation.
Other Key Sessions at a Glance
• Laurent Thevenet (Publicis Groupe): Automated Imagination: How AI Agents are Shaping Intelligent Creativity – exploring AI agents in idea generation and creative workflows.
• Claudia Cristovao (Google / pictured below on stage): Future Creatives & How They Will Build Brands – redefining creative roles, tools, and brand-consumer meaning-making in a fast-evolving landscape.
• Everett Katigbak (Anthropic): In the Age of AI – Analog Intelligence – blending deeply human storytelling and “analog intelligence” to humanize tech brands.
Looking Ahead: CMS Expands to Vietnam.
The next Content Marketing Summit will be held for the first time in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, on January 20–21, 2026. Taking place in Vietnam’s vibrant economic and cultural hub, CMS Ho Chi Minh will offer a fresh lens into one of Asia’s fastest-growing markets. If you’re interested in Vietnam’s economy, marketing trends, and key insights, don’t miss this opportunity to participate in CMS’s groundbreaking new chapter.
