Lab Weekly - 08/04/2023
Learning the right lessons from Barbenheimer; plus, the latest news about generative AI and Amazon’s grocery business, along with some must-know stats
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Decoding the Barbenheimer Phenomenon
The viral Barbenheimer trend revived mass passion for going to the movies, but whether or not this is a one-off depends on whether Hollywood will learn the right lessons from its success.
In case you missed it…
Panic in the Streaming Land
Hollywood is losing faith in the streaming model, and scrambling for solutions to cut costs and raise ARPU. What comes next? Four things to consider
Threads Is An Overnight Success — Now What?
Some quick follow-up notes on the prospects of Meta’s “Twitter Killer” and Twitter’s responses so far
Meta Enters The AI Race With An “Open” Approach
What Is LLaMA 2 and what does Meta’s open-source approach mean for the competitive landscape of generative AI
Google Updates AI Search With More Videos & Better Links [The Verge]
AI-powered search has been purely text-based so far, and Google is looking to change that soon. The Alphabet company is looking to improve the Search Generative Experience by adding videos and images. When a user searches for a topic, Search Generative Experience will try to find relevant videos and images to display alongside the text results. In addition, Google is working on creating more context to the links it puts in AI-generated answers.
Over the years, Google has made progress in making the search experience a multi-media one. In recent years, it has integrated YouTube more and more into search results over the years, helpfully linking to a specific chapter or moment inside a video that might demonstrate the answer to your query. Now that Google is adding images and videos to AI-generated search results, this potentially opens up another venue to brands to surface their branded content, especially those with an educational angle.
Related: Google delists AI Test Kitchen app on Android and iOS [9to5Google]; YouTube is testing AI auto-generated text-based summaries of videos [TechCrunch]
Meta Releases Open Source AI Audio Tools, AudioCraft [ARS Technica]
On the open source side of the AI arms race, Meta is doubling down on the buzzy release of its Llama 2 model last month with a new text-to-audio AI generator called Audio Craft. Essentially, this new AI tool can generate any sound from a dog barking to a groovy 90’s R&B track based on text prompts. In the right creative hands, this could spur a new wave of democratization of music production.
Previously, Google has also released a text-to-music generative AI model called MusicLM, but it has remained accessible only to researchers. But Meta is releasing this as an open source tool, so more developers can utilize it to create new apps and explore new use cases that pushes the envelope on what AI-generated audio could do.
The music industry was one of the first media vectors to feel the impact of digitization and transitioned to the streaming model; now it could be the first to see its business model shaken up by the arrival of generative AI. Earlier this year, an “AI-generated” song featuring a voice likeness of Drake and The Weeknd went viral before it was taken down. More recently, some musicians, such as Grimes, have encouraged people to use their voices in AI-made songs.
Related: Meta prepares chatbots with personas to try to retain users [Financial Times]; Meta is planning to let people in the EU download apps through Facebook [The Verge]
Amazon Unveils Biggest Grocery Overhaul Since Buying Whole Foods [Bloomberg]
Amazon is set to overhaul its grocery business by revamping Whole Foods stores, unifying online shopping carts, and, for the first time, offering fresh-food delivery to customers who aren’t Prime subscribers. In particular, the move to merge Amazon’s various online grocery offerings—from Whole Foods, Amazon Fresh, and Amazon.com—into one shopping cart could be an interesting move that may increase the overall reach of its online grocery customers.
Amazon is at a grocery inflection point, battling Walmart and Instacart for ecommerce dominance in the US. While each has its own strengths, Amazon’s ecommerce background gives it a leg up in tech. Whether Amazon can leverage a unified shopping cart to grow its online grocery customer base, particularly with non-Prime subscribers, will be an interesting development to observe.
In recent years, online grocery sales have seen a slight decline due to more people returning to shop in stores to save on grocery expenses. Online grocery sales dropped nearly 8% YoY in March. If these recent moves to integrate its various grocery businesses can help Amazon reduce the operating costs and pass on some of the savings to shoppers, perhaps it could help win back some grocery shoppers and mitigate the decline of online grocery sales.
Related: Amazon rolls out its virtual health clinic nationwide [CNBC]; Walmart creates shoppable carts with Patrick Mahomes, Barbie [Marketing Dive]
More and more U.S. streaming audiences are watching ads. According to the latest tracking data from Ampere Analysis cited by The Wrap, ad-supported tiers from Netflix, Disney, and others have collectively crossed 100 million users in the US. One particular call-out of the report is that 90%+ of Hulu subscribers are on its ad-supported tier.
YouTube’s second-quarter 2023 ad sales had a modest year-over-year uptick, rising 4.4% to $7.67 billion, a reversal after three consecutive quarters of declines at the video platform, Variety reports.
Apple announced Apple Card's savings account, which has had a 4.15% interest rate since its April 2023 launch with partner Goldman Sachs, has topped $10 billion in deposits this week.
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