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For decades, the relationship between a fan and a content franchise was defined by scarcity: You watched a movie or binged a season, then had to wait months or years for the next installment. Fans were spectators, limited to going to the concert, game, or movie, buying merch, and tweeting about their favorite moments. Scarcity trained audiences to wait. Abundance taught them not to. The greatest challenge facing intellectual property (IP) owners today is staying connected and culturally relevant in a world where content is everywhere, all the time, and limitless. While these players historically have been limited by the time and budget required to create premium content, the audiences appetite to relate to their favorite brands has only grown. With the rise of generative AI, media companies can now leverage technology to bridge this gap, transforming how audiences engage with IP and creating opportunities for fan experiences that operate 24/7. Fandom as creation Over the past 10 years, the demographics of fandom have shifted dramatically. According to Ogilvys Fandom Flux study, 86% of Gen Z identify as fans. But for this group of fans, consuming their favorite story doesnt cut it; they want to step inside it, remix it, and co-author the worlds they love. Younger audiences are already making this shift. Gen Alpha is the first generation to experience fandom as an act of creation rather than consumption, according to Ogilvy. As a testament to this trend, 66% of Gen Z and Gen Alpha report spending more time with fan-created content than with official content. Generative AI can solve this discrepancy. By collaborating across industries, IP owners can meet this need, using AI to scale fan engagement in ways that traditional production pipelines cant. Disneys agreement with OpenAI allows fans to generate scenes featuring hundreds of characters within brand-safe parameters. This turns casual Disney fans into active creators. By enabling canon-adjacent storytelling, studios can transform viewers into stakeholders. And when fans can contribute to a world, the franchise grows with its community, and engagement becomes shared rather than one-sided. Gaming already provides a blueprint for whats possible. Fortnite Creative 2.0 has evolved beyond a “battle royale” into a social ecosystem where brands like Star Wars inhabit “living maps, where players can roam, complete challenges, and interact with characters in real time. Now, AI brings that interactive agency to pure storytelling, removing technical barriers so that engaging with a character is as natural as texting a friend. Infinite worlds, infinite engagement As more fans expect this level of immersion with the brands they love, we see a future where AI-powered characters live anywhere, engaging consumers wherever they are. Instead of waiting for the next film or episode, these characters will be available around the clock. Fans can create new moments with their favorite characters, rather than re-watching the same story on repeat. For media companies, AI characters serve as more than just engagement and monetization tools; they are a powerful feedback loop. By partnering with AI platforms, studios can test character dynamics, gauge reactions to new lore, and understand what resonates with their most highly engaged users before greenlighting expensive productions. The business case is undeniable: Platforms that integrate AI-driven personalization are already seeing an average 35% increase in engagement rates, with streaming leaders leveraging these tools as the backbone of their fan retention strategies for younger audiences. Design for participation The future of entertainment is no longer one-way. AI is enabling experiences that are persistent, co-created, and reciprocal. Instead of measuring success by how many people buy a ticket for the latest movie premiere, it will be measured by how deeply audiences engage with the franchise. The next generation of IP will be built by designing immersive experiences, not just content. By embracing partner-driven AI solutions, media leaders can transform viewers into stakeholders. As these fans become true stakeholders, franchises will continue to grow and evolve with their communities, ensuring that today’s favorite characters remain culturally resonant for the next generation of audiences. Karandeep Anand is CEO of Character.AI.
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E-Commerce
The ongoing war in the Middle East continues to embroil new participantsfrom residential properties in Dubai to protestors in Iran getting caught in the crossfire of drones and missiles. And at the same time, global trade is slowing to a crawl, thanks to the effective shutdown of the Hormuz Strait, through which 11% of all global trade passes. Yet another sector finding itself in the firing lineliterallyis data centers. A number of them in the region have been hit by enemy strikes during the two-week war, causing damage and outages. Data centers are an important part of modern economies, enabling the delivery of digital services that keep countries going. Therefore, its little surprise that theyve been targeted by both sides of the war as an attempt to sow chaos and force a capitulation. Data centers are also deeply exposed to wider disruption in the region because they sit at the end of long, fragile supply chains. Many of the chips, memory modules, networking switches, and cooling systems they rely on depend on materials that transit through Middle Eastern choke points or are produced in nearby statesfrom helium and other specialty gases used in semiconductor manufacturing to metals and finished components moving between Asia, Europe, and North America. The nearhalt in shipping through the Strait of Hormuz has pushed up transport costs, squeezed airfreight capacity, and driven insurers to hike warrisk premiums, making it more expensive and slower to move everything from server racks to backup generators and fuel. At the same time, the strait is a critical artery for oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG), so any prolonged disruption feeds directly into higher global energy pricesraising the cost of the vast amounts of electricity and cooling that hyperscale data centers consume, and making new projects harder to finance. Thats less of a problem for the United States, which has its own energy supplies, is the worlds largest LNG exporter, and is insulated from Gulf disruptions by its own abundant domestic production. Data centers already face threats Beyond the immediate impact, theres a corollary risk to the conflict for data centers beyond the Middle East. Abe Silverman, an assistant research scholar at Johns Hopkins Universitys Ralph OConnor Sustainable Energy Institute, says the Middle East conflict isnt primarily a direct supply-chain story for data centers. The biggest threat to data centers isn’t actually oil traffic or disruption to global supply chains, he says. The biggest threat to data centers today is the perception that they are raising costs of electricity for everyday consumers.” Currently, marine traffic through the Strait of Hormuz has practically stopped, including shipments of LNG from the region. If that ongoing disruption continues and pushes up natural gas and electricity prices, consumers may blame data centers for worsening already painful power bills, Silverman believes. While those physical and economic pressures will take months to fully work through supply chains and power markets, the more immediate consequence may be political: As energy prices rise, regulators and communities could increasingly scrutinize whether new data center campuses are worth the extra strain on already expensive electricity bills. We would not anticipate a material shift in companies’ plans and a further expansion in U.S. data centers, but it is a consideration for those focused on Europe and the Middle East, says Julien Dumoulin-Smith, managing director and senior equity analyst at Jefferies, a global investment bank. Theres also the financing of these megaprojects, particularly closer to the center of the conflictand whether its possible for them to be safely insured to be built. Some $2.5 billion of deals to build data centers in the Middle East were brokered last year, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence. If the safety of that infrastructure, and the return on investment, cant be guaranteed as tension in the region continues to ratchet up, it becomes a much harder choice to invest there. That could cause some projects to fall by the waysideor worse, to shift investment in them to states hostile to the West. The impact will be that theyll be rebuilt fairly quickly, and if the Americansand Europeansarent quick off the mark, theyll be rebuilt with Chinese investment, says Lynette Nusbacher, a former Canadian and British army intelligence officer. But beyond that, each new attack sends a message, reckons Nusbacher. Data centers are an important part of the post-petroleum future of the Gulf monarchies, she says. Attacking a data center isnt symbolic, but its a way to show that the U.S. cant guarantee any kind of security for their future.
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E-Commerce
As the war in Iran shocks global gas and oil prices, more Americans are considering home solar systems and searching for electric vehicles. In the 11 days after the conflict began, EnergySage, an online comparison-shopping marketplace for clean energy systems, saw a 17% increase in homeowners requesting quotes for solar installations, and a 23% increase in requests for solar plus a home battery. Thats compared with the 11 days before the escalation. The company notes that it can’t specifically credit those increases to one cause, such as the conflict; there may be multiple factors at play. But it still believes the war is part of this directional change. And that growth is notable, a spokesperson adds, because demand for these installations has been soft since the federal tax credits for such home upgrades expired in December. EnergySage has also seen a 30% increase in requests for EV charger installations. Its not yet clear if that increase is directly related to a surge in EV sales. (It could be, for example, that drivers who already own plug-in hybrids are actually going to start plugging them in instead of relying on gas.) But there are signs of a growing interest in that market, too. Edmunds, an online retailer for new and used cars, says searches for hybrids, plug-in hybrids, and EVs are up 20% in one week. Sunlight doesn’t need to go through the Strait of Hormuz The conflict in Iran is highlighting how our energy sources move around the worldand how vulnerable they can be to geopolitical events. With the shutdown of the Strait of Hormuz, about a fifth of the worlds oil and gas has essentially been removed from the global market, causing prices to surge. But as many climate experts have been noting, sunlight (and wind) dont need to travel through that strait. Though surging oil and gas prices have dominated headlines since the Iran conflict began, experts say natural gas prices could be hit even harder, which would directly affect Americans utility prices. Renewable power can buffer countries, and individuals, from fossil fuel price volatility. And Americans are understanding that, too. When energy prices spike, people start looking for ways to take control of their bills, says EnergySage CEO Naman Trivedi. Geopolitical instability has a way of making energy independence feel urgent and personal, he adds. People dont want their familys utility bills tied to events happening halfway around the world. Solar leads to real energy bill savings Natural gas prices have already been on an upward climb, in part because of the AI data center boom, which has spiked energy bills for Americans. The wars effect on overall energy prices could mean Americans will hit a breaking pointwhere its like, I have to do something about this, says Jesse Lee, senior adviser for Clean Energy Economy at Climate Power, a climate communications and advocacy organization. The things theyve been postponing that they know can save them money in the long term . . . this is kind of the moment where people start to pull the trigger, he adds. Those monetary savings are real. A June 2024 study from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory found that the median residential solar customer saves $1,987 annually off their home energy bills. Adding solar requires an up-front cost, of course, but even factoring off-bill costs in, the median customer sees a total net savings of $691. Though the Trump administration removed the Inflation Reduction Acts federal incentives for home solar installations, Lee says that cities and states often still offer rebates that could reduce installation costs. Americans can find information about those programs through Rewiring America. The way off the fossil fuel merry-go-round Switching to an EV also comes with a tangible financial impact. A 2024 report found that EV drivers save an average of $100 every month, or $1,200 a year, on fuel, compared with gasoline-powered cars. Electric vehicles are also cheaper to maintainand sticker prices are dropping, particularly for used EVs. Theres always been a strong connection between spiking gas prices and people starting to look at EVs, Lee says. Whats unique about this particular energy price spike, he adds, is that it coincides with solar energy and EVs becoming affordable for everyday Americans. Its not clear how long this conflict will last, and what that means for energy prices in the future. But this likely isnt the last geopolitical event to disrupt fossil fuel markets. Americans seem to be realizing that, despite the Trump administration’s move away from renewables, they can make their households less vulnerable to such price shocks through home solar systems and EVs. Theres just absolutely no question that in the short term, but also the long term . . . this is how you escape the fact that were going to have international entanglements that spike gas prices for, probably, forever, Lee says. Home solar and EVs, he adds, are the way off those merry-go-rounds.
Category:
E-Commerce
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