Welcome to an end-of-week update from Unmade. Today: we look back on another busy week of AI developments affecting the media and marketing space. And further down, the TV players fade on the Unmade Index while both out of home players head up.
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The HumAIn week:
Cloudflare blocks AI bots by default
Internet backend platform Cloudflare changed settings for new customers to block AI crawler bots by default in a move that attracted the support of major publishers. Cloudflare operates on about 20% of all websites, and claims a significant proportion of all net traffic. More
Intel replacing marketers with AI
Intel is outsourcing much of its marketing function to Accenture, which plans to make heavy use of AI. Those affected by the changes will know their fate by July 11. More
OpenAI explores ads for ChatGPT
OpenAI said it was considering integrating advertising into ChatGPT, positioning itself as a serious competitor to Google in AI-powered search. ChatGPT claims 800 million weekly users. More
Microsoft to lay off thousands to balance AI costs
Microsoft said it would make 9000 roles redundant, following on from 6000 layoffs in June. The layoffs are to include sales, comms and marketing roles, and come as Microsoft said it would continue to step up CAPEX spending on AI infrastructure. More
Meta lures AI talent with big salaries
Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta staged a talent raid on OpenAI and other leading AI companies to staff its superintelligence lab. Some top talent have reportedly been offered packages of up to A$450 million over four years to defect. The raid could have a general inflationary impact on AI wages. More
TV companies fall, as out of home players lift
Tim Burrowes writes:
The Unmade Index slumped into negative territory on Thursday despite the wider ASX All Ordinaries being up slightly for the day.
The worst performer of the day was Vinyl Group, with the music tech and publishing company losing 6% to land on a $145m market capitalisation.
Both of the listed TV companies fell, with Seven West Media losing 3.3% and Nine dropping 1.2%.
Meanwhile, the two out of home companies bucked the trend with both Ooh Media and Motio rising by 2%.
The Unmade Index, which measures the performance of all the locally listed media and marketing stocks, closed on 568.5 points, down by 0.64% on the previous day - the biggest fall since June 19..
More from Mumbrella…
Opinion: Just trust us – we’re Qantas
Dr Mumbo: Vinyl’s big vision (vision to follow)
Time to leave you to your morning.
We’ll be back with Best of the Week tomorrow.
And if you’re in the publishing world, don’t forget that the final deadline for the Publish Awards is the end of business today. Whichever part of the publishing world you’re involved in, there are relevant categories for you.
Hal Crawford
Editorial Director, Mumbrella
hcrawford@mumbrella.com.au