China, Canada and France
Firstly, I would like to thank Russell Napier for joining us on the webinar last week. He was adamant that it had to sit behind the paywall because AI is plagiarising his business. That’s not just him, as the advertising industry has been negatively impacted as well, which we picked up in the latest update of the Global Trends Investor. The share prices of WPP and US rivals Interpublic and Omnicom are all nosediving together. Then, the FT reported that the CEO, Mark Read, had stood down, despite having invested £300 million in AI in order to be ahead of the game.
Copyright has become a big issue as AI helps itself to everything it sees. Investing in AI is one thing, and no doubt there will be winners, but for me, the most important thing is to acknowledge the carnage and avoid the losers in its wake. Virtual services and intellectual property, previously high-margin business models, have come under pressure.
Advertising Impacted by AI
I want to address some other comments in the webinar. Russell Napier flagged highly indebted countries, and not by referencing government debt, but total debt. Indeed, he gave me a ticking off after sending him last week’s piece, where I showed a chart of USA debt to GDP. He said that’s government debt, not total debt and therefore wrong. That was me told.
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