ON_Discourse is a global network of technology, business and innovation leaders, investors and entrepreneurs who pursue deeper perspective, meaningful connections and business opportunities through the discipline of discourse.
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PERSPECTIVE
How to evaluate the effectiveness of AI investment
Do what you love and let AI do the rest
NEWSLETTER
Weekly Provocation: Media is disrupting AI, too
A dispatch from a NYC conference about AI and the media reveals a complicated relationship between media and AI. The media industry is more than interested; they are frustrated by the limitations of AI. Specifically, the loading time of AI summaries is a big problem.
PODCAST
Episode #002
Toby and Dan talk about their trip to Lisbon for Web Summit, legal protections for agents, and why the internet sucks (and how it could be better).
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IN THE TRADES
Beware of Hype
What if that sudden surge of attention and sales comes is not the thing you were looking for all along? One of our founding members bursts the hype bubble in Design Week UK.
FEATURE RECAP
2nd Annual EOY Provocations Zoom
Predictions are boring. What if we prepared for 2025 with provocations instead? For the second year in a row, we asked our members to provoke the new year with a series of questions, statements, and feelings.
Twelve Provocations About 2025
Matt Chmiel
11•29•24
NEWSLETTER
Weekly Provocation: AI Compliance will be codified by 2026. Are you ready for it?
Who is liable when an AI agent says the wrong thing? The platform that hosts it, the brand that uses it, the developer that programmed it, or the model that trained it? While the black box of AI makes for good legal discourse, you should pay attention if you are developing an agent.
RECAP
AI and the Law
Are agents protected under Section 230? What is the deal with the Colorado AI Act?
Matt Chmiel
11•15•24
This expert thinks the hottest thing in eCommerce is better site search.
Matt Chmiel
11•08•24
NEWSLETTER
Weekly Provocation: The emotional web is a gold mine.
An emotional web can help us understand ourselves better; understand how we can change our habits, and do it without judgment and with empathy. What if we were able to do this without pharmacology? This is the opportunity that lies ahead.
PODCAST
Introducing the ON_Discourse Podcast
Our team preps for an upcoming summit about the future of the connected home. Can tech bring families together or will smart-toasters rule the home?
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NEWSLETTER
Weekly Provocation: Nothing can stop AI-generated media.
We are going from a mass-media content supply chain to a personalized one. Tomorrow, 90% of what we consume will be personalized, generated, and unique to each individual. You may not want it. You may not like it. You may think it will start a civil war. The one thing you won’t be able to do is stop it.
RECAP
Inevitable AI?
A room full of executives argues against an unstoppable AI invasion.
Matt Chmiel
10•10•24
FEATURE
Does AI Get Brands?
Can an LLM truly understand and then replicate the values that made good brands great?
James Cooper
FEATURE
Your Dumb House
When will all of our connected devices start making sense? A new era of connectivity is coming.
Overheard at ON_Discourse
MEMBER EXPERIENCE
October 10, 9 - 11am • Gemma NYC
We’re bringing together business leaders and AI experts to debate the question in the context of entertainment and marketing.
RECAP
SaaS is a Trick
You spend a lot of money to stay in what this founder called “data jail.” Can AI break you out of expensive SaaS contracts?
Matt Chmiel
10•03•24
NEWSLETTER
Weekly Provocation: AI Is the Ultimate Manager
People are weird. They have feelings and those things are a mess. Despite this factory flaw, we have collectively decided that the best way to turn emotional beings into productive workers is to manage them… with other people. What does the future org-chart look like if AI replaces conventional management tasks?
How AI is integrating into the workplace. The good, the bad, and everything in between.
Matt Chmiel
09•27•24
RECAP
Holy F*ing Sh*t
A member tells us what it felt like to build a functional CRM prototype in 3 hours. And Donkeycorns.
Matt Chmiel
09•19•24
FEATURE | INNOVATION IN AI
The Simulation Era
Design thinking is going to be replaced with AI-generated simulation technology. What does that look like? We wrote a multi-part series about it.
PART 2
The AI Spring
PART 3
Virtual
Prototyping
PART 4
Focus Areas
and Tools
PART 5
How to Get
Started
NEWSLETTER
Who Really Won the Olympics?
We covered this in a recent newsletter. No brands seemingly won the games, and gold medals didn’t have the same luster as memes.
MEMBER RESPONSE
Culture Won in Paris
Hip Hop and American culture dominated the games. They were the big winners. Read it here.
Carlos Mare
09•10•24
MEMBER EXPERIENCE
September 10, 9 - 11am • The Standard NYC
The pace of change is accelerating, so where are the blindspots that make it dangerous to navigate?
MEMBER EXPERIENCE
Everything you can expect from an ON_Discourse event, only smaller. Every Thursday 12-1EST
SPECIAL REPORT
The future Internet is being written, and it’s going to be weird, wild and most likely, even more batshit crazy than its predecessor. If you want to understand how to successfully ride the next wave, join us for a breakdown of everything we have learned, and the incredible perspectives shared by over one hundred leading experts in tech and business.
LATEST FROM OUR NEWSLETTER
Weekly Provocation: Virality Defeated Marketing in Paris.
Snoop defeated the brands. His mystifying behavior generated its own gravitational force. NBC deserves credit for setting him free on their platform, where he simultaneously commentated on badminton, dressage, danced at gymnastics, and randomly appeared throughout the event.
We have thousands of subscribers. Join Them
FROM A RECENT GROUP CHAT
What Are We Getting Wrong About AI?
Our members are bullish on the value of Gen AI.
Fans are the new free agents
ON_Sport dives into the last stronghold of the rapidly changing world of professional sports — the fan experience. Unlike other media verticals, the fan experience has been largely insulated against disruption; live sports have been one of the last bastions of linear broadcast media, a vast and mature market where regional relationships drive market activity and predictable consumer behaviors.
This stability is facing a triple threat of unstoppable disruption: the unbundling of ESPN, the rise of online gambling/fantasy, and the memification of highlights. These forces are resetting fan expectations for how they consume the game, what matters most to their experience, and where business opportunities lie in an uncertain future.
The intergenerational transfer of fanatical devotion of a local team is going to fundamentally change in a new media and digital landscape, but the love of the game will remain. How will that love be witnessed, monetized, and mediated in an uncertain future?
The
secondary
market
issue #003
HAS OWNERSHIP
FALLEN OUT
OF FASHION?
Exploring the relationship
between fashion and
technology and the evolving
landscape that is the
secondary market.
The fashion industry has a strange relationship with technology.
Why does the Fashion Industry treat tech like a seasonal trend?
The secondary market is creeping up on the luxury market.
How might AI-driven entertainment redefine our relationship with anticipatory content?
AI Forecasting in Fashion has a Big Sustainability Problem.
AI forecasting is a noisy guess masquerading as an objective analysis — and manufacturers know it.
ISSUE #002
GOOD
ARTISTS
COPY,
GREAT
AIs
STEAL
Issue #002 examined how creativity, ownership, and distribution are
being impacted by the growth and mass adoption of AI and its impact
on the business of entertainment.
DO CREATIVES
KNOW WHAT CREATIVITY IS?
Our event set the stage for a lively, engaging debate over a private dinner and drinks in the Hamptons with ON_Members and specially invited guests in the entertainment, media, and tech industries.
We Are Algorithim-ing Ourselves Into a Monoculture
Content has become mundane and unexceptional as a result of personalized recommendations.
The Copyright Fight for Digital Creativity
The US copyright regime has become an obstacle to this new era of innovation–and not because of what the law actually says.
Would you let Netflix read your mind?
How might AI-driven entertainment redefine our relationship with anticipatory content?
How Artists Turn AI Into Gold
AI has the potential to be an industry-disrupting tool for streamlining creative processes and getting projects out the door faster than ever previously possible.