Who Let the AI Out?

Who Let the AI Out? follows Frank and Ella, two fictional puppies in SOHO lanyards, on a night out through an AI-imagined Soho. Frank wears the hat. Ella wears the feathers. Between them they sing an invitation to hear real musicians, and the route they take is no accident: almost every door they pass is a room playing the festival this week.

They start where the neighbourhood’s music starts. At Alfie’s on Greek Street a dog band is already mid-set, piano, double bass, saxophone and drums, under the club’s own neon. Outside Cafe Boheme a street crew is carrying a painting through the evening traffic. Then the pair ride on in the baskets of a pair of Forest bikes, past the Toucan on Carlisle Street.

“AI made the ad. Humans play the gigs.”

Who Let the AI Out? · Soho Jazz Festival 2026

For an independent festival, getting heard matters. An independent festival has to shout to be heard, and the film turns the argument about AI into an invitation to support the people at the start of a musical career. The attention it attracts has a practical purpose: bring audiences into the rooms where artists learn, collaborate and build a following, and turn an audience into another opportunity for an emerging artist.

So the night keeps moving through the festival map. Frank tips his hat outside Ronnie Scott’s on Frith Street. The pair stop at the window of the Yamaha flagship, the instruments behind every Soho Live Studios stage, and finish trotting along Great Marlborough Street past Sucre, where the festival runs two of its rooms. The film is one story within the festival’s wider campaign, and its destination is the programme running from 16 to 19 September: independent artists, small stages, new discoveries and a neighbourhood full of live music.

That spirit belongs to Soho’s history of studios, clubs and after-hours encounters. Today’s organisers, musicians George Hudson and Nathan Britton, founded Soho Live Studios in 2014. Their work starts before an artist can fill a big venue: a place to play, collaborators to learn from and an audience willing to take a chance. In its 40th year, Soho Jazz Festival brings over 100 independent artists and more than 30 shows to Soho. The invitation is to discover someone new: follow a sound into a basement, watch musicians exchange ideas and hear a collaboration take shape in front of you.

Frank and Ella supply the hook; the musicians supply the reason to go. Every frame of the film is AI-generated, and every show it points to is played by people. Tomorrow’s headliners need stages and listeners today.