AI in the End Zone 🏈🤖

👀 TLDR

In this week’s What’s Appening, we cover the big push from AI companies to get noticed at the Super Bowl, including the mysterious and super-expensive ad from AI.com that proved to be a bust in more ways than one. We also take a look at an app that could trick you into cutting your screentime, why some users are getting annoyed with YouTube, some happy figures from Spotify, and some discord at Discord. We’ll also bring you the latest from here at 3Advance.

🎬 Our Top Take

🏈🤖  Super Bowl – AI Pops and Flops in Adverts Stakes

It is the case – whether we like it or not – that Super Bowl adverts are almost as big a talking point as the game itself. This year, we got a lot of celebrity-endorsed action, from Serena Williams flogging weight-loss jabs to Coinbase’s weird Backstreet Boys karaoke. But AI was the dominant force, as expected, accounting for 23% of ad space. Anthropic alone dropped four separate ads. The AI company that caught our eye, though? AI.com, but not for the right reasons. AI.com came onto our radar a while back, when its CEO, Kris Marszalek, announced that he had purchased the AI.com domain for $70 million – the most expensive in history (they claim). Marszalek founded Crypto.com, so he knows a thing or two about expensive domains. Anyway, AI.com’s provocative $15 million advert was always going to cause a rush to the website to see what all the fuss was about, and it did. And, yes, the website crashed. Marszalek claimed that the site was hitting Google rate limits because so many people were trying to “Continue With Google” (so they don’t have to create new login details) to sign up to an AI.com account. Seems plausible. And what, then, does AI.com do? Well, it will – one day – launch personal AI agents. The website has very sparse text, promising something vague but revolutionary (it reads like cryptocurrency-style marketing to us). Already, publications like PC Mag are raising concerns about the project, calling the fine print “scary”. #AIBowl Read more here.

📲 App of the Week: One Sec

There are a lot of apps out there that can help cut down on screen time, but we are somewhat impressed by One Sec’s psychological trick. In effect, One Sec will cause selected apps – social media apps for most of us – to pause after you click on them to open, giving you a chance to reconsider if you really want to start doomscrolling. It does work, especially if you are one of those people who open social media without thinking. We’d be skeptical of One Sec’s claim that it saves two hours of screen time per day, but every little helps. Get it for iOS here and Android here.

🧐 Stat of the Week: 5 Views

📈📉 YouTube – Non-Paying Users Will Be Limited from Seeing Song Lyrics

On the face of it, this is just a minor story: YouTube Music will limit song lyrics to 5 views, after which you’ll need to upgrade to a paid account. Big deal. Yet, it is just another small thing added to the litany of grievances from users who believe YouTube is getting worse. Indeed, many are calling it the poster child for “enshittification.” From unskippable ads to AI slop, there are entire Reddit threads dedicated to YouTube’s deterioration. It has, of course, a right to upsell its product, but, you know, with $60 billion in ad revenue last year, ‘free’ users are already paying. #BooTube Read more here.

🗞️ Other Stories

📍 Meanwhile at 3Advance

Last weekend, Darren and Paul joined the rest of Shift’s founding team in Chicago, Darren’s adopted town. The annual Ireland Network Chicago’s 22nd Annual Ball has become somewhat legendary in recent years. For a city that prides itself on its St Patrick’s Day celebrations, this is the unofficial start to St Paddy’s Day season. While there was no literal green river, there was a river of green dresses, tuxes, and the kind of atmosphere you’d usually find at an Irish Wedding. This was the first event Shift’s been involved with in Chicago, but certainly not the last.