Amid the tech titans, founders, policymakers and an endless array of AI-powered start-ups at Web Summit Vancouver, Bobby Berk made a case for why reality television will become more culturally valuable in an era shaped by social media and AI.

“The thing that reality television has that no other genre does is time,” he said. “Those moments that you get when that mask starts to come off, those are the real moments of truth that make for amazing television.”

Queer Eye alum Berk has Junk or Jackpot? on HGTV, which follows collectors as they discover the value of unusual collections. He said there will be a premium on human content when screens are flooded with AI-generated fare.

“AI content is actually going to make verifiably human content more important,” he said. “Our feeds are filled with synthetic faces, voices, stories so that it’s with real content that you know it’s an actor who actually showed up for the press tour, or it’s a live sporting event, it’s reality television. That content is going to become more valuable. You’re going to have all this AI content that’s everywhere. And on the high end of the spectrum, you’re going to have real verifiable human content.”

Berk said he uses AI to work up and test ideas for new shows. “It’s one thing to allow AI to be the scaffolding that helps you build the product by figuring out what will work, what was already out there in the industry, and for pressure testing. I’ll use it as a thought partner,” he said.

“What I put on television, it might have helped me structure that. I left school at fifteen, so often I will second-guess myself on how I can really structure something. AI helps me do that.”