5 Things I Learned About AI at My Industry's Annual Conference

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5 Things I Learned About AI at My Industry's Annual Conference

Each year, I travel to the annual conference of the Digital Media Licensing Association, the industry trade group representing digital media companies like Getty Images, CNN, Adobe…any my own tiny photo agency!

Artificial intelligence hit the media industry hard, and early. That’s been hugely challenging for many parts of the digital media space.

But it also means that, as an industry, we have a perhaps 5 year leg-up on sectors that are just starting to grapple with AI now.

Doctors and coders are currently dealing with existential questions like “Will my job still exist in 5 years?” Media pros dealt with those questions 5 years ago.

Lots has changed as a result of AI, yes, and the changes will surely continue. But many of those changes would have been totally unpredictable at the outset.

Also, the media has had to constantly reinvent itself for decades now. Faced with that, AI feels like just one more disruption. Again, others outside the industry can learn from the changes media folks have made.

I reflected on that after the conference. Based on two solid days of educational programming (including two sessions where I participated/moderated), I wrote up some of the things I learned from an industry that has had a (comparatively) long time to start making sense of AI.

Here’s that article:

Another thing I learned from the conference? I gave a presentation about Generative Engine Optimization, which made me realize that GEO acronyms are confusing AF!

Here’s a video I made that breaks down three major ones (watch on YouTube).

GEO: Generative Engine Optimization

AEO: Answer Engine Optimization

AIO: AI Overviews (some people also say Artificial Intelligence Optimization) but I go with the more common AI Overviews

It’s all broken down in the video. Enjoy!

Finally, here’s me happening upon a friendly AI robot on the streets of Atlanta while traveling for the event: