Edition #495
On AI’s infinite use cases, NY tech week & entry level jobs.
We don’t create enough content anymore, which is why algorithmic feeds are needed to help find other content we might like. But with AI tools, ironically that may change, with people using AI to create more responsive memes, or responses or dynamic content.
It’s been New York Tech Week this week, which just seems to get bigger and bigger!
AI dominated the conversation with many, at least in my conversations, voicing the concern of job losses.
The interesting thing is how different everyone’s experience is with AI, because it is so dynamic & response, following their curiosity, trying to solve a problem. And everyone has a fav model, whether work pays for it, it has a certain feature or just was the first they used.
This isn’t a change of a couple of use cases, it’s like a change of infinite use cases. I’ve written on how LLMs are bringing back the principles of Word of Mouth marketing to brands, but also, maybe time to dust off The Long Tail too and give it a read.
The Anthropic CEO got a lot of coverage around his thought that AI will eliminate entry level jobs. But, more tools, probably upskills the capabilities of all young employees. And some companies may now need less of them, but then new companies will be created.
Also I really enjoyed Kyle Monson’s piece with a few good soundbites “AI isn’t the threat to this landscape, it’s the solution” … “AI isn’t coming for us. It’s coming to us.” … “And AI is great at speeding up processes that clients hate paying for: 1) learning time; 2) ideation time; 3) admin time.”
Notable stories this week
- Why Oatly’s marketers prefer cultural signals to focus groups.
- App Store changes have been ‘fantastic’ for independent media.
- Marketing to machines: a new performance strategy in the age of AI agents.
- The ‘paradigm shift‘ from posting in public to sharing in private.
- X launches new chat experience in beta, a precursor to payments.
- TikTok insists to advertisers that it’s a full-funnel platform not just an entertainment app. And will give advertisers ever more data on trends and users.
- Why the best journalists on YouTube are all former Vox employees.
- AI Agents help PMG target ads on Fox News without freaking out clients.
- The Washington Post plans an influx of outside opinion writers.
- Meta aims to fully automate ad creation.
- BI’s next chapter.
- Here’s how Expedia is preparing for a future when people use AI to plan their vacations.
- IAB Tech Lab unveils plans to bolster publisher monetization in the AI era.
- Covert web-to-app tracking via localhost on Android.
- Meta hones its AI-based campaign steering for brands that share more data.
- Marketers Move Millions in Ad Spend from The Trade Desk to Amazon’s Ad Platform.
- MIQ launches Sigma.
- AI isn’t a threat to our industry it’s the solution.
- Ads From Verizon, Shell, and Others Ran Next to Explicit Videos on Top Android App,
- How each LLM uses different sources.
- Reddit sues AI startup Anthropic for breach of contract, ‘unfair competition’.
- NYT reaches AI licensing deal with Amazon.
Deals/M&A
- Newsweek snaps up adtech firm Adprime to fuel health expansion.
Campaign of the week
- The coworker who treats the work trip like a vacation. IHG with Corporate Natalie on LinkedIn.
- Lego – She Built That. Lego has a new take on It’s like that, to celebrate girls who build.
View all 2024 best campaigns.
Smartest commentary
- [On why more algorithmic feeds] “The amount of content people post publicly in feeds is going down across the entire industry, because people are moving more and more sharing to stories — which you could argue is a different kind of feed — but even more into messaging, group chats, one-on-one chats.” –Adam Mosseri.
Datapoints of note
- Peng noted that 70% of Business Insider “has some degree of traffic sensitivity.” That speaks to the difficulty in reorienting publishing businesses that were built around traffic, since it’s been clear for some time that the traffic model was collapsing.
- Just 18% of the campaign’s spend went to Fox News but drove 34% of total conversions, at a 46% lower cost per conversion versus campaign average, Jonah Goodhart, co-founder and CEO of Mobian, said during IAB’s Tech Lab Summit in New York City.
- According to a Former Meta employee, around 70-80% of the spending on Meta is touched by a partner (like an ad agency).
- OpenAI tops 3 million paying business users.
- “More than 50 people” are making over $1m a year on Substack.
Events
- Media drinks coming up late in June, let me know if you want to join.
View all 2024 datapoints of note.
That’s it for this week.
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