Two distinct issues programmable IP was built to fix: 1) The internet has already been scraped by LLMs, but IP-safe, specialized data remains scarce 2) Legacy IP systems can’t keep up with remix culture or endless content, forcing the $70T IP economy to stay illiquid Game on.

Every viral moment or surge of UGC is an opportunity for a remixable legacy. @Ablo_official set a high bar by tapping @Crocs Jibbitz™ as a customizable canvas for registered IP. Fans create → brands integrate. When licensing is easy, quick, and free, everybody wins.

We asked the @SPChinchali about the role of IP in the age of AI. "Essentially all public data sets have a non-commercial license. "Sometimes generative AI models that create imagery could have been trained on IP unsafe data and they cannot even use synthetic data." "What @StoryProtocol is really focusing on is the next generation of foundation models." "You can't just scrape that data on the internet."

<The Next Chapter Begins: Welcoming Sandeep Chinchali as Chief AI Officer> Last week, we shared Story’s Chapter 2. Our vision is to build the AI-native infrastructure for the seventy trillion dollar IP economy. Today, that vision moves forward. I’m excited to welcome @SPChinchali as our Chief AI Officer. When I first saw Sandeep’s background (Stanford PhD, NASA JPL, UT Austin professor, early engineer at a startup acquired by VMware), I expected an interdeeply technical, academic profile. What stood out was how clearly he connected his expertise to what actually needs to be built. He has spent over a decade working on one of AI’s hardest problems: how to capture and structure the right real-world data to train intelligent systems. He has collected and labeled long-tail data, trained models on edge devices, and faced the same limitations AI labs now encounter. His belief in crypto came from firsthand experience. He saw it as the only viable foundation for incentives, provenance, and coordination at scale. Over time, that conviction became sharper. After years of working on these problems in robotics labs, in classrooms, and at startups, Sandeep came to a clear conclusion: solving them requires something purpose built. When he saw what we had built at Story, it clicked instantly. This was the missing piece. And he brings people with him. One of the things I noticed early on in our conversations is how often he talks about his students. Not just in passing, but with real pride and curiosity. He references what they’re building, what excites them, what questions they’re asking. And somehow, those stories always loop back to what we’re working on at Story. That habit of weaving ideas across people and disciplines isn’t performative. It’s just how he thinks. That curiosity and openness are part of what make him such a powerful communicator. He doesn’t reduce complexity for the sake of accessibility. He builds bridges. Whether he’s talking to researchers, builders, or partners, he meets people where they are and brings them forward. It’s exactly the kind of mindset that fits the moment. The direction of AI is increasingly clear. The competition is no longer about compute or model design. Compute is concentrated. Models are cloned within weeks. What remains scarce is data: especially IP-cleared, real-world data that cannot be scraped or simulated. In the past few months, leading AI teams have come to us looking for infrastructure that makes this kind of data usable. They want systems where provenance, permissions, and royalty flows are embedded from the start. Story is the only infrastructure specifically designed to enable this at scale. We register real-world data as IP, track its full lifecycle from capture to annotation to synthetic generation, and route royalties across all contributors. To lead this effort, we needed more than technical expertise. We needed someone who could match the scale and ambition of what we’re building: someone with the rare combination of deep systems thinking, hands-on experience, and genuine curiosity. That is Sandeep. He has built across robotics, machine learning, and decentralized infrastructure. Just as importantly, he brings openness and intellectual generosity that makes him a connector. He listens closely, draws insights across domains, and grounds everything in the bigger picture. That combination of rigor, clarity, and purpose is exactly what this moment calls for. Sandeep will lead Story’s AI strategy across research, product, and ecosystem development, including the launch of new primitives for decentralized data and training. This is an important step forward for Story. We believe data IP will define the next era of AI. With Sandeep on board, that future is within reach. Let’s build. More to come next week.

AI’s next frontier is not compute or larger models, it’s better data. Today, we’re bringing on one of the few people who actually spent his life solving that problem. Welcome @SPChinchali, our new Chief AI Officer. The frontier of AI is no longer defined by models with more parameters, or compute clusters with more GPUs. It will be defined by the scarcity of high-integrity, IP-cleared data from the physical world (think robotics, autonomous hardware, and edge devices). Sandeep has spent his career chasing this frontier. Now he’s helping us unlock it. When I first met Sandeep, I was struck by his soft spoken, endearing attitude. He has a way of speaking that draws you in, regardless of whether he’s explaining neurosymbolic AI, or praising the alien looking ergonomic keyboard he carries wherever he goes. His background speaks for itself: Stanford PhD, NASA JPL. Now professor at UT Austin, leading research at the intersection of decentralized ML and robotics Sandeep has been obsessed with how to get useful data for AI training to make it useful in the real world: > creating data incentives for distributed networks, > tackling the quintessential long-tail sampling problem in edge robotics, and > designing systems that preserve provenance. Sandeep also confirmed a thesis I’ve been obsessed with for years: the real moat is data. Not scraped Reddit forums or generic web text, but attributable, rights cleared, real world data. The messy, unpredictable data required to make physical systems robust cannot be simulated. It’s sourcing and curating the messy, long‑tail data that physical systems see in the wild: the slippery loading‑dock robot at 2am, the faint micro‑crack on a wind‑turbine blade, the corner case a lidar unit has never seen before. Those moments are IP, and they’re precious. If we can make that IP programmable, licensable, traceable, and monetizable in real time, we unlock a flywheel for every AI team on the planet. Programmable IP is the only backbone that makes this possible. Most crypto x AI attempts bolt “AI” onto existing infra. Sandeep’s joining because Story is built from the ground up to solve these types of data coordination challenges Story is built for dynamic, composable relationships. Our protocol is designed for the graph based provenance, dynamic licensing, and automated royalty flows that modern AI systems demand. A photo can be licensed, a label can be added, a synthetic variation can be generated, and on Story, each action becomes a new, linked IP asset in a transparent graph, with value flowing back to every contributor. Sandeep’s arrival is a turning point. Chapter 2 of Story is coming into focus, and the next phase of AI infrastructure is just getting started. His combo of deep intellect, genuine curiosity, and quiet dedication is exactly what this moment calls for. We couldn’t be more excited to build the future of AI with him, and there’s a whole lot more coming. Stay tuned!

Introducing Story's new Chief AI Officer, @SPChinchali. Sandeep is a professor at UT Austin focusing on GenAI, robotics, and distributed systems. He’s an ex-NASA researcher, early engineer of a startup acquired by VMware, and holds a Stanford PhD in AI and distributed systems. As Chief AI Officer, Sandeep will lead Story's AI strategy, driving key incubations and advising the broader ecosystem on how to capture the immense AI opportunity ahead. Sandeep’s work has long focused on how robots, sensors and ML models can learn from the messy physical world. Now he's bringing his expertise to web3 and Story. That's because AI’s next leap isn’t about more GPUs. It’s about unlocking the most valuable (and underserved) category of IP: real-world data. Sandeep's appointment is an important step towards achieving Story's Chapter 2 vision. Next week, this vision will come to life in a big way. Stay tuned.

Imagine earning from IP you love: stories, songs, and viral moments that shape culture. Chapter 2 brings the world’s IP onchain, unlocking huge, untapped markets - from music and fashion to sports, DeSci, and entertainment. @Aria_Protocol proves it's possible. Now we scale.

$70T+ opportunity unlocked. It's only the beginning.

The Story community is full of energy, passion, and talent. Our OG Program celebrates those who show up, support others, and bring the community to life. As we launch the Ambassador Program, we turn to OGs who have shown the skill and drive to lead. These are the newest OGs ↴

11 crypto x AI use cases. From decentralized physical infrastructure to IP registries for creators. ⤵️