COMMENTARY

Is AI Just a Bunch of Hype?

• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, 3 hours ago

Beginning with today's edition, I'd like to kick off more of an omnibus approach to "Media3.0," mainly because we're currently publishing only once a week, and there's a lot to catch up on.

Speaking of which, I'm also introducing a new video chat series, which I'm thinking of as Media3.Know, because it will feature experts who actually know what's going on vis a vis new and emerging disruptive media technologies. So you might not be surprised to see my first guest is Shelly Palmer, who among other things, is an expert on the rapidly changing implications of AI -- especially for businesses and business people.

This interview was conducted a week ago, when the big tech platforms were officially rolling out their new "co-pilot" AI assistant technologies, so keep that in mind as you listen to Shelly talk about the implications of that.

I had to edit our chat down, because I'm using YouTube for embedding it, but I'd love to know what readers' preferences are for video chat interviews. Do you want longer, unedited takes. Or would you preferred edited down snippets of key insights and takeaways? Let me know and I'll start leaning in those directions.

Shelly has agreed to do them about once monthly, and we'll basically be talking about what's on his mind at those moments.

I have other gurus in mind, but let me know if there's someone you'd like me to interview on the next-generation of media.

Meanwhile, you might have noticed the chart at the top of this page.

That was supplied courtesy of Kantar Knowledge Lead J. Walter Smith, who is one of the most knowledgeable people I know about consumers and media, and he's also agreed to begin a new every-other-weekly column, so stay tuned for that.

In the meantime, he said I could also weigh in on his various other posts from his series of Kantar newsletters, and I was really struck by these data points from Kantar's U.S. Monitor.

They show U.S. consumer sentiment about the prospects for the internet in 2021 and the AI currently, which seems like a reasonable baseline to me.

Interestingly, a much lower percentage -- only about a third of consumers -- feel AI is "a bunch of hype" now vs. 42% who felt that way about the internet in 2001. And we all know how that turned out.

In his analysis, Walker notes that industry hype (ie. Mary Meeker, etc.) initially did exceed consumer expectations for the adoption of the internet, at least until certain "killer apps" emerged like email that made it an indispensable utility for people.

"All of which raises a question for the consumer side of A.I., to wit: What is the killer consumer app? Does A.I. even have one? If so, what will make it accessible to all?," Walker writes, adding, "Only with that can consumer A.I. live up to the hype."