#53 - The AI Wall

Europe and Big Tech are locking horns in an intellectual tug of war: how to balance the safeguarding of users with the drive for innovation and growth. This week Meta has been slapped with a record $1.3 billion fine for Facebook data transfers, illustrating the stance taken by regulators. The ruling attracted widespread criticism from Meta and other industry representatives.

Meanwhile, OpenAI CEO, Sam Altman, has voiced concerns over the EU AI Act, initially threatening to halt operations in Europe, before assuring the AI community of OpenAI's commitment to the region. The proposed legislation could transform the way generative AI companies operate, and it has already sparked discussions around the governance of superintelligence. Europe rightfully believes that trust in big tech companies cannot exist without legally enforced transparency.

Amid the turmoil, Google's Sundar Pichai extends an olive branch, offering to collaborate with European lawmakers on the development of an "AI Pact". The question remains if we will end up with an AI wall between Big Tech and Europe, or an open door to unified regulation and collaboration?

IN FOCUS

The European Commission released a report aiming to analyse the potential impact of media trends in the EU media markets. It looks into audiovisual, news media and video games, providing market overviews, technology trends and emerging production and consumption patterns at EU 27 level.

David Fernández Quijada, Co-founder & Research Director @ South 180 read the report and is not impressed. “This report is more a state of the art plus some limited forecast. All this coming mostly from secondary sources, most of them very familiar for analysts on the field.”

NEWSROOM

The American Journalism Project asked 5,000 people across the country what they want from local news. Nine universal themes emerged: desire for more local news, trusted facts, full community stories, pre-decision information, representation, journalists who ask their questions, actionable information, news that meets them where they are, and newsrooms that connect communities.  

A new WAN-IFRA survey finds half of newsrooms use Generative AI tools; only 20% have guidelines in place.

+ A must read interview with Yves Van Dooren - the editorial data expert of Mediahuis - on the 6 pillars of editorial analytics at Mediahuis.

+ Echobox has released its The Publishing Trends Report 2023.

REVENUE

Some counter-intuitive new research from Morning Consult finds that subscriptions are particularly popular among youth, relatively few of whom feel overwhelmed by the number of subscriptions currently available. (Mind you these are all kinds of subscriptions - media and news are but a very small subset)

+ Toolkit took a snapshot of 25 leading publishers’ subscription landing pages.

AI/NEWS

AI is no longer an optional feature; it will become an inherent component of the next operating systems. This week Microsoft announced it’s integrating its CoPilot AI directly into Windows with the potential to work across third party apps and all your documents and files.

Other highlights of Microsoft Build:

• Thousands of AI-plugins are coming soon to the Microsoft ecosystem. Link
• Microsoft makes it possible for companies to build their own AI-powered ‘copilots’. Link
• All the other announcements of Micrsoft Build…over 50! Link
• The highlights according to CEO Satya Nadella. Link
• Tech Analyst Ben Thompson on the Windows and AI platform shift. Link

AI/TOOLS

• Meta has built AI models that can recognize and produce speech for more than 1,000 languages. Link
• A new social app Airchat has a live translation experience allowing people to chat in dozen plus languages at the same time. Link
• Google Tailwind is a new AI-first notebook. Currently available in the U.S. only. Link
• Adobe is adding AI image generator Firefly to Photoshop. Link
• TikTok is experimenting with a chatbot called “Tako” Link

AI/RESOURCES

• VC firm a16z shares its impressive collection of AI background material and analyses. Link
• Stanford is documenting the emerging ecosystem of AI foundational models. Link
• Information is Beautiful has made graph that updates as new LLM’s emerge. Link
• AI will not be the end of human labor. The easier work becomes, the more we will be expected to do. Link
• The Washington Post is establishing two cross-functional teams to tackle AI: the AI Taskforce and the AI Hub. Link
• French publisher group Les Echos-Le Parisien publishes its AI guidelines. Link
• Reach creates AI-curated website with content from across group. Link
• Experts at WAN-IFRA’s Digital Media Europe 2023 event share examples of generative AI’s transformative powers. Link
• A summary of the Nordic AI in Media Summit: Six things news publishers need to know. Link
• AI is eating the world. A good take on the AI value stack and where companies can gain a competitive advantage. Link

AUDIO

Maxime Piquette, CEO of Ausha, discusses the transformative potential of artificial intelligence in the podcast industry and highlights key areas where AI is expected to have a substantial impact.

Last week the new NY Times audio app was launched. Here’s a critical analysis worth reading.

 + YouTube has a new “RSS Ingestion” pilot for podcasts.

 + BBC has a deal with Spotify’s Megaphone to recommend relevant content.

+ Generative AI podcasts…are boring.

+ An overview of the expected evolution of the car audio experience.

SHORT

• Instagram’s new Twitter-like, text app may be here as soon as the end of June.
• Referral traffic from Twitter to publishers is at an all time low.
• EBU shares 3 steps to give more prominence to public service media.
• The Financial Times appears to be winning over readers with their new FT edit app.
• How The Times is running towards a digital-first future.

TRENDS

The car industry is shifting closer to a software-defined model, where over-the-air updates to the vehicle’s systems such as the infotainment or the driving assistance define the value of a car, rather than the metal, plastic and leather of which it’s made up.

The esports industry has been shaken by dwindling viewership, revenue, and overall interest, upending the narrative that video-game competitions would rise to the cultural status of professional sports.

A new NYU/Stern report reveals how extremists are exploiting online gaming and gaming-adjacent sites to promote hatred and violence.

+ Report: The Global Sports Media Landscape.

 + ‘Trends have lost all meaning’ according to Reddit's head of global foresight, Matt Klein.

WATCH

The Mind of the Modern Media Consumer: Evan Shapiro maps the rate of change in streaming using exclusive data from inside the minds of modern media consumers to generate insights on where it’s all going. Link

AI and the future of humanity | Yuval Noah Harari at the Frontiers Forum. Link

My personal favorite: The future ahead will be weird AF. Link (Thanks for sharing this in your excellent newsletter Sander Duivestein!)

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That's it! As always feel free to share with friends & collegaues.

Ezra