Generative AI is transforming the way people work, think, and create, and few have helped the public understand it quite like Rourke Sefton-Minns. As one of the first creators to translate complex AI tools into practical lessons for global audiences, the GenHQ founder has become a defining voice in a movement reshaping creative industries.

“I just tried to become a leader in the space and a voice people could trust,” he says. “Starting on January 1st, 2024, I posted every day for 420 days, teaching people how to use Photoshop and AI tools. Around day 150, I pivoted fully to AI, and that changed everything.”

From his London studio, Rourke now leads a small team that produces nearly 100 short-form videos a month. His clear, visual explanations of tools like Runway, Midjourney, and ElevenLabs have reached millions across Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube, helping both beginners and professionals keep pace with an industry evolving at breakneck speed. “AI education can’t stand still,” he says. “If a course was filmed three months ago, it’s already outdated.”

Building GenHQ and a New Standard for Creative Education

In April 2025, Rourke launched GenHQ, a creative AI education platform built to fill that gap. The subscription-based community now counts more than 600 members and generates about $56,000 in monthly recurring revenue.

“GenHQ is for anyone who wants to learn creative AI and turn it into a career,” he explains. “We’ve got creative directors from Apple, people from Netflix, and even lawyers who’ve never done anything creative before. We hold your hand through the process of producing professional work using AI.”

The platform’s curriculum is dynamic, combining step-by-step tutorials with live interviews, competitions, and insider insights from top industry professionals. “We pay creatives $1,000 an hour to teach,” Rourke says. “These are people charging $100,000 for an AI advert, and they share how they actually do it.”

GenHQ also serves as a growing network for companies adopting creative AI workflows. “Instead of flying me out to teach in person, businesses now buy twenty seats so their teams can learn on demand,” he adds. “We want to standardize creative AI education across industries.”

A Visual Communicator for the AI Era

Rourke’s approach to education blends technical insight with high-impact visuals. “If you can show people how things are done, they’ll understand it a lot quicker than if you tell them,” he says. Every video follows a meticulous structure: six hours spent crafting the first 15 seconds of visuals, followed by screen recordings and narration perfectly matched to the pace and rhythm.

“We create 97 pieces of bespoke content a month,” he says. “Everything is timed out to a science.” That consistency has fueled exponential growth, with branded AI content bringing in as much as $350,000 a month.

But even as he scales, Rourke remains selective. “We say no to 90 or 95 percent of brands,” he says. “I’ve turned down $40,000 contracts because they didn’t provide value. I’d rather talk about a company for free if it’s genuinely moving the industry forward.”

Educating Through Connection

The bridge between Rourke’s audience and GenHQ is his social media presence. His videos often end with a now-signature phrase—“Comment AI and I’ll send you the link”—which triggers an automated flow built with ManyChat. “If they follow, they get the link to the product I’m teaching,” he explains. “That helped us grow up to 15,000 followers a day at one point.”

Across platforms, the mission stays the same: simplify complex technology for everyone. “I use short-form as my testing ground,” he says. “If a topic like world-building performs well, I know where to focus next.”

Rourke’s observations of audience behavior are pragmatic. “TikTok is inherently an angry platform,” he notes. “Instagram feels more welcoming; it shows content to people who are actually interested. YouTube is the opposite of both; it’s where people come to learn.”

The Unlikely Path to an AI Educator

Long before GenHQ, Rourke’s curiosity about digital interaction took a stranger form. Years ago, he went viral for live-streaming himself sleeping. “I paid a programmer to make my room interactive so viewers could change my lights, wake me up, even order things to my house,” he says with a laugh. “Every Saturday, I’d stream for eight to twelve hours. It became this weird reality show.”

He gained nearly a million followers through the experiment but found the lifestyle unsustainable. “It was completely unhinged,” he says. “I really wanted to make it on social media, but I didn’t know how to do it in a healthy way.”

After walking away, he moved to the French Alps to film skiing vlogs, then worked briefly as a real estate agent before rediscovering content through Photoshop tutorials. When Adobe began integrating AI, the audience’s emotional response reignited his passion. “People were either excited or terrified,” he recalls. “That’s when I realized: this is where creativity is headed.”

Facing the AI Wave

Now, Rourke is focused on preparing creators for what he believes will be the most dramatic shift in modern media. “We’re about to see the advertising and film industries turned on their head,” he says. “Advertising is a trillion-dollar market, film is $500 billion, and both are going to crash within a year.”

As AI tools make it possible to produce polished ads and short films in hours, he predicts a shake-up in creative employment. “We’ll be able to create 30-second adverts that used to cost $100,000, made by someone earning $15 an hour,” he says. “Only about 5,000 creatives are truly taking advantage of this right now. Everyone else is standing still while the tidal wave approaches.”

Still, he views education as the path forward. “Jobs are being lost, and I’m not shying away from that,” he says. “My responsibility is to help make new ones.”

World-Building and What Comes Next

Looking ahead, Rourke’s focus is on adaptability. “Creative AI education, as it exists now, will become obsolete in eight months if I don’t evolve,” he says. “It’s my responsibility to know what’s next.”

His next frontier? Immersive world-building. “We’ll soon be able to upload an image and explore it as a full world,” he predicts. “Those worlds will still need adverts, design, and storytelling. My job is to prepare creatives for that future.”

From viral livestreams to leading an AI education platform, Rourke’s story captures the speed at which creativity and technology are merging. “Generative AI is rewriting the rules of creation,” he says. “I just want to have the biggest impact humanly possible on educating people in this space. That’s all I’m trying to do.”

Checkout Our Latest Podcast