When it comes to artificial intelligence, Melody Hildebrandt prefers to get her hands dirty.
The chief technology officer of Fox keeps a finger on the pulse on what’s happening with technology by digging into AI models herself to see what’s capable.
“I have to spin up this app and write an app from scratch to actually be, like, ‘Wow this is incredible,’” she told TheWrap. “There is really no substitute for being hands on.”
Hildebrandt and Nicole Parlapiano, chief marketing officer of Tubi, joined me in a roundtable session called “AI in Hollywood: Recoding Content and Creativity.” The discussion touched on different facets of AI, from how to get employees to embrace the technology to the inevitable question about job displacement.
Hildebrandt and Parlapiano’s comments offer a glimpse into how major media companies are employing AI, as well as their strategies on ensuring that it’s done in an effective and logical manner. It’s an acknowledgement that even as some in Hollywood regard AI as a “dirty word,” many are embracing the technology and the advancements they bring.
To watch the full panel, go here. The following are five of the most insightful things I learned about their use of AI.
A bottoms-up approach to AI
Too many C-suite executives are mandating the use of AI by their employees without giving proper guidance or even understanding what that means. It’s understandable that companies want their employees to be comfortable with the rise of AI, but blanket edicts aren’t effective.
Besides, at least 800 million people each week use OpenAI’s ChatGPT, so they’re probably figuring this stuff out on their own.
But when it comes to work, a more effective approach would be to figure out a problem you want to solve, and determine what AI tools can provide a solution, according to Parlapiano.
“Using AI and having all these tools just to have them is not a really good place to start,” she said. “If you’re thinking about a problem or gap in the business, and you’re thinking about how (AI) can help you overcome it, I think it’s a lot cleaner.”
Hildenbrandt said Fox is providing tools to employees based more on demand, with people coming to her central team asking about AI models they’ve heard about from other companies and asking for advice on how to utilize or even experiment with them.
A contrarian view on jobs
The common belief/fear is that AI is coming for our jobs. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said he believes AI will wipe out half of all entry-level white-collar jobs over the next one to five years — which may be a bit of an aggressive estimate.
That entry-level aspect is worrisome, with AI potentially killing off talent pipelines.
But neither Hildenbrandt and Parlapiano believe that’s the case.
“We’re in entertainment. If we don’t have young people on our teams, we don’t have a forward-thinking business,” Parlapiano said. “If I don’t have young people coming in, then they’re not giving us a perspective on what people want to watch, what’s trending, what’s cool, what talent we should be excited about.”
Hildenbrandt noted that one benefit of hiring younger employees is that some are already versed in AI. She mentioned an engineer that her team hired out of college who told her that gen AI coding tools made him 10 times the engineer he was before.
“The bar has been raised where you expect more out of entry-level talent,” she said. “You’re not just farming out grunt-level work now to entry-level talent. We have high expectations now that people who are hitting the ground are able to move to the next level.”
Parlapiano added: “They have been living this, and I think as you see on a lot of Gen AI tools, they are adopting way faster than older cohorts.”
Hildebrandt noted that middle managers may feel the squeeze, with entry level employees leveling up and higher level managers doing more hands-on work.
As for jobs in general, Parlapiano made the point that marketing departments already run lean despite high demands, and that AI will be able to remove some of the time-consuming tasks rather than outright replace anyone.
“I don’t see that fear on my team and with the people I’m working with,” she said. “We’ve all been kind of playing a game of whack-a-mole, just trying to figure out, how do you prioritize multiple objectives?”
Embracing AI means making less trade offs and scaling up a team’s capabilities more effectively, she added.
Repackaging content
Hildenbrandt touched on more personalized experiences with the concept of short-form video on its newly launched Fox One streaming service. She said the videos are built in an AI pipeline that repackages all of the company’s linear content into vertical short-form videos.
This system allows these shorts to more quickly tap into a viral moment in a match or a game-winning touchdown. Or they can be created based on conceptual ideas like a rundown of the biggest comebacks over the weekend, and not just simply by teams or players, she said.
Another example is if you come into a show or game late, AI will be able to quickly assemble a recap video to get you up to speed, she added.
The next phase, she added, was using AI to identify key moments in the game that aren’t as obvious as a touchdown or play, like a spontaneous moment between players that goes viral, and then quickly repackaging that as a short video to be sent out to audiences.
“It’s not just how you merchandise existing content and bring the most relevant stuff to consumers, but how do you actually cut, repackage, reshape that content, and then how do you enrich it to bring entirely new consumer experiences?” she said. “That’s an exciting new frontier.”
A post-SEO world
We’re quickly moving away from a search engine-driven experience on the internet, where answers are now summarized by AI. Down the line, these queries will be handled by bots talking to other bots, with humans potentially having even less exposure to the search process.
“I think the top line principle is we recognize that the internet, increasingly, the vast majority of traffic is going to be bots, not humans,” Hildebrandt said. “So basically the internet is being rewritten right now.”
That potential future already has companies thinking about how to remain relevant.
“We’ve been so old school search focused for so long, it’s such an efficient driver of conversion that it actually kind of flips it back to where you have to be more top of funnel, and you have to think about like, how do I get people talking about my brand?” Parlapiano said.
Hildenbrandt added it was also thinking about how to optimize your online content for bots instead of humans, but also that media companies, creators and publishers will need to fight to ensure their content is appropriately represented in the new search reality.
Authenticity matters
In the age of AI, having an authentic voice makes even more of a difference.
“We hear it all the time, that word, people want authentic connections,” Parlapiano said. “They want to hear authentic stories.”
When so many tasks and ideas are being generated bot, she added there’s a bigger need to trust where you’re getting your news and content from.