Making Sense of the IBM Layoffs
Loosing Faith
When I first started writing this newsletter, I was an enthusiastic booster of all things AI. It reminded me of the early days of the World Wide Web and I thought AI had the potential to change the world. How quickly things change. In Tuesday’s newsletter I covered a press release from IBM (dated 3/06/24) about how excited they were to be incorporating Adobe’s AI tools for their creative staff of 20,000. Since I write this newsletter primarily for my former students, I’m always looking for context and clues about how generative AI fits into the creative workplace. Imagine my surprise, yesterday (3/13/24), when I learned that IBM is Slashing Jobs in their Marketing and Communications Division. I’m still going to file this under ‘rumor’ and ‘speculation’ because the news hasn’t been made public yet, but if it turns out to be true, it’s another harbinger of things to come.
IBM told employees in its marketing and communications division that it’s slashing the size of its staff, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. Jonathan Adashek, IBM’s chief communications officer, made the announcement in a roughly seven-minute meeting with staffers in the unit, said the person, who asked not to be named because the news hasn’t been made public.
Amazon, Google Quietly Tamp Down Generative AI Expectations
I’m also going to file this one under ‘rumor’ and ‘speculation’ because it’s coming from a paywalled article and I only have the lead. However, the source is ‘The Information’, a very reputable tech publication. Take it with a grain of salt:
In the past year, major technology firms have championed generative artificial intelligence as the next big thing, boosting the stock market to new highs. But behind the scenes, representatives of major cloud providers and other firms that sell the technology are tempering expectations with their salespeople, saying the hype about the technology has gotten ahead of what it can actually do for customers at a reasonable price. Several executives, product managers and salespeople at the major cloud providers, such as Microsoft, Amazon Web Services and Google, also privately said most of their customers are being cautious or deliberate about increasing spending on new AI services, given the high price of running the software, its shortcomings in terms of accuracy and the difficulty of determining how much value they’ll get out of it.
Why it matters: This might sound a little cynical, but big tech can no longer be counted on as a reliable career path.
Wieden and Kennedy Lays off 20% of Staff
I’ve been a big fan of the ad agency Weiden and Kennedy since I got into design 25 years ago. They’ve done all the major creative campaigns for Nike and I basically thought they were immortal. Perhaps I’m revealing how naive I am, as this was big surprise #2 in the recent week. Fast Company reports that W+K laid off 20% of it’s Portland, OR staff, or 90 people. While this might not sound like much, it’s also a significant indicator.
It used to be that agencies could expect and depend on a consistent list of work for their clients—a certain number of TV commercials, print ads, promotional assets, social media work—but that has gradually changed. Now agencies are pitching clients on ideas—and their ability to creatively and strategically execute them—rather than how they might specifically come to life. This means that the bulk of heavy lifting, and consequently agency staffing, leans heavier toward the creative and strategy side of things, rather than production.
Why it matters: While this is bad news if you’re an entry level creative, it’s not as bleak as the news from IBM. There are still opportunities for those of you pursuing a creative path.
If you’re still in design school, you might find some solace in this article about Reddit users, most of whom are confident that a human element is still going to be needed in the design process
The Latest Updates from Sora
It looks like Sora wont be available for at least a few months and probably not until fall. And those awesome demo videos you saw aren’t actually available as a product where you see a result instantly. From what I’m reading, the promised 60 seconds of video at 1080p could take up to an hour to generate and by the time you get your hands on Sora, it will probably still be giving us 4-7 seconds video at a time. If you’d like to watch a masterclass in evasion and obfuscation, check out the Wall Street Journal exclusive interview with Open AI CTO Mira Murati, as she refuses to answer the question as to where OpenAI is getting it’s training data. Check it out
Pika Labs Now Has SoundFX and Lip Synch
Never a dull moment in the AI video tool space, as Pika Labs introduces both Lip Synching and Sound Effects to accompany those video clips you’re generating. All of the AI video tools are rapidly adding new features and the trend I’m seeing is that by summertime, you’ll see tools morph into mini-video editing suites where you can generate and assemble video and audio in the same browser based tool. LTX studio is the first one, scheduled to launch in late March, and I expect others to follow.
Google’s Best Practices for AI/UX design
If you just need a quick start guide to get on board, this is a great article. It’s derived from Google’s much longer PAIR (People + AI Research) guidelines, but it wont take all weekend a pot of coffee to get through it. Check it out
That’s it for me for this week. The weather is supposed to be sunny all weekend and I’m definitely going to spend time outside, but I’ll still try to get another newsletter out by Monday. As always, if you have any questions, suggestions, or hot tips, send me a message!