FLUX, Open Research, and the Future of Visual AI — Stephen Batifol, Black Forest Labs

FLUX started as an image model story, but this talk makes the larger ambition clear: visual intelligence, not just image generation. From FLUX.1 through Kontext, FLUX.2, and FLUX.2 Klein, Black Forest Labs has been pushing fast, open releases while building toward models that understand images, video, audio, actions, and eventually the physical world itself. Along the way, Stephen Batifol walks through the research behind that direction, including BFL's work on self-supervised multimodal training, real-time generation and editing, and the path from generative media toward world models and robotics. Speaker info: - https://x.com/stephenbtl - https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephen-batifol/