1. Possible Becomes Probable
It’s a funny thing about conferences. They start out getting known for their content—are there speakers and topics people really want to hear?
But if they're successful, really successful, they quickly become all about the networking, the meetings, the Art of the Schmooze and the content becomes besides the point.
Sort of how hardly anyone makes it to the show floor at CES and mostly stays holed up in their suites or the Chandelier Bar or how the last thing most people want to do at Cannes is go and listen to a panel. At least a panel that’s not serving rosé.
So props to Possible for making that turn in just three years.
The famous (or infamous, depending on your POV) interview between Linda Yaccarino and Elon Musk put the show on the map in 2023, along with its ambitious programming featuring a slew of marketing types from well-known brands mixed in with celebrities and pop culture gurus, the sort of people whose followers on social media thank them daily for giving away ALL THAT KNOWLEDGE FOR FREE!
Those guys.
Which brings us to this week and a conversation I seemed to have at least once an hour, which went something like this:
“Are you going to any of the panels?”
“No… do you even know where they’re at anyway?
Now supposedly the panels were pretty packed. Because not all of the 5600 people who allegedly showed up for the conference were there to network. Nor did they necessarily work in media, for that matter.
Why It Matters
Before the pandemic, if I came into the city to have lunch with someone, I could usually schedule a bunch of other meetings that same day. But now? Most everyone seems to be working from home.
Which is why events have become an even bigger deal in our industry.
It’s a chance to connect with all those other people who are living their best lives out of their home offices. Grab a meal or some drinks. Meet friends-of-friends who might turn into clients. All in some pretty posh surroundings.
Seriously, what’s not to like?
It also gives those of us who are listening a chance to get a pulse on the industry, to understand what people are worried about, what they’re excited about—the sorts of things they’ll share with you in the wee hours after a few drinks.
Uncertainty is the primary leitmotif right now, running through every decision being made. What will happen to the economy? Are we heading to a recession? A depression? Both? Neither?
So much of what will happen is predicated on the whims of a single person, and if there’s one thing I can say with certainty about uncertainty, it’s that it is bad for business. Which means many future plans are currently on hold.
And AI is clearly adding to all that uncertainty. No one is clear what its impact will be, how many jobs may be lost, how many new ones created. For an industry that was gutted by the arrival of the internet, something many scoffed at back in the day, there’s a tendency to take AI very, very seriously.
And yet…
The industry will continue moving towards streaming and automation regardless of what diktats are issued from the White House. And it is trying (for about the 10th year running) to figure out measurement. Which means that not everything is on hold, and all across the Fontainebleau, deals were still being done, companies being launched.
In other words, business as usual.
What You Need To Do About It
If you are in the industry, you need to prioritize trade shows. As in attending them. It’s becoming a more important way than ever to meet with potential clients, get your name out there, keep track of what’s going down in the industry. The fact that the number of trade publications keeps shrinking only adds to the urgency.
At the same time, you don’t want to be That Guy (or Gal) who spends needlessly on splashy events and activations that are way too high end for companies your size, or worse yet, anyone other than billion dollar babies like Google and Amazon. It’s not a good look and it just comes off as equal parts desperate and irresponsible.
In other words, not the sort of company someone would want to work with.
If you are Possible, many of us were talking about how much better it would be if the show was earlier in the year, say mid-January to mid-February. It could both replace CES, a show few people actually look forward to going to, and give us all a nice break from winter.
I get it won’t be easy to pull off—the hotels make a lot of money on tourists those months, so they’d want a whole lot of money in exchange. But if it is possible (pun intended) that would make a whole lot of people very happy.
Just not people in Nevada.
2. Meta Launches Its Own Standalone AI
Much in the way that Zuckerberg seemed to have wildly misjudged the impression his perm-chain-baggy t-shirt combo makes, he also seems to be misjudging the desirability of a standalone AI web app that is tied to Facebook and Instagram.
One key feature (at least from the press releases) of Meta’s new standalone AI web app (cleverly named Meta AI) is that it allegedly knows you better given that it can draw from all the information you’ve shared with Facebook and Instagram over the past decade or so.
I don’t think I am going out on much of a limb here by saying that is not going to sit well with most people, who will see it as a pretty major invasion of their privacy.
And that even those users who don’t will also realize that they are not the same person today as they were in 2014 and that the app is often getting things wrong.
It also seems that the standalone app will provide a “Discover” feed that allows users to see what other people (their friends included) are using AI to search for.
Which feels a lot like the social feed on Venmo, the one that no one can quite figure out why it’s there, why they thought anyone would want to see the daily spending habits of various acquaintances and street vendors you once paid via Venmo.
AI is even more of a private thing and I suspect it will not be long before people are freaking out over Meta AI having shared the fact that they were searching for “symptoms of sexually transmitted diseases” or “how to tell my boss I have a crush on him.” (I know it’s opt-in, but since when has that ever worked? Especially with Facebook’s AARP audience.)
Why It Matters
AI is already a huge industry with trillions invested in it, and the battle for market share is on.
At stake is the ability to control the future of AI. For just how Google shaped the way we currently look at search and Amazon shaped the way we currently do online shopping, the company with the largest market share will shape the way we use consumer applications of AI. And quite possibly business ones as well.
So there’s a lot at stake here.
There’s also an ad angle.
At Possible I’d heard about several companies (or maybe just one that was described in different ways by different people) that were working on creating ads that popped up during AI searches. So that, for instance, a search for “how to remove grass stains” might result in an ad for Tide.
It’s both an obvious idea—it’s the same principle as Google’s search ads—and yet a genius one.
And given Facebook’s massive advertising network, I’m thinking that is the real reason for a standalone Meta AI.
But back to the integration bit.
One of the things Grok has done right, is to more or less ignore the fact that it sits within the X app. It doesn’t try and steer you to people or organizations you follow on X. Or provide Muskian responses to political questions. If anything, it actually does a good job of providing users with straightforward answers.
Compare that to Gemini, where the joke is that if you ask it if it is cold in Alaska in January, it will respond. “It depends on what you consider ‘cold.’ Different cultures have different perceptions of cold and so it’s important to realize that Alaska may not be seen as ‘cold’ by many people.”
And so on and so on.
Final note is that it is open source. Meaning that lots of people might be able to develop off it—a smart move that helps make it more of an infrastructure platform (think Android and phones/TVs) and less of a consumer one.
Which is an excellent backup plan in case the consumer app part doesn’t take off.
What You Need To Do About It
If you are Meta, accept that few people are likely going to want to share their AI searches with their friends, let alone the world. Sort of how you don’t share your browser history with just anyone.
And that the more you tell them “hey it knows you better than Chat because it’s scraped your Facebook and Instagram accounts” the creepier they are going to think it is.
But using open source to be an Android-like infrastructure product? That’s Now Thinking and it might result in a W for a company that’s been racking up a whole lot of Ls.
Now about that perm…
Alan Wolk is co-founder and lead analyst at the consulting firm TV[R]EV. He is the author of the best-selling industry primer, Over The Top: How The Internet Is (Slowly But Surely) Changing The Television Industry. Wolk frequently speaks about changes in the television industry, both at conferences and to anyone who’ll listen.
Week in Review is an opinion column. It does not necessarily represent the opinions of StreamTV Insider.