Happy Monday, FutureParty people. You know who’s already a big winner of the Summer Olympics? NBCUniversal. The long-running broadcast home of the Olympic Games scored 32.4 million US viewers during the first day of competition — 83% more than the start of the Tokyo edition in 2021.

In other news… OpenAI takes on Google with a new search engine, Scott Stuber makes Old Hollywood new again, and the Summer Olympics tune up a hit song.

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• YouTube – The Penguin

• X (Twitter) – Doctor Doom 

• Google – Fantastic Four

• Reddit – Deadpool & Wolverine 

• TikTok – “Faithfully” - Journey

• Spotify – “The Feeling You Get” - Empire Of The Sun

.ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE.

OpenAI challenges Google with SearchGPT

The Future. OpenAI has come out swinging with the “prototype” of a search tool called SearchGPT, which is already being tested with 10,000 users. Its rollout could push the search business fully into the AI era as Google ramps up its own efforts. And considering OpenAI’s major cash burn, building an ad business around SearchGPT could create the firm’s biggest revenue generator yet.

Search and destroy
Here’s how SearchGPT works, per The Verge:

• Users type their query in a textbox with the words, “What are you looking for?” (i.e., music festivals in your area or the best time to plant tomatoes). SearchGPT then presents a list of answers with a summary generated by AI.

• Each answer prominently cites and links to where it got its information — a model developed in partnership with the publishers who have struck a deal with OpenAI (WSJ, AP, Vox Media).

• You can then ask the chatbot follow-up questions, click a sidebar that contains more sources, or ask for a “visual answer” (which uses Sora to provide AI-generated videos).

• Publishers will be able to opt into having their content used for SearchGPT while not allowing it to be used to train OpenAI’s other systems.

• Eventually, the tool will be integrated into ChatGPT, giving the conversational chatbot more robust and up-to-date data on which to draw.

The official announcement of SearchGPT is probably giving Google and AI-search startup Perplexity plenty of headaches. Google has been preparing for this moment by bringing AI summaries to its search engine and peppering the tech across the Search ecosystem. 

But Perplexity, which is in hot water over plagiarism allegations, may soon start to look like the AskJeeves of 2024.

89.3% of you voted De-influencers vs. Influencers in Friday’s poll: Who do you feel are more trustworthy?

“I don’t think either is necessarily more trustworthy, because they are both ‘influencers,’ but at least for now, de-influencers feel more authentic. I’m sure that will shift as companies discover they can pay someone to craft an inauthentic de-influencing video of a competing product.”

“Don’t fully trust either… they both are creating an environment whereby I rely more on brick-and-mortar retail because of that lack of trust… need to touch and see stuff before I purchase like the old days.”

“Really, there should have been a choice for ‘None of the Above.’”

.A WORD FROM OUR FRIENDS AT MECO.

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Media, Music, & Entertainment

• OneRepublic’s Ryan Tedder, Anderson .Paak, and Gwen Stefani are behind the official song of the Summer Olympics — the Coca-Cola-sponsored jam, “Hello, World.” [Read More]

• Actors union SAG-AFTRA has called a strike against major video-game publishers after failing to reach an agreement on a new contract, with AI being a main point of contention. [Read More]

• Joe Rogan has opened a new comedy club in Austin, Texas… and it’s turning the city into a new capital of stand-up. [Read More]

Fashion & E-Commerce

• Olympic drop: New Balance is releasing a new sneaker only available in Paris during the Games. [Read More]

• Chase is barring customers from using their credit cards for buy now, pay later loans… which are essentially credit cards themselves. [Read More]

• A study published in Nature found that pollution has increased by a whopping 20% near ecommerce hubs. [Read More]

Tech, Web3, & AI

• X is allowing users’ posts to be used for training its Grok chatbot… but there’s a way to turn off the setting. [Read More]

• NASA’s Perseverance rover on Mars has collected a sample containing “chemical signatures and structures” that suggest the existence of old microorganisms. [Read More]

• Engineers Will Jones, Kyle Samluk, and Danny Ezzo built the first solar-powered car to complete the coast-to-coast Cannonball Run rally race, doing so in just under 14 days. [Read More]

Creator Economy

• Publicis Groupe is acquiring influencer-marketing agency Influential, which services some 3.5 million influencers, for a massive $500 million. [Read More]

• Look North World, a user-generated game studio focused on talent-making games for Fortnite, Roblox, and Minecraft, raised a $2.25 million financing round led by London Venture Partners. [Read More]

• A bipartisan group of lawmakers has asked Meta to delay its acquisition of CrowdTangle, a tool used by third parties to track what’s trending on Meta’s app, until after the election. [Read More]

.ENTERTAINMENT.

Scott Stuber revives United Artists at Amazon

The Future. Former Netflix film chief Scott Stuber has inked a deal with Amazon/MGM to relaunch the storied United Artists (UA) label, giving the producer a role that straddles the line between streaming and theatrical. If UA is bringing back its old business model of providing filmmakers and actors more of a stake in the movies they make, expect the studio to quickly attract the biggest talent in the world for its debut slate.

Studio 3.0
Stuber will produce and finance “big, broad films” for UA, per Amazon’s press release, which will be released in theaters and on Prime Video.

A little history:

• UA — which was founded in 1919 by industry legends Charlie Chaplin, D.W. Griffith, Mary Pickford, and Douglas Fairbanks — started with the mission of giving actors more creative and financial control over their films.

• It was acquired by MGM in 1981 and has since had many roles within the studio (including a very brief revival under Tom Cruise and producer Paula Wagner), but it technically hasn’t released a movie since 2010.

• Amazon acquired MGM (which still owns the UA label) in 2021, making the legacy studio the flagship of its growing theatrical ambitions.

By installing Stuber, who built Netflix’s film division, Amazon gets a proven hitmaker. For Stuber, he gets the chance to play on the big screen (which he tried to push Netflix to do for years and did so successfully at Universal before that) and flex his massive Rolodex of talent for high-profile projects.

But here’s the million-dollar question: is UA just reviving as a label or as a studio division intent on giving creatives more control? Only time will tell.

.A WORD FROM OUR FRIENDS AT AI TOOL REPORT.

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• Read: Fast Company dives into how Brooklyn-based art collective and internet provocateurs MSCHF have become one of the most influential (and interesting) brands in the world.

• Listen: The Future of Everything dissects how fruit is genetically modified into the beautiful, tasty, and unnatural thing we buy at today’s grocery stores.

• Watch: WSJ takes a tour of Google’s new $2.1 billion office, which was built inside an old New York freight terminal.

We’re just buying tickets to see Nicole Kidman pledge allegiance to the big screen now.

LATEST PODCAST EPISODE

Today, on an extra special bonus episode of Future Forecast, our hosts Boye and Chris sit down with Andrew Kenward, the President and COO of Almost Friday Media. Andrew was an agent at WME in the digital media department at WME before being brought into the Almost Friday universe in 2021. We chat with him about his career, his goals for the brand moving forward, and what it's like working in media today.