Sell Off
“Sell Off” – a cartoon that illustrates how one of the next big trends can restore big tech’s profits.
Last week, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta and Microsoft combined lost over $350 billion in market cap after their latest quarter results and forecast for the remainder of the year.
Contributing factors to this is a slowdown in advertising revenue, which impacted even Google’s traditionally recession proof search ad business, and the considerable headwinds these companies are facing to their next generation technology bets (e.g. Metaverse, AR/VR, autonomous vehicles).
However, there is one trend that the large platform companies are very well placed for, which is only just now starting to get traction.
Generative AI enables computers to learn the underlying pattern related to the input, and then use that to generate similar content.
For example, ingesting text, audio files, or images of existing manufacturing designs to create completely new products, which is a method General Motors used to redesign a seat belt bracket using Autodesk’s generative design solution and metal 3D printing.
With the huge investment in AI by big tech over the last decade, perhaps generative AI’s ability to upend the media, art, architecture, and many other creative industries will prove a quicker way to restore their fortunes.
