Howdy!

We’ve got 2 weeks’ worth of roundup for you, so grab your favorite beverage and let’s jump in!

• Will AI be facing a content boom/bust situation like the gold rush? An Epoch AI study “projects that tech companies will exhaust the supply of publicly available training data for AI language models by roughly the turn of the decade — sometime between 2026 and 2032.” The potential need for more content may push AI developers to mine sources like emails or text messages (goodbye privacy?). Or lead to partnerships with content sources like Reddit and Wikipedia.

• Siri (and all Apple products) will be getting an AI makeover. They’re calling it “Apple Intelligence.” The new features include enhanced photo editing, custom emoji creation, and other photo and content editing/generation capabilities. ***NOTEWORTHY: Apple integrated ChatGPT from OpenAI to help drive some of these enhancements. Microsoft, as a core investor of OpenAI, stands to benefit from this Apple/OpenAI deal. We’ll keep you posted.

• Perplexity Pages was introduced earlier this month as a form of publishable content threads that are searchable by Google. It seems some of these threads are now starting to show up in Google’s AI Overviews. We agree with this article that these Perplexity results could lead to spammy, black-hat-ish optimization abuses.

• Raise your hand if you’ve ever abandoned a cart because of extra fees. (Okay, I can’t see your hands, but I am sure a good portion of you have.) “Nearly half of US adults abandoned their online shopping cart at checkout because [of] the extra costs (shipping, tax, and fees)” as stated by EMarketer reporting on a Baymond survey. The real question is what can we do as marketers to mitigate these costs?

• Marketing Charts surveyed high-level marketing leaders with this question: “In the next year, what effects do you anticipate AI will have on your organization’s funnel?” Interestingly, improving and scaling lead management variations were mentioned in 3 out of 5 top results. Another one was “optimizing messaging and content.”

• We’ve talked about creative being a true ad differentiator in the past. LG Ad Solutions released data expressing that “49% of customers believe they can distinguish between traditional and AI ads on CTV.” While 30% of respondents stated they would like their ads personalized with AI, 80% believe it should be regulated. We all need to be careful how we step with AI ad/content creation.

Thoughts to Take With You… 💞

Have you ever seen a toddler experience something for the first time? They pick up rocks and sticks in amazement – with consistent wonder of the world unfurling around them. 

What if we applied more of that amazement to our day? 

We could watch planes pass by the sky with astounded awe. We could experience how amazing it is that we can flick a switch and have light flood a room. We could see our jobs from a beginner’s perspective. 

Could uncovering amazement, awe, and wonder make us more aware of and happy with the lives we have?

That’s a wrap – enjoy the rest of the week!

Natalie

Speaking of awe, this is one of my favorite articles. Here’s an excerpt from Outside magazine contributing editor, Florence Williams:

“A heightened awe experience stimulates the vagus nerve, which calms us, and releases a pleasant rush of dopamine and oxytocin, increasing a sense of connection.

It also dramatically shifts which brain networks are firing up. Imaging studies show that awe reduces activation in our self-referential default-mode network. The findings help explain two significant features of a classic awe experience: a relatively diminished sense of self, and a tendency toward altruistic behavior.”

Awe changes the way we think and how we experience, #SoCOOL!