Author: Benedict Evans

  • Generative AI and intellectual property

    If you put all the world’s knowledge into an AI model and use it to make something new, who owns that and who gets paid? This is a completely new problem that we’ve been arguing about for 500 years.

  • When tech says ‘no’

    The tech industry always has a reason why any new laws or regulations are bad – indeed, so does any industry. They always say that! The trouble is, sometimes it’s true, and some laws are (or would be) disasters. So which is it? Well, there are three ways that people say ‘NO!’

  • AI and the automation of work

    ChatGPT and generative AI will change how we work, but how different is this to all the other waves of automation of the last 200 years? What does it mean for employment? Disruption? Coal consumption?

  • Vision Pro

    What has Apple built, what is it for, what does it mean for Meta, and why does it cost $3,500? Check back in 2025.

  • Netflix, Shein and MrBeast

    What does Netflix have in common with Shein, and why is MrBeast more interesting than Disney Plus?

  • Retail, search and Amazon’s $40bn ‘advertising’ business

    Amazon sold close to $40bn of advertising last year – bigger than Prime, bigger than the entire global newspaper industry and probably more profitable than AWS. But are these really ads, rent, or something else? And what does that mean for Google?

  • ChatGPT and the Imagenet moment

    The wave of enthusiasm around generative networks feels like another Imagenet moment – a step change in what ‘AI’ can do that could generalise far beyond the cool demos. What can it create, and where are the humans in the loop?

  • Ways to think about a metaverse

    Your boss wants an metaverse strategy, but what would that be, and what does metaverse even mean? If we strip away the noise, what can we say about this, and what can we predict?

  • Rocket ships and tractors

    For some companies, revenue is a feature.

  • Within and tech M&A

    The US is fundamentally rethinking its approach to regulating competition, and M&A, and tech, and big tech buying startups. The FTC ‘s attempt to block Meta from buying Within is a test case for all of this. So, how many interesting problems can we count?