Shut Your Laptop List: Don't F with Colin Jost's bae!

If you’ve ever worked in communications, you know there’s always some email you get on a Friday that threatens your ability to shut your laptop and transition into your weekend with peace of mind. Every week, we plan to bring you an email to counteract that. While we can’t save you from every source of weekend angst, the Shut Your Laptop List should help you go into your weekly respite feeling smarter, inspired or (if we’re really killing it) chuckling a little. Let’s go.

Google sets the media world ablaze by announcing more AI at the top of search results (CNN)

Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway possibly had the most interesting take on this news on Pivot this week while pondering what challenges loom in the future for publishers as Google seeks to transplant more info from news sites directly into search results in the form of summaries. This move would further negate anyone’s need to click through to a site. The impacts on some of your favorite news businesses could be grave, given that the business model of the majority of media companies continue to depend on large search-driven audiences to generate ad dollars.

So what are publishers (or really anyone who operates a website and wants people to actually visit it) to do? The web will look extremely different if a large language model can comb through sites to drop the answers to any question right into search results. Decentralized web: goodbye. What’s even more insane – how do we address the very real “hallucinations” that AI sometimes delivers in its summaries? The confident way that bots sometimes deliver 100% erroneous information represents a big problem, and a looming brand reputation problem for search engines.

Should publishers and creators across the web organize to put their foot down and say enough’s enough with the deterioration of the current web model? If search engines want to pull content into results summaries, should that content need to be fully licensed, transparently cited, with source links prominently embedded? That’s a stretch given the current disarray of approaches to engagement with the largest AI players like OpenAI, Google, Anthropic and others.

OpenAI, founded on transparency, unleashes its voice-enabled GPT by pilfering a famous voice, according to a new claim. Or did they? 

Sam Altman’s favorite movie got his company and its latest release dragged by global star Scarlett Johansson…and an increasing number of tech “ethicists.” If you haven’t seen ScarJo’s statement yet, you’ve been living under a rock. But…

…Twist! The OpenAI team in charge of the program says, nope! They had been working with the voice actor since June of last year and weren’t aware of Sam Altman’s interest in Johansson.

These timelines are so chaotic and make one thing clear: a CEO waded into water (i.e., the weeds) that ultimately caused more harm than good. It’s something many in our business experience regularly: the 'executive swoop-and-poop.’

It's all over the headlines and possibly headed for court, and let us never forget:  ScarJo and her attorneys KNOW how to prevail in a protracted PR skirmish.)

Against this backdrop of what seems like daily updates about the doom of AI replacing humanity – not to mention the recent departures of several senior leaders – one has to ask if OpenAI needs an injection of “adults in the room” to remain the darling it initially built itself up to be. And we’re maybe seeing what the OpenAI board feared when they tired to rid the company of Altman last year. We’re watching with our popcorn bowls out! 

Regardless of what happened when, this foments a deeper swirl in the already agitated creative community and is another moment of enigmatic tech CEO being seen as an agent of chaos. 

Pour one out for our marketing and comms brethren at TikTok (CNN)

While it’s been reported that it’s unrelated to the company's political turmoil, TikTok is apparently poised to lay off potentially 1,000+ employees across its teams that support communications, marketing and operations. This signals that the company is either: 1) planning to rely on more automated processes to tell its story externally; or 2) pivoting away from its extensive marcomm efforts given its strong market dominance but low reputational lift resulting from tons of PR.

Peloton takes a strong stance on Bad Boy music (Vulture)

When you counsel leaders of a consumer-facing brand, it never hurts to proactively advise on actions that can be taken to stand in solidarity with your customers…and the little things matter too. Peloton’s put a halt on using music produced by Sean “Diddy” Combs’ label, a step that fitness enthusiasts are likely to see as favorable in the short and long runs.

Now when’s Peloton going to start popping out more fitness innovations that can course correct its balance sheet? 🤷