An honest answer, in the order it actually happens. Nothing here is a secret, and none of it is about knowing the right people — this award has no right people.
You may enter as many works as you like, but one work enters one field. Entering ten weak works does not beat entering one you would argue for in front of a room. A voter has one vote per field: your works compete with each other if you flood a field.
We judge what a URL shows without a login. Not a login wall, not a paywall, not region-locked, not "DM me for access". This is the single most common reason a good work cannot be judged at all. For a theatrical work, a teaser site is enough — trailer, stills and credits.
Your summary is translated into seven languages and read by people who have never heard of you. Concrete beats clever: what it is, what you made it with, what you were trying to do. Write it in your own language if you like — you guarantee the original, and machine translation is always labelled as machine. If you write the English yourself, it carries your guarantee too.
Press and broadcast overlay their own titles, in their own language. A cover with your title burned into it cannot be used; a clean plate can. This is the cheapest thing you can do to make your work travel, and it is required for a reason.
Entries are visible while voting runs, so a work that arrives early is simply seen by more people for longer. Deadlines are Anywhere on Earth, so the last day is generous — but it is still the day with the least advantage.
Asking people to come and look at your work is legitimate and expected. What is not legitimate is manufacturing people: multiple accounts, bought votes, bots. One person is one vote, and a first-round voter votes in all ten fields — so bringing an audience helps every field they vote in, not only yours.
The standings are public while they move, and the comments are public with them. How you respond to other people's work — including work that is beating yours — is visible to everyone deciding. You agreed to receive any evaluation with respect when you entered. That agreement is not decoration.
A first-round voter votes in all ten fields, including fields they know nothing about. That is the whole design: it puts your work in front of people who would never have searched for it.
Your title and summary are prepared in English, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, French, Spanish and Portuguese. You keep control: the original is yours and guaranteed by you, and you can take over any translation at any time.
Every entry gets an id and its own page — a stable URL you can put in a portfolio, a pitch or a CV, that does not depend on a social platform staying alive.
Outstanding works are archived at cert.aicu.ai with their certification — what was entered, who made it, what it won and when. It outlives the announcement, and it can be checked by someone who has never heard of us.
The final round is cast with a written critique attached, and the critiques are published with the result. Whether you win or not, you get something to read that is about your work specifically.
Finalists are screened at the ceremony in November at Makuhari Messe, in front of the broadcast and content industry — and the screening permission is yours to give or withhold, per work.
If you read all of that and thought "this is just: make something good, make it reachable, and be decent about it" — yes. That is the whole method. It is not a secret, and it is not easy, and those are different things.