⭐️ Disney's brilliant marketing play

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TOP STORY
⭐️ Disney's brilliant marketing play: Casting Taylor Swift

Earlier this week, reports emerged that Taylor Swift had a great meeting with Kevin Feige, the President of Marvel Studios, to discuss her possible role in the MCU.

Wait, what? Yes, we know, we had the same reaction. Then, the next day or so, we learned why.

Marvel Studios is considering Swift for the lead role in the upcoming ‘Blonde Phantom’ Disney+ series.

It's a series that Swift has been attached to for the past year or so.

Who knew T-Swift was a superhero fan?

• If she does get the role (which isn’t guaranteed), this would be a fun side quest for her and a ginormous grab for Disney.

• Disney would instantly reach tens of millions of the planet's most loyal fans, a.k.a. the Swifties, who would most definitely hop on Disney+ to watch the show.

We can guarantee that almost all Swifties already have Disney+ to watch Disney’s documentary, "Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour," which was a smashing hit.

The only possible concern is that the Blonde Phantom will be a 1950s spy thriller set in Las Vegas, which is not exactly the same as having your rehearsed routine documented.

Regardless, given her ability to perform day in and day out for hours and still kill it, we can say T-Swift can crush this role if she gets it.

And Disney? Well, Disney gets to take advantage of one of the most profitable female artists ever. 

Plus, think about it: even if Swift doesn’t get the role, millions of people will eagerly tune in to see who beat out Tay-Tay.

Damn, Disney put themselves in the ultimate win-win situation.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
✍️ OpenAI partners with News Corp

For those who haven’t watched Succession, here's some background on News Corp: News Corp has not so subtly monopolized the news. 

Here is just a glimpse at their current holdings:

1. The Wall Street Journal

2. New York Post

3. The Times (UK)

4. The Sun

5. The Australian

6. Fox

7. MarketWatch

As you'd imagine, News Corp’s founding family, the Murdochs, are not just obsessed with knowing everything everywhere all at once. 

• News is quite lucrative; the company brought in nearly $10 billion in 2023 (and Sam Altman is now handing them another fat check).

• The deal with OpenAI is reportedly worth more than $250 million over five years, meaning News Corp will be making a handsome eight figures annually for just licensing some of its existing content.

The deal includes pieces from The Wall Street Journal, Barron’s, the New York Post, and Australian publications like The Australian and The Daily Telegraph.

What’s the angle for OpenAI? This move follows OpenAI's agreements with other high-profile media companies in the US and Europe, including The Financial Times, Dotdash Meredith, and Reddit.

Those sites and the new publications involved in this deal give ChatGPT a leg up on Google's Gemini and level the playing field with Grok.

GPT will have access to more accurate, up-to-date information as well as unique data sets, making it more contextually aware.

But can’t GPT fudge with the info it’s provided? No, no, don’t worry about accuracy.

News Corp will be providing “journalistic expertise” to OpenAI in order to ensure high journalism standards. 

Thank the Lord, OpenAI will have access to “unbiased reporters,” keeping them in check (lol).

TECHNOLOGY
🗣️ Amazon is giving Alexa an AI-powered upgrade

Good news: Amazon is finally upgrading ‘Alexa’ with generative AI.

Bad news: They plan to introduce a monthly subscription fee to cover the costs.

Here are some of the new abilities expected to be coming to the new and improved Alexa later this year:

• Will engage in more natural conversations and accurately respond to a wider range of complex queries.

• May feature real-time language translation, like GPT-4.

• Powered by Amazon’s own large language model, Titan.

• Deeper integration with other Amazon services and devices, so make sure not to accidentally ask Alexa to order anything.

Why improve Alexa now? With generative AI-powered chatbots from companies like Google, Meta, and, of course, OpenAI getting better and better, Amazon realizes it needs to step up its own AI department.

But creating a normal GPT-like chatbot would likely flop as hard as the Amazon Fire Phone.

So instead, Amazon's Alexa and AI teams seemingly cooperate as one to make Alexa a physical AI assistant, which we haven’t seen perfected yet.

With millions of households already equipped with at least one Alexa, if not more, Amazon has a big enough user base to make this work.