Ari Emanuel, TKO Group executive chair and CEO and executive chairman of WME Group, was in London on Saturday to discuss his memoir, entitled Roll the Calls, published by Penguin Random House. And to no one’s surprise, he didn’t hold back, including on issues like AI, politics in the age of Donald Trump — and his brother Rahm’s potential White House run.
In a conversation with Tina Brown, former editor-in-chief of Vanity Fair and The New Yorker, he also touched on such details as his early days in the CAA mailroom all the way to the super-agent and Hollywood power broker he is today. The title of the event: “An Evening With the Dealmaker Who Reshaped Hollywood.”
Emanuel, who has represented the likes of Larry David, Quentin Tarantino, Denzel Washington, Billie Eilish, Martin Scorsese and Oprah Winfrey, famously also served as the inspiration for Ari Gold, portrayed by Jeremy Piven, in the TV drama Entourage. Asked about his work as the agent to big names, he said: “What I say to people is: ‘You pay me 10 percent for my opinion. You’ll listen to my opinion. You don’t want to follow it, don’t follow it! Now I have gotten fired for giving my 10 percent. I’m OK with that. I’ve re-signed the people that have fired me, a couple of them, but you’re paying me for my opinion.”
Emanuel connected that to the rise of AI. “In this day of AI, that’s more important than anything — your opinion, your taste,” he offered. “AI doesn’t have taste, and taste only comes with time and knowledge of situations.”
Curiosity and ideas matter more than ever in the age of AI, he argued. “AI is just an average, a very good average,” Emanuel said. “There is something so important that people are missing here. It is not the answer. Curiosity is important, judgment is important, taste is very important. It has no taste. As much as there are scary things about AI, those are qualities that you own that are only human.”
Will AI enhance creativity? “Yeah, it will,” the agent offered. “It will add [for] a great creative mind, such as Marty Scorsese. They will be able to implement taste and creativity. My wife’s a fashion designer. She works with AI, but she’s the one who has the taste, and she’s giving it the ideas.”
Brown asked if he was concerned about AI’s “absence of morality.” His take: “It’s something that has to come into it. I’m not sure how,” or how that will be possible without stifling technological opportunities.
Which of his many deals of the past gave him the biggest headache? “The hardest deal was probably the UFC deal,” Emanuel told the London crowd. “I had been representing UFC for 25 years. It was on Fox. …. We thought Fox was going to buy it – easy.” Another option, Warner, was downsizing at the time. “So those two were out, and then it was us against the Chinese because they had a lot of money coming into the entertainment space,” the super-agent recalled. “But [UFC boss] Dana [White] didn’t want to go to them, and then all of a sudden something horrible happened. I blame all of you from Britain because you guys didn’t elect the right person at the time. Brexit happened, and the banking system fell apart, and so we had to buy the business [when] the banking system kind of went haywire.”
In short, “it was just one headache after another, but we got it done,” he concluded.
Emanuel also described UFC and other sports and live experiences as events that can bring a politically divided world together. “I’d rather talk to the other side,” as a Democrat, he said. “Sports is a common ground.”
Continuing the talk about politics, Brown asked if MAGA wasn’t “the biggest cult going.” Emanuel replied: “I don’t want to be in MAGA. And I don’t want to be in the DSA [Democratic Socialists of America]. When the moderator suggested that UFC may have become the biggest sport associated with the Trump era, asking if it could last beyond it, Emanuel offered: “Yeah, I think it’s going to outlast me.”
The agent didn’t let Brown drag him into speculating about Trump’s political future and future directions. “I talked to him about four weeks ago,” he said. “This Ukraine [policy] thing is upsetting.” And he added: “I think after Congress is back, I’m going to call him because I got some stuff I have to talk to him about. I plan on having a conversation.”
Asked about his hopes for the Democrats in the midterm elections, Emanuel said: “Let’s hopefully get the Senate and the House.”
He also expressed support for his brother, Rahm Emanuel, as the centrist Democratic candidate in the next presidential election. He said: “All kidding aside, I don’t think there’s a better candidate in the world who could be president and cares more about the world, the United States, helping kids and will fight the fight.”