Adam Simon on the immersion economy: AI-personalized physical experiences are the next frontier after screens

the only thing faster than the AI market? Your business on MongoDB. Don't just build AI. own the data platform that powers it. Our next guest is Adam Simon from IPG Media.

He's in the reream waiting room now. He's in the TV. Adam, how are you doing?

Oh,

hello. Welcome. Hold on. No, you're good.

There we go. Now I can hear you.

Uh,

what's happening? Great to meet you.

Thanks so much for hopping on.

It's great to meet you. Thanks for having me on.

Uh, please, uh, introduce yourself. Give us a little background.

Yeah. Uh, I am, uh, Adam Simon. I spent a decade as one of the top innovation executives at a global media agency,

which basically means I got paid to be wrong about the future just a little bit less often than everyone else.

Um, and now I am out there consulting on where entertainment is going next. Um, which in my opinion is off the screen and into the real world.

And I'm working on a book uh called The Immersion Economy about how immersive technology is uh set to supercharge the experience economy.

Okay. What did you what did you get right when you were predicting the future?

Oh, good question. Uh, I got right I I think that uh Netflix would win in streaming and I still maintain uh that after uh you know last Friday's news obviously I I I think that Netflix uh you guys covered this earlier but I think that Netflix is going to come out on top in this deal when we look back a few years from now.

Um that was that was something I called early. I also called that they were going to pivot into um having an ad supported tier at some point as well as into gaming. I think the Netflix behemoth will just keep growing.

Yeah. Uh walk me through a little bit more of like immersive economy off the screen. Like that could mean Taylor Swift concert, that could mean ice cream museum. There's a million things that happen off the screen. Like how do you how do you describe like the territory?

Yeah, I mean it's it it is all of those things. It is uh in my mind it the exciting part is all of those experiences that are about to get are already getting upgraded or are about to get upgraded with technology and some of that looks like immersive technology. It looks like the sphere. Uh it looks like what what Kosum is doing which I think is super interesting especially around like sports and and uh performances and stuff.

Um but I also think it means uh AI personalization in the physical world. Um, we're, you know, we spend a lot of time talking about how AI is impacting software. You guys certainly spend most of your days, I think, talking about that. Um, but, uh, I think AI colliding with the real world, robotics is the place that most people go. Um, which is understandable. It's super exciting. Um, but I think there's an interim step before we see robots everywhere, AI powered robots everywhere, which is just our physical world, uh, being a little more responsive to us as individuals. If you think about the physical world reacting to you in the same way that your uh your feed on social media might uh and starting to personalize itself in that way that triggers some nightmare scenarios. But I think there's some opportunity to also do some really cool fun creative work there.

Okay. So I'll give you a specific example. Uh we were in Montana uh we were in Montana this last weekend. And we were at uh an ice race

uh which was uh the the first event that they've done where basically they get a bunch of cars around an ice track and then

you can take cars out and do some laps and then there's a bunch of spectators and things like that. And I was I was you know my the event was incredible. My only uh criticism is like there was kind of one screen over in one of the spectator areas and so uh in the area that that uh we were you you kind of you were relying 100% on your own vision to experience the event which was cool but at the same time there were certain angles and like a bunch of miscontext. And so in an event like how are you thinking about personalization in the real world? Is it we have smart glasses on and you have your own audio feed or like what does that actually look like in practice at something like a automotive event?

Yeah, I mean I think I think that that is a great example. I think that u to your point we don't even need to wait for augmented reality glasses. I think when they do come there'll be some really interesting exciting things we could do. Um but just the ability to customize an audio feed you could do that with AirPods right now, right? like lots of people already have them in their pockets. We could be through people's smartphones broadcasting customized audio feeds to you uh through your AirPods just as a one example. Um an an under sort of discussed feature of the sphere that I find really interesting is they have uh beam forming speakers. So different sections of the sphere can technically be hearing different audio. Uh they haven't really used this yet to uh to my knowledge. Um, but the way that they talk about it is that you could have like different language tracks sort of beamed to different sections of the venue. Um, and I think that that's the kind of thing that we're seeing built in to lots of venues. And obviously that's not a personalized sort of onetoone experience, but you can also sort of see how that starts to move us closer in that direction and use some some technology that is, you know, not exactly new, uh, but to to enhance the experience and make it more accessible for more people. How are you thinking about uh VR? Uh we had uh Ben Thompson on our show earlier today. He's been pushing aggressively for Apple to just let him watch any NBA game. He basically figured out like it's like a $40,000 $40,000 worth of hardware that would just need to be installed at the different stadiums and then you could just He's like I don't need I don't need a separate live stream and commentary because if you just beam me into the stadium I can hear the commentary that's happening. I can look up at the scoreboard. I really just need that kind of like video feed.

Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, I I think long term there are some cases and some users who are going to want the more highly produced edited experience that Apple is is kind of leaning into. I know Ben is super against that. He just wants the the static camera. It's like pretends that I'm there. Um, but I I think that he's right in that Apple's biggest problem right now is scale and just having the volume of content that you could get with just static cameras. And, you know, sports is is great and I I'm sure would sell a lot of headsets. Um, but also just think about concerts and stage plays and any place else where just being a fly on the wall or being a butt in a seat, uh, you can't get there or don't want to get there physically. Um, but being able to get there with your Vision Pro or your your MetaQuest or what have you. Um, I I think that there's real opportunity there. Longer term, I actually think that venues like Sphere and Kosum in particular um are going to create a pipeline for that kind of immersive content that will be able to to go straight to to headsets because if you think about what KSM is doing with the NBA, they basically have that camera already there courtside. Um, and it's creating that immersive sort of shared realities, what they call it, experience in the COSM venues. There's no reason you couldn't just port that over to a vision pro right now. So, we're starting to see some pieces be put in place that's going to create a really interesting, I think, flywheel for immersive content. And I sort of think about it as uh the venues like KASM being a kind of middle-class experience where if you have the money and the capability, you're going to go there in person, of course, but you're only going to do that for a few events a year, even if you have uh deep pockets. Uh and obviously there's the at home viewing experience, which might be upgraded uh if we can watch it in immersive uh environments. Um and then you have the option to go someplace like a KSM venue to get this sort of, you know, halfway experience. I can still go out with my friends and be social and have a close to courtside experience without shelling out to to fly wherever the game is.

Yeah. Are there are there a lot more spheres caus uh experiences coming down the pipeline? uh they they said they're super capital intensive so they're high risk but are from my view the response to to both has been great and Sphere seems to be

somehow doing pretty well in uh in the public markets

as of late.

Yeah, I think Sphere was caught everybody by surprise a little bit because that that first year there were there were lots of headlines about how much money they were losing, how much it costs not just to build but to operate. Um but from everything I can tell they from the outside obviously they look like they have found a path. Uh I think if you look at what they're they did with Wiz Wizard of Oz uh which was a surprise uh I think to everyone in Hollywood um it it is really successful. Um they basically made like a fan experience for Wizard of Oz which gave them a reason to charge you over $100 a ticket to see a movie that you've probably seen dozens of times before. And uh I don't know if it's streaming anywhere for free, but it used to be on television all the time, right? It's it's like the classic movie that was was constantly available. And yet people are shelling out over $100 a ticket to go see it. Um they've sold over 2 million tickets to that already. So I think it's an it's not exactly what they set out to do, but it's an interesting new path for them and clearly source of revenue.

Yeah. Uh uh the Brian Chesy from Airbnb was on the show uh fairly recently talking about how he is quite bullish on on IRL in the age of AI. The the online world is getting very wild and intense. Uh you can imagine some people just deciding I'm going to log off. I'm going to go get go somewhere get away. I can see that. I can also see the other side of it, which is that the online world continues to get more and more entertaining and some people just say like, well, I'm not I don't need to go take this trip or go to this experience because I'm perfectly entertained at home. What indicators are you looking at to understand if if AI is actually disrupting some IRL experiences? Would it show up as like Disneyland, you know, uh, visits dropping, which obviously could be a number of factors, like how would you where are you kind of like trying to see where there might be some disruption?

Yeah, I mean, I think I would be looking at things like live streamed sports and concerts and things like that to see are the ticket sales going down. Everything we've seen to date is quite the opposite. People are spending like crazy on experiences, right? Um it's it's everybody thought that that it was sort of a revenge spending after the pandemic. Um but that has has not played out. Everybody is very excited to at least sometimes right like close their laptops, put their phone in their pocket uh and go out and do something fun. Um I think what we're competing with is that people are they they want to uh be out there having experiences creating memories. uh and that is not something that you're going to have the same sort of experience doing uh looking at a screen. There's also some interesting um uh neurological research that I' I've been following um around just like how we sort of sync up and experience communal events. Uh and it's just it's really fascinating. But basically there's uh we we create stronger memories and we form stronger social bomb bonds when we're in person. and it actually has a biological component to it. It's not just sort of the emotional um aspect of being there together. So I think you know maybe if the pandemic was the catalyst that we realized what what we were missing. Um but I'm I'm pretty bullish on the fact that uh demand for um you know even techn technology or um optimized and oriented and enhanced experiences in the real world like just because we're out in the real world doesn't mean the tech goes away. It just changes and evolves. And I think that's where a lot of the exciting developments uh both for AI but also for for other technologies is going to be in the next decade.

Well, we got to do the next one in person with a live audience because just neurologically I feel like we'll have a we'll have a better time.

Yeah. There's also the the reality that uh many people are chasing IRL experiences to have something to show back on social media in this in this uh you know I I I try to remind myself you know we were at this this car event and

everywhere you looked there were cars that if I saw them on the street I would just stop whatever I was doing and I was like trying to force myself to actually just like take it all in versus taking pictures. But certainly there were some people

that uh that that hardly were processing it live because they just wanted to share everything that they were seeing.

Me too. Yeah.

And honestly that is the thing that I'm most excited about with with glasses whether like me ray bands or what Apple's going to release later this year or early next year.

Having the ability to capture content but stay more present in the moment I think is the best uh sort of marketing case for those products because you're absolutely right like we we want to be able to capture these things. Um, but we've, I think, tilted a little bit towards uh doing things just for the sake of capturing them rather than uh actually enjoying the experiences. And I look, I think everybody knows that even when you're doing it, to your point, you you're aware of it. So, I think if there's the right catalyst, it'll get people off their phones and and more sort of focused on what's around them.

Awesome. Totally.

Well, thank you so much for taking

Yeah. Great to meet and and come back on uh anytime.

Have a good one.

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