Speaker 1: Welcome to another episode of Strictly Business, the podcast in
Speaker 1: which we speak with some of the brightest minds working
Speaker 1: in the media business.
Speaker 2: Today.
Speaker 1: I'm Andrew Wallenstein with Variety Today on the pod a Twofer.
Speaker 1: We've got an interview with Phil Weiser, the CTO at
Speaker 1: Paramount Global. He sat down earlier this summer at the
Speaker 1: Collision Tech conference in Toronto with my colleague at Variety,
Speaker 1: Vip Heidi Chung to talk about a wide range of
Speaker 1: technologies that his company is investing in. But before we
Speaker 1: get to that, I'm going to try something new on
Speaker 1: this Strictly Business podcast. For the past ten weeks, I've
Speaker 1: been writing a new column on Variety Intelligence platform called
Speaker 1: the Mogul Memo. Each installment is addressed to a different
Speaker 1: mogul in the media world, maybe a CEO like Netflix's
Speaker 1: Ted Surrounds or the new top executive at Elon Musk's
Speaker 1: ex Linda Yakarino, and you'll find it candid in tone
Speaker 1: that might actually be an understatement anyway. This week we're
Speaker 1: bringing the Mogul Memo to podcast form. Call it the
Speaker 1: Mogul Monologue, if you will. It's addressed this week to
Speaker 1: Scooter Braun the pop star Svengali, who's been all over
Speaker 1: the headlines. So you don't want to miss this one,
Speaker 1: and you don't want to miss a Mogul memo. Check
Speaker 1: them all out if you haven't yet at Variety dot
Speaker 1: com slash Mogul Memo. Most are behind the VIP paywall,
Speaker 1: but now's as good a time as any to join VIP.
Speaker 1: If you haven't already, take advantage of a discounted rate.
Speaker 1: Head over today to Variety dot com slash vip save.
Speaker 1: That's enough promotion for me. Enjoy the strictly business debut
Speaker 1: of the Mogul memo featuring Scooter Braun, followed by Heidi
Speaker 1: Chung's interview with Paramount CTO Phil Wiser, and We're back.
Speaker 1: Enjoy the strictly business debut of the Mogul Memo featuring
Speaker 1: Scooter Braun, followed by Heidi Chung's interview with Paramount CTO
Speaker 1: Phil Weiser. Dear Scooter, I would have reached out sooner,
Speaker 1: but honestly, it's so awkward. I don't know what to say.
Speaker 1: Hallmark doesn't make any sorry your career imploded sympathy cards.
Speaker 1: After all, it's not every day a well known music
Speaker 1: industry manager watches a trio of his best clients walk
Speaker 1: out the door all at once. It's bad enough losing
Speaker 1: Justin Bieber, but for the world to learn that you
Speaker 1: also recently lost Demi Lovado and Ariana Grande.
Speaker 2: That's rough.
Speaker 1: That said, the terms of the suppose a departure are murky,
Speaker 1: to say the least, as a source from your camp
Speaker 1: issued a statement of Variety suggesting your clients technically haven't
Speaker 1: moved on, though you kind of have. Quote all of
Speaker 1: Scooter Braun's clients are under contract and negotiations have been
Speaker 1: going on for several months as Scooter steps into his
Speaker 1: larger role as Hibe America CEO. End quote. Hib America
Speaker 1: is something of a side gig you've held down for
Speaker 1: the past two years, but as Variety's Jim as Wad
Speaker 1: recently reported, it's increasingly become your main focus, and that
Speaker 1: I think Scooter is central to understanding why you lost
Speaker 1: these clients, as a lot of the reporting this past
Speaker 1: week supports, I think you deluded yourself for too long
Speaker 1: into thinking that you could have kept them in the
Speaker 1: fold by delegating the management to others on your team.
Speaker 1: That's a notorious no no, in the manager business, where
Speaker 1: bedside manner is everything. But I wouldn't beat yourself up
Speaker 1: too much about running out of steam when I think
Speaker 1: about the fact that you had a deal with handling
Speaker 1: the kind of personal lives Bieber Grandelevado lead not to
Speaker 1: mention until twenty eighteen, Kanye West, you qualify for hazard
Speaker 1: pay early retirement. Maybe a lifetime supply is Zoloft. As
Speaker 1: for your own personal take on this PR crisis, all
Speaker 1: we have to go on was a joke you made
Speaker 1: on twit sorry X where you proclaimed, quote breaking news,
Speaker 1: I'm no longer managing myself end quote. Thanks for clarifying, Scooter.
Speaker 1: Since you've clearly retained your sense of humor, you couldn't
Speaker 1: possibly be upset, Or maybe you're just trying to look
Speaker 1: like you're not upset. The thing is, no one could
Speaker 1: blame you if you were actually upset. Considering the legions
Speaker 1: of Taylor Swift fans currently calling you out on social
Speaker 1: media for the sin of buying her record company back
Speaker 1: in twenty nineteen, which Swift has characterized as stealing her
Speaker 1: masters out from under her lightning rod, that deal turned
Speaker 1: out to be It actually sparked a series of brilliant
Speaker 1: transactions on your part to flip your own company to
Speaker 1: South Korean k pop giant Hibe for just over a
Speaker 1: billion dollars in twenty twenty one, giving you a seat
Speaker 1: on the company's board and the CEO position at Hibe America.
Speaker 2: Of course, no.
Speaker 1: One really knows you from that job. They know you
Speaker 1: as a manager, and now they know you as a
Speaker 1: manager who has lost all of his best clients at
Speaker 1: the same time. Now, this wouldn't look as bad as
Speaker 1: it does if the gig at Hibe America you were
Speaker 1: moving on to wasn't such a hmm and I'm putting
Speaker 1: this charitably a work in progress. Hip America has to
Speaker 1: be understood first and foremost as an attempt at diversification
Speaker 1: away from the Hibe mothership, the k pop factory that
Speaker 1: gave the world the Korean boy band BTS. And that's
Speaker 1: no small load to carry. Because BTS is currently on
Speaker 1: hiatus for the next few years. Good luck generating new
Speaker 1: business while that cash cow takes a breather. What Hibe
Speaker 1: America is primarily is Big Machine label group, the controversial
Speaker 1: home of Swift's first six albums, which you acquired for
Speaker 1: more than three hundred million. Nearly four years later, you
Speaker 1: spent about the same amount for hip hop label Quality Control,
Speaker 1: home of chart toppers including Little Baby and Lil YACHTI.
Speaker 1: What's more, Bloomberg reported in June that Hibe was looking
Speaker 1: to arrange financing for another three hundred and eighty million
Speaker 1: to make more deals in the US, which all sounds great, Scooter,
Speaker 1: except for when I ask myself what no one seems
Speaker 1: to have noticed in this mess, which is, what have
Speaker 1: you been doing for the past two years? You've already
Speaker 1: been at Hip America perus. The first details in your bio,
Speaker 1: for instance, and what is characterized as a quote elite
Speaker 1: portfolio of acquisitions and partnerships end quote does not seem
Speaker 1: very elite. For instance, it's mentioned a four year old
Speaker 1: alliance with Marvel Studios founder David Mazel that seems to
Speaker 1: be about building a new superhero franchise that so far
Speaker 1: hasn't produced much but a forgettable and ft collection. There's
Speaker 1: also a partnership with veteran unscripted producer j d Roth
Speaker 1: that so far has yielded some pretty forgettable vanity projects
Speaker 1: for the clients you just lost. There's also an investment
Speaker 1: fund at the intersection of music and technology, featuring a
Speaker 1: former BMG president who hasn't been with the fund since
Speaker 1: May twenty twenty two. And there's also an investment firm,
Speaker 1: TQ Ventures, which, according to a New York Post report
Speaker 1: last week, is looking to quote ditch you. Now, maybe
Speaker 1: all this is just another sign that you can't be
Speaker 1: both a mogul and a manager. Maybe you have another
Speaker 1: three hundred and eighty million in your pocket. You can
Speaker 1: make some moves that will truly convince me you can
Speaker 1: do something of note at High America. I have my doubts,
Speaker 1: but I'm gonna tell you why. I'm gonna give you
Speaker 1: the benefit of the doubt because I think this PR
Speaker 1: crisis is actually a gift in disguise that is going
Speaker 1: to force you to make a clean break from the
Speaker 1: management business. If you follow my advice, you see your
Speaker 1: swift rift reminded me. Looking bad in the public eye
Speaker 1: is something you've acquainted with. You're one of the rare
Speaker 1: few to walk through this fire and realize the wounds
Speaker 1: do heal if you have tough enough skin, and unlike
Speaker 1: most managers who adhere to the cardinal rule of old
Speaker 1: school Hollywood representation, to remain in the shadows and let
Speaker 1: their clients soak.
Speaker 2: Up the spotlight.
Speaker 1: You've always broken that rule and built an image for yourself,
Speaker 1: kind of like someone who always had an endgame that
Speaker 1: involved not being a manager. If that's the way you
Speaker 1: think most in your shoes don't, then you probably believe
Speaker 1: in another old school Hollywood axiom. There's no such thing
Speaker 1: as bad publicity. And that's why you should look at
Speaker 1: last week's events, which most may see as an act
Speaker 1: of self destruction, as something like an act of reinvention.
Speaker 1: So counterintuitive as this sounds, lean into it. Look, there's
Speaker 1: no getting past a perception you've experienced a big setback.
Speaker 1: But that's okay, because when a student of the dark
Speaker 1: arts of pr like your your self can appreciate is
Speaker 1: that there is a flip side to being thrust out
Speaker 1: of the management business as dramatically as you have, And
Speaker 1: that's you've sent as clear and loud as signal as
Speaker 1: you can to the marketplace that you've opened a new
Speaker 1: chapter in your career. Maybe it wasn't voluntary, and maybe
Speaker 1: I'm not that confident you're ready for High of America,
Speaker 1: but your mogul phase has begun and your manager one
Speaker 1: has ended. You learn the hard way. Trying to straddle
Speaker 1: the two won't work. So think of your crisis as
Speaker 1: a chrysalis, a rebranding, or dare I say a rebranding.
Speaker 2: Will be back in just a minute.
Speaker 1: With Paramount CTO Bill Wiser. And now here is Heidi
Speaker 1: Chung with her interview with Paramount CTO Phil Weiser from
Speaker 1: the Collision Tech Conference.
Speaker 3: Hi everyone, I'm Heidi, Thanks so much for joining us.
Speaker 3: I'm joined by the Phil Weiser, EDP and Chief Technology
Speaker 3: Officer at Paramount Global.
Speaker 4: We're gonna get real intimate.
Speaker 3: We're gonna talk about all things tech in media, and
Speaker 3: I guess to kick things off, we should start sort
Speaker 3: of from the new beginning, if you will. So the
Speaker 3: merger between Viacom and CBS in twenty nineteen. Tell us
Speaker 3: how the company has sort of evolved since then.
Speaker 5: Well, the merger was a great opportunity to rethink what
Speaker 5: a media company is going forward. We merged CBS and
Speaker 5: Viacom and Paramount Pictures in the end of twenty nineteen,
Speaker 5: and we took that as an opportunity to say, well,
Speaker 5: if I were starting this scale of a media company now,
Speaker 5: how would I rebuild it.
Speaker 2: So we went and looked at everything.
Speaker 5: From the way we produce content, process it, distribute it,
Speaker 5: and obviously building out stream capabilities and from the ground
Speaker 5: up rebuilt that on modern Internet cloud technologies, which is
Speaker 5: a big undertaking with that complex of an organization. But
Speaker 5: now three and a half years later, it's really paying
Speaker 5: off and we've been able to grow some.
Speaker 2: Businesses which we'll talk about on the back of all that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so launch was obviously huge, but now I feel
Speaker 3: like the streaming industry is sort of dealing with a
Speaker 3: new set of challenges.
Speaker 4: So as a consumer, I don't know.
Speaker 3: About all of you, but sometimes I get a little
Speaker 3: frustrated with apps because the user experience isn't necessarily always great, right,
Speaker 3: It's sort of hard to find content that you want
Speaker 3: to watch. Recommendations aren't really that good. So is it
Speaker 3: that something that you're thinking about? At Paramount Global as well.
Speaker 5: Constantly so we'll hit a recommendations and a lot of
Speaker 5: these things were like, it's the new streaming, these are
Speaker 5: new problems to be tackled.
Speaker 2: They're not new at all.
Speaker 5: My last startup was in two thousand and six, and
Speaker 5: the premise of that was to use recommendation and Netflix
Speaker 5: at the same time, it just put out a challenge
Speaker 5: to the tech community to come up with better recommendations.
Speaker 2: So we're here almost twenty years later.
Speaker 5: Still talking about recommendations, right, So it's definitely improving. But
Speaker 5: what we found with recommendations is that user interface integration
Speaker 5: is the key to success. You don't magically pull a
Speaker 5: piece of content up and say you want to watch
Speaker 5: this now. You just have to make sure that you're
Speaker 5: modifying the user interface in real time based on that
Speaker 5: user and also based on the environment that they're in.
Speaker 5: So we're definitely continuing to innovate there. We have an
Speaker 5: applied machine learning group that really is our primary focus
Speaker 5: is on modifying that UI based on now more and
Speaker 5: more AI.
Speaker 3: Okay, so algorithms one way that you're doing that as
Speaker 3: a lot of algorithms, Yeah, okay, great.
Speaker 5: And they're not all AI algorithms. Good old analytics works
Speaker 5: in a lot of cases.
Speaker 3: Okay, So I know everyone here wants to hear Phil
Speaker 3: talk about AI, which we will be getting to in
Speaker 3: short in.
Speaker 4: A short moment, but I do want.
Speaker 3: To talk a little bit about last year. I feel
Speaker 3: like the conversation last year and twenty two was a
Speaker 3: lot about the metaverse. It was a lot about NFTs,
Speaker 3: and I know Paramount Global was definitely playing those areas
Speaker 3: as well. Where do those initiatives sort of stand right now?
Speaker 3: Are you still thinking about investing there?
Speaker 2: Well, why don't we?
Speaker 5: I won't talk about where we're investing completely, but let's
Speaker 5: talk about the blockchain NFT world for a bit. And
Speaker 5: I've been, you know, big on crypto five years ago
Speaker 5: as a storage of value, but you look back and
Speaker 5: there's really no significant blockchain platform outside of value Store
Speaker 5: that's been successful and including NFTs, except for those that
Speaker 5: got in early and got out fast. So you know,
Speaker 5: we're definitely, you know, continuing to look at the space,
Speaker 5: but not investing heavily in that metaverse. We're still looking
Speaker 5: at because there is something beyond a touchscreen computer in
Speaker 5: your pocket that's going to be a primary user interface.
Speaker 2: And if you just walk around here.
Speaker 5: I live in Manhattan, I bump into more people than
Speaker 5: I can count every day with their face stuck in
Speaker 5: a phone trying to walk.
Speaker 2: That heads down experience is going to evolve.
Speaker 5: Where it goes, whether it's you know, Apple's new device
Speaker 5: or something that Matter is doing I'm not really going
Speaker 5: to bet completely on that. Betting against apples generally a
Speaker 5: bad idea, but I do feel like that immersive experience
Speaker 5: is going to get more more interesting.
Speaker 2: I don't think it's going to be a completely.
Speaker 5: Isolated metaverse as we talked about last year, but we're
Speaker 5: still looking at that.
Speaker 3: Give us an update on the NFT stuff that you
Speaker 3: were working on.
Speaker 2: Well, we're still in the market.
Speaker 5: So we started out with a star Trek launch with
Speaker 5: NFTs that were variations of the enterprise. We've done it
Speaker 5: with other brands. We'll work with a company recur that
Speaker 5: stands up a marketplace for that. We're continuing on that path.
Speaker 5: But I think, like everyone, we're just seeing that it's
Speaker 5: kind of it's stalling out to some extent in the market.
Speaker 3: Okay, So when you're thinking about new opportunities when it
Speaker 3: comes to tech within media, how do you assess investing
Speaker 3: in different opportunities that you see and how does that
Speaker 3: conversation sort of play out in the boardroom.
Speaker 5: Well, we follow the consumer, right, so we're not going
Speaker 5: to go to AI you tell me nice when you
Speaker 5: can unleash me, but and we look at what's really
Speaker 5: being adopted and we take an adventure investing approach to
Speaker 5: these technologies.
Speaker 2: We go in small.
Speaker 5: Our metaverse investments have been relatively small. What we're building,
Speaker 5: same thing with other technologies. But I'm really looking at,
Speaker 5: you know, where there's a pivot in consumer adoption because
Speaker 5: while we all know these things are going to happen,
Speaker 5: when into what scale is the hardest thing to predict.
Speaker 5: So we're very i think hopefully smart at being a
Speaker 5: fast follower, making sure we're in talking to the key
Speaker 5: players in these spaces and then we can accelerate when
Speaker 5: the market really diet distraction.
Speaker 4: Okay, so are you ready for AI or.
Speaker 2: I'm always ready for it?
Speaker 4: Okay, let's jump in.
Speaker 3: What is Paramount doing when it comes to AI? How
Speaker 3: are you thinking about it?
Speaker 2: Now?
Speaker 3: AI is not new technology, right, It's been around for
Speaker 3: quite some time, but this is a new revolution that
Speaker 3: we're seeing with generative AI. So what are your personal
Speaker 3: thoughts on it? What is the company doing?
Speaker 5: Well, we'll get to the it's not new thing, but
Speaker 5: I'm glad that it's hitting this next wave. We formed
Speaker 5: our five machine learning groups six years ago, which was
Speaker 5: the last wave in that twenty seventeen timeframe. We started
Speaker 5: talking naturally to computers with Syria and others, and that
Speaker 5: was a big breakthrough in terms of language processing, so
Speaker 5: real time natural language processing. And also we applied it
Speaker 5: a lot for image recognition, so we stood up the
Speaker 5: ability to tag images or video and then we could
Speaker 5: we could modify that. This new phase of generative AI
Speaker 5: to me is a fundamental shift obviously in terms of
Speaker 5: what we can do in all phases of our production
Speaker 5: and distribution. So we're looking at it primarily now in
Speaker 5: terms of globalization, because you know, the ability to automatically
Speaker 5: convert to many languages and release an asset around the
Speaker 5: globe is very challenging and traditionally we've windowed. So if
Speaker 5: we have, say a new episode of Yellowstone, and we
Speaker 5: want to push that around the globe, we have a
Speaker 5: couple months before it hit different regions. Now we want
Speaker 5: that episode to hit everywhere in a couple of weeks,
Speaker 5: which is really not just feasible in many cases. So
Speaker 5: we're looking at how we can apply AI machine learning
Speaker 5: to tackle some of those globalization problems and deal with
Speaker 5: translation and make it feel very natural and high quality,
Speaker 5: because we do feel like it's a global marketplace and
Speaker 5: that's a great opportunity. We're also looking at for visual effects,
Speaker 5: just basic simple visual effects. We talked about rotoscoping a
Speaker 5: little earlier. I think we've got a ton of people
Speaker 5: that are in their manually editing video. We applied this
Speaker 5: actually to the Cobert Show, one of our CBS properties,
Speaker 5: where they have to turn around some of these video
Speaker 5: clips in a matter of hours.
Speaker 2: Based on recent news, we took.
Speaker 5: A couple of our editors and applied this and they
Speaker 5: took a five hour task of creating a comedy clip
Speaker 5: and did it in ten minutes. So that just proves
Speaker 5: that and they're thrilled because the creative idea was there,
Speaker 5: they knew what they wanted to do, and then they
Speaker 5: had hours of manual labor to.
Speaker 2: Get to the end result.
Speaker 5: In this case, they could flip that around very quickly
Speaker 5: and move on to the next thing. So I think
Speaker 5: there's going to be a lot of impact on production
Speaker 5: and then also marketing we.
Speaker 2: Should talk about as well.
Speaker 5: Tell us well, you know, as a media company, we
Speaker 5: spend almost all of our money on creating content and
Speaker 5: marketing it.
Speaker 2: And marketing is.
Speaker 5: Really a great application for AI right now because generally
Speaker 5: the content you're producing is derivative of the original content,
Speaker 5: and the machine learning algorithms now and AI are very
Speaker 5: good at modifying existing content or introducing new elements of
Speaker 5: existing content. So we're applying that, you know, at scale
Speaker 5: to marketing again for globalization, also to create a lot
Speaker 5: of different variants, so we can create different versions of
Speaker 5: a promo clip or a trailer for a feature from
Speaker 5: different audiences very quickly, which is now very manual.
Speaker 2: So we see a lot of opportunity in that.
Speaker 3: Okay, So, Phil, judging by the way that you're speaking
Speaker 3: about AI and the way that paramount is leveraged.
Speaker 2: Why did you get it?
Speaker 3: You sound really optimistic, but we know that there are
Speaker 3: concerns out there, right, So despite your bullishness, what are
Speaker 3: your thoughts on sort of the idea that creatives are like, well,
Speaker 3: are we going to be out of a job in
Speaker 3: a few years?
Speaker 4: Is a I going to take over? And are they
Speaker 4: going to be writing scripts?
Speaker 3: Are they going to be you know, help helping with
Speaker 3: production to the point where some producers won't even be needed. Like,
Speaker 3: what are your thoughts on those concerns job security for
Speaker 3: the creatives.
Speaker 5: Well, there's there's a basic reality that this wave of
Speaker 5: technology will shift where people need to spend their time working.
Speaker 2: You just can't deny that.
Speaker 5: But I think it's been overhyped that this AI is
Speaker 5: going to go and generate a script, generate novel, new
Speaker 5: ideas that replace what humans are doing. I think it's
Speaker 5: you know, maybe it'll get there over time.
Speaker 2: And I've had a lot of debates on that topic
Speaker 2: about what that is.
Speaker 5: It's kind of a more consciousness existential question that I
Speaker 5: won't get into. But the ability to assist in the
Speaker 5: way I describe that editor on the lay show is
Speaker 5: very real. So we're looking in from a tool perspective,
Speaker 5: and even in the writer's room, if a writer can
Speaker 5: have an idea and then turn that into a couple
Speaker 5: pages of text, and then curate and modify that, and
Speaker 5: even take that idea and say I want to see
Speaker 5: what that looks like in a desert and see you know,
Speaker 5: pre visualization of that work in almost real time, that's
Speaker 5: going to make their creative process much more powerful. And
Speaker 5: I think we're gonna get more ideas, we're gonna have
Speaker 5: more content. And the one thing we're learning from the
Speaker 5: streaming wars that we're all in still is, you know,
Speaker 5: consumers having limitless appetite for content, which is great as
Speaker 5: a content company. So we're going to have to continue
Speaker 5: to create more even when the pressure is there on
Speaker 5: streaming to be profitable, which you know, the level of
Speaker 5: high quality theatrical grade episodic content that we're producing is now,
Speaker 5: you know, not maintainable. We're gonna have to figure out
Speaker 5: how to produce that high quality content at a lower cost.
Speaker 3: So Paramount is a company with a treasure trove of
Speaker 3: IP right from SpongeBob to you name it.
Speaker 4: Paramount has created it.
Speaker 3: So when we're thinking about AI and intellectual property and
Speaker 3: protecting that IP, how are you sort of thinking about
Speaker 3: that now?
Speaker 5: Well, there's a couple elements, Like one is understanding what
Speaker 5: our rights are and what I did a presentation for
Speaker 5: our senior leadership team at Paramount back in December where
Speaker 5: I lost the Saturday. I'm sure many if you have
Speaker 5: lost a Saturday playing around with mid Journey, Dolly, you
Speaker 5: name it chat.
Speaker 2: GBT three had just come out. But I did a
Speaker 2: presentation and I went in there and I generated.
Speaker 5: A picture of the transformers on the Paramount Pictures lot,
Speaker 5: which blew people away. Like we knew there would be
Speaker 5: a character from transformers in one of these models, but
Speaker 5: the fact that it could place it on our lots
Speaker 5: next to our cafe bleue people away. Just a level
Speaker 5: of information that's in there right now. Now we're not
Speaker 5: blocking that. Right now, we're trying to understand what it
Speaker 5: means for us, But there will be more and more
Speaker 5: regulation coming in. I was actually somewhat pleased to see
Speaker 5: what was coming out in Washington, DC is ideas from
Speaker 5: Congress that were pretty pragmatic and not just going straight
Speaker 5: to it. All has to be explainable. You have to
Speaker 5: tell us everything you're training your models on. But more
Speaker 5: of like, if it's clearly a violation of copyright, there
Speaker 5: has to be some way that we can.
Speaker 2: Take action on it.
Speaker 3: I mean what you're saying with regulation, but I feel
Speaker 3: like if we've seen any other big tech hearing, these
Speaker 3: people sometimes don't know what they're talking about, right, So
Speaker 3: when it comes to AI, they seem a lot more
Speaker 3: I guess read up on it, more understanding of the technology.
Speaker 3: But do you think the government can regulate quickly enough?
Speaker 3: Because this technology is so quick right, It's rapidly evolving.
Speaker 3: So I guess like, are there any concerns on that
Speaker 3: front at all.
Speaker 5: Yeah, my view is they should do the best they
Speaker 5: can while not doing damage. And that's actually what I
Speaker 5: liked hearing coming out, was that kind of mindset that
Speaker 5: clearly this is going to move faster than we can
Speaker 5: stop it. This moratorium concept's kind of ridiculous. Nobody's going
Speaker 5: to do that. But if we're thoughtful and we have
Speaker 5: people like Sam Oupman coming in and talking to us,
Speaker 5: then we can figure out what makes sense in the
Speaker 5: near term and set us up for a longer term.
Speaker 5: I think doing nothing is the wrong thing to do.
Speaker 2: I really do.
Speaker 5: And we've learned our lesson from social media, which you've
Speaker 5: heard a lot, so I.
Speaker 2: Think doing something but being thoughtful is the right right approach.
Speaker 3: Okay, so to put you on the spot, but to
Speaker 3: kind of put you on the spot. Give us a
Speaker 3: little bit of a prediction where you think AI within
Speaker 3: media and entertainment could potentially be in the next six
Speaker 3: months to twelve months. Do you think it'll still be
Speaker 3: talk of the town? Are we still going to be
Speaker 3: talking about this at every conference? What are your thoughts there.
Speaker 5: I'm not sure where the hype is going to go
Speaker 5: off the other side of it. I think we will,
Speaker 5: because you know, if you just look at the adoption
Speaker 5: rate and the stickiness of the consumer facing tools, there's
Speaker 5: something there that's going to persist. I think on the
Speaker 5: production side, it's going to be slower because we've got
Speaker 5: these complicated labor issues and we want to make sure
Speaker 5: we get it right and there's going to be a
Speaker 5: lot of questions around quality. But I think there's going
Speaker 5: to be a Pixar moment where some creative really leans
Speaker 5: into this, like a James Cameron type figure who knows
Speaker 5: who it is and figures out how to apply this
Speaker 5: to a story that's really compelling, and can you deal
Speaker 5: with the limitations of video generated this way but really
Speaker 5: blow people away in terms of the way it impacts them.
Speaker 5: I don't know when that's going to come, but somebody's
Speaker 5: going to do it, and I think that's when, on
Speaker 5: the creative side, we get a real tip in the market.
Speaker 4: Great.
Speaker 3: Great, Okay, So let's take a little bit of a
Speaker 3: step back. I feel like we talked quite a bit
Speaker 3: about AI. I do want to get some additional insights
Speaker 3: from you on just what else within whether it's streaming,
Speaker 3: within production, Like what other tech strategies are you thinking
Speaker 3: about operationally right now.
Speaker 5: You know what's interesting we didn't touch on is it's
Speaker 5: actually a VR variant is virtual productions. So the Mandalorians, obviously,
Speaker 5: if you've heard of it, the Mandalorian was filmed on
Speaker 5: a virtual set, so they didn't have to go to
Speaker 5: a physical set. It was all led volumes and that
Speaker 5: approach took a while to figure out. But now a
Speaker 5: lot of content is being shot inside of a game engine.
Speaker 5: So the use of Unreal engine in the middle of
Speaker 5: high quality productions is I think going to continue to
Speaker 5: take off. And Epics done a great job, you know,
Speaker 5: updating the Unreal engine for high quality video production. So
Speaker 5: I think that's going to be a really big, super
Speaker 5: interesting trends.
Speaker 3: One other thing, I feel like we have to talk
Speaker 3: about gaming because the last panel really went in heavily there.
Speaker 3: But you know, we have companies like Netflix making bets
Speaker 3: on gaming. A lot of folks in media think that's
Speaker 3: like the next big opportunity.
Speaker 4: How do you view gaming at paramount?
Speaker 5: I think gaming is a great, huge market. Obviously it's eclipsed,
Speaker 5: you know, the theatrical market. But we like to license
Speaker 5: our brands and the people that know how to make
Speaker 5: those experiences. I'm a skeptic that integrating a lean forward
Speaker 5: gaming experience into the middle of a laid back video
Speaker 5: passive consumption experience, I don't think it makes any sense,
Speaker 5: and people can I debate that all the time, So I'm,
Speaker 5: you know, not the only one thinking that.
Speaker 2: I have a lot of people that don't agree.
Speaker 5: But it just it hasn't It hasn't played out, and
Speaker 5: I've played around with people that have tried to do
Speaker 5: different narratives, and the one thing that I would point
Speaker 5: to is five years ago, everyone thought all streaming services
Speaker 5: were going to be consumed on mobile phones. That was
Speaker 5: obvious logic given what happened in the in the twenty tens,
Speaker 5: and what we're seeing now is most of the video
Speaker 5: minutes consumed are on a lean back, big screen TV,
Speaker 5: and that is something that we have to learn from
Speaker 5: to say there is a distinction between those experiences, and
Speaker 5: I just don't see the convergence of them at a
Speaker 5: single UI. I think there's going to be more and
Speaker 5: more gaming that's derivative from RIP, but I don't see
Speaker 5: it completely.
Speaker 4: Integrated rest in piece quibi right, But.
Speaker 5: Look, the next phase of it could be something beyond
Speaker 5: leaning down and touching a little screening you have to
Speaker 5: carry around in your pocket. And you know what Apple
Speaker 5: unveiled in terms of a very high quality, large scale,
Speaker 5: leaned back experience.
Speaker 2: That could be the shift.
Speaker 5: And we've been poking around at that for ten years
Speaker 5: as well to get the form factor of the hardware right,
Speaker 5: get through some of the physical limitations of that. But
Speaker 5: if they get it right, that could be the next
Speaker 5: shift to make it more interactive.
Speaker 3: So mixed reality, mixed reality, Yeah, I mean I was
Speaker 3: pretty shocked when ball By came out on stage with
Speaker 3: or he came out to talk about that. I was
Speaker 3: not expecting that, But it looks like a lot of
Speaker 3: folks are thinking about that being a major, major opportunity
Speaker 3: going forward. So anything else that you kind of want
Speaker 3: us to be thinking about when we're thinking about technology
Speaker 3: within media and entertainment, Well.
Speaker 5: Hit on the AI thing again because I think there's
Speaker 5: a big challenge to the technology and entrepreneurial community, like
Speaker 5: nobody can create great video with AI, yet, like you've
Speaker 5: got people I'm on multiple Twitter feeds every day.
Speaker 2: If people like.
Speaker 5: AI is going to take over Hollywood and then you
Speaker 5: go watch the same stylized dogs you.
Speaker 2: Know, shooting guns clips that.
Speaker 5: Are stitched together and like, that's not going to kill Hollywood,
Speaker 5: and then when you look at the video, it's very flickery.
Speaker 5: So there's fundamental architecture issues that need to be resolved.
Speaker 5: So whoever can figure out how to build a multimodal
Speaker 5: system that stitches together different models and can be a
Speaker 5: real high quality production tool in the middle of these
Speaker 5: video creation processes, that's that's super interesting. I'd love to
Speaker 5: talk to anyone that has ideas on that because I'm
Speaker 5: you know, going deep on it and working with the
Speaker 5: big companies and it's to me that's the uncharted territory
Speaker 5: at this point is really you know, getting video production,
Speaker 5: you know, coming out of these models in.
Speaker 2: A meaningful way.
Speaker 3: But by your estimate, how difficult and how long do
Speaker 3: you think that would take.
Speaker 5: I've got my you know, my six months you know,
Speaker 5: deep dive view on it. I think there's going to
Speaker 5: have to be an architectural shift in the models. So
Speaker 5: you know, GPTs are not going to solve it. So
Speaker 5: I think it's not a matter of just throwing a
Speaker 5: bunch of data at it. There's going to have to
Speaker 5: be some architecture design, which means it's going to take
Speaker 5: a little bit longer. But I would imagine there's so
Speaker 5: much energy around it. In the next say two to
Speaker 5: three years, there'll be something really significant that breaksthrough, hopefully
Speaker 5: a GPT type of technology breakthrough that enables it to perform.
Speaker 2: Better for video.
Speaker 4: Any other parting thoughts, No, just keep going at it.
Speaker 5: It's really excited. We didn't talk about it. My background
Speaker 5: is the startup land. I came out of the area
Speaker 5: if you're invested in a couple of dozen and started
Speaker 5: two of my own companies.
Speaker 2: So I just love the energy here. It's great, good
Speaker 2: it could be here, real hunter.
Speaker 3: Thank you Phil, Thanks everyone, have a good day.
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