1 Billion Followers Summit 2026: Top Highlights from the Summit
- Olivia Tremblay
- 2 days ago
- 7 min read
Have you ever imagined the content creators you watch behind screens all gathering in one place; not just for photos, but to change the world? That’s exactly what happened in Dubai at the start of this year.
The 1 Billion Followers Summit (1BFS) concluded its 2026 edition, strengthening its position as the largest global gathering of content creators. If you missed the live coverage, don’t worry; this article brings you everything that happened, from million-dollar awards to major humanitarian initiatives.
What you’ll find in this article:
Quick overview: The summit in numbers
AI Film Award
The Educator Award
MrBeast Initiative
Top speakers and celebrities
Companies and institutions presence
2025 vs 2026: What changed?
Success partners of the summit
Quick Overview: The Summit in Numbers
Date: January 9–11, 2026
Location: “Dubai Future District” (Emirates Towers & Museum of the Future)
Theme: “Content for Good”
Attendance: More than 15,000 content creators and 500 global speakers
Total audience reach: The speakers alone have a combined audience of over 3.5 billion followers
Top Winners: 1 Billion Followers Summit Awards 2026
This year, the summit introduced a major shift in its awards, focusing on blending technology with human values.
1) AI Film Award
The biggest moment was announcing the winner of the $1,000,000 prize, which went to Tunisian creator Zoubeir Jlassi for his short film “Lily.”
About the film: A 9-minute psychological drama about a lonely archivist haunted by a doll, exploring guilt and the search for redemption.
Technology: The film was produced using Google Gemini and video generation models, with more than 70% of it made using AI tools, proving AI can be a powerful storytelling medium.
Why it won: Because it delivered a deeply human story about remorse after a car accident, showing that AI can move you emotionally, not only impress visually.
Watch the winner announcement moment for the AI Film Award presented by the 1 Billion Followers Summit 2026.
2) The Educator Award
For the first time, the summit introduced a major $100,000 award to support truly “useful” educational content.
Winner: Abdullah A'anan, founder of Science Street
Achievement: He turned physics and chemistry from “boring school subjects” into engaging experiments followed by millions on TikTok and YouTube, outperforming global competitors like Matt Green.
His journey was a real example of how content is changing: From the board to the phone. From memorization to curiosity. From boredom to millions of views.
This award was a clear message: useful content can be engaging, and profitable.
3) “One Billion Good Deeds” Initiative: MrBeast in Dubai
MrBeast’s presence wasn’t just a hype moment.
He didn’t come to talk about views.
He came to launch one of the biggest humanitarian initiatives in content history:
“One Billion Good Deeds.”
The initiative aims to send selected creators to Ghana to help build a fully sustainable village:
schools, clean water, solar energy; real lives, beyond the screen.
Selecting 10 creators wasn’t based on follower count alone, but on their readiness to turn influence into action.
This is where the summit became more than an event, it became a message:
Content isn’t measured only by views, but by the lives it touches.
The initiative: Selecting a group of creators to travel to Ghana and help build a fully sustainable village (schools, solar energy, clean water).
Selected heroes: Out of thousands of applicants, 10 impactful creators were chosen to document the journey and contribute, including:
Waleed Al-Masrati (Libya)
Majd Al-Zaakout (Syria)
Osama Mahrez (Algeria)
This initiative moved the summit’s message from “creating content” to creating impact.
Click here to read more about the initiative and the winners.
Top Speakers and Celebrities at 1 Billion Followers Summit 2026
The summit brought big names: Will Smith, Simon Squibb, Max Amini, Ahmed Abu Zaid, and more.
But what made this year different was the tone of the conversations.
They weren’t celebratory.
They were honest.
Sometimes uncomfortable.
They discussed:
Creator mental burnout
The constant pressure of numbers
The complicated relationship with algorithms
The difference between “going viral” and having a real message
One of the most repeated questions was:
Are we creating content because we have a voice?Or because the platform rewarded us for it?
Watch the engaging talk with Mohamed Alabbar, the prominent Emirati businessman and founder of Emaar Properties.
Watch the conversation with Lara Trump as she shared her experience with content and visibility following Donald Trump’s win in the 2024 U.S. election.
And here are some of the key conversations with celebrities, influencers, and social media platform experts during the summit:
And many of the most influential voices
Some the these voices:
Watch this video featuring Mindvalley Social Media Summit 2026
The Business of Content: Where Does the Money Go?
The summit didn’t ignore the economic side. It dedicated an entire track to the Creator Economy.
The 50M Fund: The “1 Billion Pitches” initiative continued supporting startups, with a special focus this year on the Creators Ventures Accelerator, offering investment opportunities worth AED 50 million.
Success story: The summit hosted Halo AI (winner of the 2025 edition) to showcase how it doubled its value and expanded globally within one year thanks to the summit’s support, becoming an inspiring model for new startups.
Companies Participating in the 1 Billion Followers Summit 2026
The 2026 edition saw unprecedented participation from companies and institutions, not just as sponsors, but as real partners in dialogue.
Platforms like YouTube, TikTok, Meta, Google Gemini, Snapchat, and global brands didn’t come to sell.
They came to listen.
How does a creator think?
How do they see AI?
Where do they want to stand ethically in the years ahead?
This interaction confirmed that the Creator Economy is no longer marginal. It’s a complete industry with political, social, and economic weight.
When Corporate Presence Changes… The Whole Experience Changes
One of the biggest shifts at the 1 Billion Followers Summit 2026 wasn’t on stage, it was behind the scenes.
For the first time, companies were not treated as “silent attendees,” but as a living part of the experience.
A full space was dedicated to Corporate Booths, designed for real networking, conversation, and partnerships, not just logos and brochures.
The difference was clear.
Creators didn’t just pass by.
And companies didn’t wait to be discovered by chance.
An Experience Designed for Connection, Not Display
What stood out this year was that corporate presence wasn’t random. Every participating company was:
Officially listed on the summit app
Easy to discover, contact, and book meetings with directly through the platform
Some companies even had a dedicated booth to introduce their services
In other words, companies were no longer “behind the scenes.” They became part of the creator’s journey inside the summit.
This created a new kind of relationship:
Not the traditional Influencer x Brand model,
But Creator x Infrastructure x Ecosystem.
The diversity of participating companies reflected the maturity of the creator economy. We’re no longer talking only about publishing platforms, but a full ecosystem supporting creators at every stage:
Growth and distribution tools
Payment and financing solutions
AI and production
Education, travel, accommodation, and even legal business relocation
Among the companies and institutions with a strong presence:
And the list goes on.
Watch an interview with Salem Khammas commenting on the summit.
2025 vs 2026: What Changed?
In 2025, the question was: How do I succeed?
In 2026, the question became: Why do I succeed?
The shift was clear:
From fast growth to sustainability
From virality to meaning
From the individual to the community
The summit is no longer only about “one billion followers,”
but about one billion opportunities to create real impact.
In the end…
The 1 Billion Followers Summit 2026 wasn’t just an event.
It was a statement.
A statement that the future doesn’t belong to the loudest voice, but to the clearest message.
And that the next generation of creators won’t be measured only by what they publish, but by what they leave behind.
Success Partners of the 1 Billion Followers Summit 2026
This institutional momentum wasn’t temporary.
The 1 Billion Followers Summit 2026 welcomed a wide spectrum of companies and global brands, from tech and media platforms to major brands and educational and tourism institutions. This confirmed that the summit is no longer an event built only for creators, but a real meeting point between influence and decision-making.
This strong presence opened a new phase for the summit. The question is no longer “Who attends?” but “How do we ensure high-quality and truly impactful corporate participation?”, and that’s exactly where the role of the institutions mentioned above began, including EXEED Digitals.
EXEED Digitals’ Role in Strengthening Corporate Participation
One of the most important shifts in the 2026 edition was the unprecedented growth of corporate attendance, and it didn’t happen by accident.
EXEED Digitals was directly responsible for inviting and activating the participation of companies and institutions through LinkedIn, in a step aimed at restoring balance between creators and the corporate sector inside the summit.
The result?
More than 500 companies and institutions attended the summit through invitations and outreach built entirely on LinkedIn.
This number wasn’t just an organizational achievement, it was a clear message:
LinkedIn is no longer a “supporting” platform for major events, It has become a primary channel to attract decision-makers, executive teams, and serious companies.
What happened at the summit was practical proof of the platform’s power when used strategically:
Companies were not invited through broad advertising campaigns
But through direct professional outreach
Built on context, value, and a clear purpose for attending
In return, the summit proved its ability to attract this kind of institutional audience, not only as sponsors, but as active players in dialogue, partnerships, and building the creator economy ecosystem.
This combination: LinkedIn as a platform + the summit as a global event, revealed an important truth:
When content, influence, and decision-making come together in one place, the event stops being just a summit…and becomes a turning point for the entire industry.
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