Welcome back to MITO Universe.
The tools evolve, but the focus remains constant: vision over volume.
We curate the exceptions—approaches to AI not as a shortcut, but as a creative partner. Thoughtful dialogues between human intention and machine capability. The common thread? A mastery that makes the collaboration feel seamless, never forced.
This is work that demonstrates AI's true value: expanding creative possibilities, not replacing them. Dig in.
SELECTED CREATORS
Jillian Hobbs / @creative.principle
London-based creative director Jillian Hobbs brings a rare fusion of visual poetry and technical precision to her AI-generated work. With a background spanning product design, front-end development, and art direction, her pieces evoke the formal discipline and painterly sensibility of classical painting while channeling the seductive logic of branding and visual storytelling.
Her fictional campaigns and staged product scenes—anchored in anachronistic elegance—blend temporal dissonance with visual harmony through an exacting sensitivity to color, texture, and light, revealing a deep awareness of both commercial iconography and aesthetic heritage.
Whether rendering a synthetic rose in baroque chiaroscuro or staging visually dissonant compositions with uncanny tactility, her work invites reflection on desire, illusion, and the visual codes that shape them.
Now, with over 15 years of experience working with leading brands, she brings that expertise into the realm of AI image-making. As the founder of Gala Studio, she continues to expand the possibilities of synthetic photography—not as escape, but as reinterpretation.
Niko Mitrunen / @nikomitrunen
Helsinki-born, London-based artist Niko Mitrunen brings two decades of experience in fashion photography and art direction to his AI-driven practice—an evolution shaped as much by digital innovation as by personal memory.
His work unfolds along two parallel paths. One merges photographed fashion products with AI-generated scenes and models, meticulously refined in post-production to match lighting, texture, and composition; the other is fully AI-generated, then manually reworked and upscaled to achieve its final form.
In his interview for @drepubblicait, Mitrunen reflected: “AI has helped me distill what I love about imagery. It accelerates the refinement of taste, revealing what truly resonates with you.”
Despite the synthetic medium, his sensibility remains rooted in Nordic aesthetics. His images carry the quiet melancholy of Finnish landscapes—a minimalism of line and emotion honed through years of analog set design. Cinematic depth saturates his color palettes, while recurring themes of illusion, dream states, and the uncanny stillness invite viewers to linger. The result transcends technical polish, offering instead a deliberate ambiguity: a challenge to discern where the image ends and the suggestion begins.
WHAT’S NEW
Veo 3 Adds Start Frame for Custom Videos
On July 10, 2025, KREA AI announced that Veo 3 now supports user-defined start frames for AI-generated videos via Krea Video. This update gives creators precise control over video composition by allowing any image to serve as the first frame, making the tool ideal for marketing, education, and branded storytelling. Beyond creative freedom, it enables businesses—especially small and medium-sized ones—to produce personalized visuals without high production costs. With the AI video generation market projected to hit $1.2 billion by 2027, this feature positions KREA competitively alongside platforms like Runway and Synthesia.
Warmwind OS Automates Workflows with AI
German startup Jena has unveiled Warmwind, a cloud-native AI operating system currently in beta with over 12,000 on the waitlist. Designed for enterprise use, it automates repetitive digital tasks by mimicking human interaction in a secure virtual environment. Rather than relying on APIs, Warmwind learns by observing user behavior—clicking, typing, and navigating interfaces to execute workflows like report generation or customer support. Built on a custom Linux distribution and hosted on GDPR-compliant servers, it promises efficiency, privacy, and adaptability for companies aiming to streamline digital operations.
LumaLabsAI Debuts Modify Video Tool
On July 2, 2025, LumaLabsAI launched Modify Video, a video-to-video AI model accessible via the Video Restyle tool. It allows users to apply visual styles to videos while preserving natural motion—solving a major challenge in AI video editing. Ideal for content creators, marketers, and educators, the tool accelerates stylized video production without sacrificing realism. With video content dominating digital platforms, Modify Video offers professional-grade results and scalability. The launch also aligns with broader industry trends toward real-time creative tools and AI democratization across sectors.
KEY VISUAL
@marcelloisme, an award-winning filmmaker and art director with over a decade of experience in film and advertising, continues to refine the possibilities of AI-driven storytelling. His latest short, PULSE, is a contemplative botanical narrative—entirely generated with Kling AI and Midjourney—set in a sterile studio where life slowly takes hold.
In PULSE, no human figures appear. Instead, the protagonists are the plants themselves: growing, multiplying, and transforming the space with quiet intensity. The piece demonstrates precision with image-making and narrative structures that rely on environment, movement, and atmosphere. Marcello’s work expands our understanding of cinematic form in the AI era.
That’s all for now — we’ll be back in your inbox next Monday.