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End of an era. Susan Wojcicki, one of the most prominent women in tech, announced yesterday that she’d be stepping down as CEO of YouTube after nine years with the company. The longtime Googler (#16 to be exact) will be replaced by the platform’s chief product officer, Neal Mohan. While we’re not 100% sure what the news means for YouTube or its future, the resignation does come at an interesting time for the platform as TikTok threatens its video dominance.
Your move now, Neal.
In other news… AI’s future is TBD, Disney cuts production budgets, and brands seek content control.
Top Trends
YouTube → The Little Mermaid
Twitter → Rashford
Google → Ryan Seacrest
Reddit → EVs
TikTok → “Stranger Than Fiction” - Chase Plato
Spotify → “Snooze” - SZA
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TECHNOLOGY
AI search may be found responsible // Illustration by Kate Walker
The future of AI search is up to the Supreme Court
The Future. Next week, the Supreme Court will hear arguments from the case Gonzalez v. Google. The decision will determine whether companies like Google or Microsoft can be held legally responsible for misleading content generated by AI search models like Bard and Bing. If so, AI search could be practically stopped in its tracks.
Their words, not mine On its face, Gonzalez v. Google is about whether YouTube can be sued for hosting accounts used by terrorists — but the ruling will answer a much broader question about legal responsibility online.
Courts may re-evaluate Section 230, a law that protects people and platforms from legal responsibility for hosting or sharing objectionable content.
At issue is whether a web service could lose those protections by promoting or highlighting objectionable user-generated content.
If so, content platforms like YouTube and Meta wouldn’t be the only services affected. Courts might decide that AI search programs are also responsible for the information they summarize, even though it comes from somewhere else.
Whose line is it, anyway?Restricting Section 230 freedoms wouldn’t necessarily kill AI search. Plaintiffs would still have to prove that a certain falsehood constitutes defamation, which requires proof of harm. Additionally, no one has legally ruled on the difference between conventional search results and results provided in response to leading questions.
Regardless, this ruling has the power to shape the applications of AI search (and generative AI) for years or even decades. The Supreme Court basically has the choice of making AI search either profitable or responsible — let’s hope they make the right one.
ENTERTAINMENT
Mickey’s making content cuts // Illustration by Kate Walker
Disney backs away from big-budget projects
The Future. After a several-year boom of seemingly endless content production, the past few months have seen a huge correction in the streaming world. To reduce costs, Disney’s making major cutbacks on what they produce, and Marvel may be the first studio to feel the heat. So long, superheroes.
Leaner timesDuring a February 8th earnings call, Bob Iger announced changes to the company’s content lineup, primarily pruning their backlog of “extraordinarily expensive content.”
Marvel, Disney’s most productive subsidiary, had its ambitious Disney+ show pipeline slashed from five to as few as two. Progress on projects currently under development will slow down, too.
Conversely, the Star Wars franchise has produced less content in the past couple of years and is now getting more love from Disney, with multiple potential projects in the works. Still, these will have to respond to Disney’s new and stricter budget constraints.
Animation — one of Disney’s strengths — performed poorly in 2022, with Lightyear and Strange World falling short of expectations. Still, Iger hopes to turn that around this year with three sequels to $1 billion animation-based brands: Toy Story, Frozen, and Zootopia.
You and me both, kidDisney’s not the only struggling streamer. Every major industry player has to cope with dwindling profits and harsher financial constraints, so expect fewer shows.
But maybe that’s a good thing. More isn’t always better, and if streaming platforms can no longer distinguish themselves by the quantity of content produced, maybe they’ll focus on quality instead. Someone get the lights?
TOGETHER WITH REMOFIRST
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MEDIA
Double-check that marketing message before sending it // Unsplash
Content control is a brand’s BFF
The Future. As the AI boom creates a flood of synthetic content online, it’s become essential for brands to put systems in place to review their marketing messages for tone and accuracy before they go live. If brands want to automate content generation, they might have to invest more time and money in safety functions to protect themselves from damaging output — and to keep their reputations intact.
All you have in business is your repFake reviews, coordinated campaigns of misinformation on social media, and ads appearing next to fake news could all tarnish a brand’s image. “If you are concerned about reputation management and the authenticity of content, there’s going to be a much larger body of content that you’re going to have to wade through,” says Gartner analyst Chris Ross.
30% of outbound marketing messages from large corporations are projected to be AI-generated within the next two years.
Four in five enterprise marketers are projected to establish content authenticity functions to defend brands against harmful fake material by 2027.
The Content Authenticity Initiative at Adobe, launched in 2019, develops technical standards and tools to identify real and fake content online (and help combat misinformation).
It takes one false move to lose a good repThe more content there is to keep track of, the greater the responsibility will be to manage it.
Like human-generated material, AI-generated content must be subject to an editorial process. Without checking it first and ensuring it aligns with the brand’s voice, it could damage a brand’s reputation overnight… and nobody wants that.
Future Forecast
For those of you who like to stay a step ahead, here are a few things we’re excited about right now:
Electrifying the nation. We’re all about the rise of EV’s. But did you know that over 70% of the federally funded charging infrastructure across the country is unreliable due to a lack of maintenance and service programs? On top of charging station reliability being an equity issue, it also causes drivers to have “charge anxiety” on the road — both of which we are not excited about right now. The good news is that experts are exploring ways to create a more robust and reliable network of EV chargers across the nation. Join Urban Movement Labs this Tuesday (February 21) from 12-1 pm PT to discuss how we can address this issue and shape the future of our cities!
Eight-ball to the corner pocket. We’ll probably never have a chance to utter those words because we’re just not pool champs. We are, however, excited about giving back to the kids, enjoying free food and drinks, and watching the actual pool sharks tear up the tables at Young Variety’s Annual Charity Pool Tournament. Your donation helps children right here in our community by removing barriers to mobility, education, and healthcare. Young Variety believes that all children should be afforded the same opportunities to thrive and achieve their dreams. And we do too!
Diverse talent pools. If you’re sensing a pattern of equity, you’re right. We were recently introduced to UnTalent and completely supported their mission to create an ecosystem for diverse talent that’s historically been overlooked, ignored, or forgotten. Change happens from the inside, and we encourage more companies to join brands like Nike, WME, Live Nation, and Disney in hiring from talent pools with diverse backgrounds, unique perspectives, and important stories to tell.
Highlights
The best curated daily stories from around the web
Paramount+ tops subscriber growth
Yellowstone season five and Top Gun: Maverick were major acquisition drivers for Paramount+ in Q4 2022. This week, the streamer announced an increase of 9.9 million subscribers, more than any other service recorded during that time. Paramount+ outpaced Netflix (up 7.7 million), Disney+ (down 2.4 million), Hulu (up 800,000), and Peacock (up 5 million) and now enjoys 56 million total paid subscribers. While it stands to gain more when Showtime is added to the fold later this year, Paramount+ still ranks as a second-tier streamer. Maybe not for long…
Read More → forbes
Amazon inks first-look deal with Superplastic
As the lines between media and technology become increasingly blurred, Amazon is hoping to create its own character universe with Superplastic’s two most famous synthetic celebrities, Janky and Guggimon. The tech giant is currently in early development on The Janky & Guggimon Show, which comes after Superplastic first built the characters into social media stars. Amazon’s Alexa Fund led the character design studio and art toy maker’s $20 million Series A extension investment round, which brings its total funding to $58 million. Will Superplastic be the next generation’s Disney? Tune into the comedy series to find out.
Read More → variety
Mars loves pets as much as candy
The candy conglomerate is the world’s largest pet food manufacturing company (with 30 food labels) and has been investing in the pet care startup space since 2018 (to the tune of over $92 million in venture funding). It’s a good time to build a pet care empire, too. Global financing for pet tech jumped 156% between 2020 and 2021, reaching $1.7 billion. And while venture funding declined in almost every other sector in 2022, pet toy and health investment saw its second-best year ever. Anything for furry friends…
Read More → crunchbase
Tax season is getting interesting
In this world, nothing is certain except death and taxes. The good news is that the number of refunds the IRS has issued to date is 84.7% higher than at the same time last year, while the total amount refunded is 64.6% higher. The disappointing news is that the average amount refunded by the IRS so far this year has been $1,963 compared to $2,201 at the same time last tax season. Even though taxpayers have been warned to expect smaller refunds in 2023 due to the end of stimulus programs, they should keep in mind that everything depends on their unique situation... and the average refund for 2023 could go up (or down) as more returns come in. We’ll see.
Read More → fastcompany
Bitcoin reaches a 6-month high
While bitcoin is still down more than 65% from its all-time high of $68,000 in November 2021, it rose to $24,770 on Wednesday (its highest level since August 2022) before stabilizing at $24,400 on Thursday. Regulators’ treatment of bitcoin as a commodity rather than a security protects it from the impact of the latest enforcement actions, which is why “bitcoin’s market dominance is on the rise.” On a separate note, Elon Musk wore a Shiba Inu T-shirt to the Super Bowl, joked that he talked about Dogecoin with Rupert Murdoch, and tweeted a meme of a Shiba Inu succeeding him as Twitter CEO — which led Dogecoin and Shiba Inu to jump 30% and 4%, respectively, since Sunday. Does this mean the crypto winter is almost over?
Read More → forbes
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Today's email was brought to you by Luke Perrotta and Kait Cunniff.Editing by Nick Comney. Publishing by Sara Kitnick.