Netflix’s Vibe Check

PRESENTED BY SYMPHONY

Happy Wednesday, Future Party. If you love a movie so much that you wish you could watch it again for the first time, then French studio Pathé has just the thing for you. The company is experimenting with a new cinema experience in the Netherlands called “Pathé Rewind,” in which renowned hypnotist Victor Kraemer hypnotizes people before select repertory screenings of classic movies. The hope is that people forget they’ve seen the movie before… at least for the duration of the screening. Hopefully, the 30 selected participants like the movie just as much the second first time around.

A new study by Goldman Sachs found that the real AI disruption is no longer mass layoffs, but simply making it harder for those who have already lost their jobs to find new ones.

Why It Hurts: The job market is very strange right now — despite a booming economy, mass layoffs are everywhere, and job applications seem to go into a black hole. That’s making workers afraid to leave their current positions or do anything that could jeopardize their employment. For those already on the unemployment line, the ubiquity of AI integration in businesses is starting to feel like an existential threat.

Between The Roles: Goldman Sachs economist Pierfrancesco Mei wrote that today’s AI disruption looks similar to previous technological paradigm shifts, like the rise of automation and the personal computer.

In other words, a lot is changing.

Final Résumé: Recent college grads are already feeling the brunt of AI’s impact. The unemployment rate for this cohort was 5.4% last quarter, compared to 4% for the overall population. And that’s only half the story, because underemployment is even more prevalent — “about 42% of employed recent graduates held jobs that don’t require a degree,” according to Axios.

The Future: Eventually, AI could deliver on its promise of creating a new subset of jobs, but those jobs may require people to upskill now to take advantage of the openings.

Black Friday is both a boom time for sales and the hardest shopping season of the year.

That’s why Wix is giving businesses a helping hand this season.

Symphony gives every independent business owner a team of AI agents built to carry you through the busiest weekend of the year: building the offer, reaching past customers, winning back abandoned carts, watching the store overnight, and handing you a brief instead of a backlog.

Pick the plan that fits. Symphony Pro and above, especially annual plans, give your AI team the most room to work.

Meet your AI team for Black Friday.

Netflix announced a new AI-powered recommendation feature called “AI Discover.”

The Big Picture: Netflix has been undergoing massive changes over the past month, mostly driven by falling engagement among domestic subscribers — people just aren’t using the platform as much as they used to. That’s been a drag on the stock price. So, the company is not only making executive changes to shake up creative decisions but also improving its tech to make choosing something to watch a more frictionless experience.

Behind The Scenes: Netflix wants you to spend less time scrolling and more time watching.

Final Recommendation: While Netflix has long used AI and machine learning on its platform, Variety says this is the “first user-facing application that the company is branding as powered by artificial intelligence.” AI Discover is currently only available to US Netflix users on supported smart TVs (as a tab on the main menu) and is being billed as a work in progress… so how users respond will determine whether it gets a wider rollout.

If it proves successful in boosting engagement, it’ll underscore just how necessary curation is to the streaming experience. Choice fatigue is real.

Coming Soon: Soon enough, Netflix won’t be alone in AI-powered discovery… and the streamer best able to shrink the time between someone opening the app and choosing something to watch may see the biggest drop in churn rates.

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43.1% of you voted Yes, both in print and digitally in yesterday’s poll: Do you still read magazines?

“Only two — Vanity Fair and The Atlantic. Read the rest online.”

“I love and miss magazines. The glossy pages, the big September issue. Days long past. Sigh.”

“I subscribe to Game Informer, and I have many old magazines full of information I could never give away.”

“I still go through both, but my print perusing has dropped drastically because there’s nothing in them anymore. What used to be articles have turned into extended captions. What a shame.”

“Print media used to be everywhere, but even grocery stores have cut way back on checkout area displays. So, unless I’m at an airport or bored, it probably wouldn’t happen because there’s too much other digital content available.”

Let’s keep the conversation going. Join Poll Of The Day, so your opinions can shine. Discover how your views line up with your peers’, check out cool insights, and have some fun. It’s data with personality.

🎥 Blumhouse and Atomic Monster have officially adopted a new name for their joint studio: Blumhouse Atomic.

🏈 The new flag football league created by the NFL and TMRW Sports will be called Premier Flag.

👽 Sci-fi magazine Starlog is coming back from the dead after 17 years, thanks to Fangoria Holdings.

🤖 Google warned schools that it would block access to Search on student accounts if they completely disable the company’s AI features.

🤣 OpenAI is trying to improve public perception of data centers by rebranding them as “compute campuses.”

💗 Apple won’t let users under 18 download dating apps or AI companion platforms.

🍗 Amelia Dimoldenberg is expanding the theatrical release of the final Chicken Shop Date episodes to LA and NYC.

💻 Reddit is testing ads in its search results to claw back revenue lost to AI-powered search.

🤳 Emerson College has unveiled a new content creation major.