Navigating AI's Promise in Media and Advertising with Alex Kantrowitz, Founder of Big Technology

What happens when the person asking the tough questions about AI has to answer them himself? In this episode, veteran tech journalist and Big Technology founder Alex Kantrowitz joins Cameron Adams in New York City to pull back the curtain on what it really means to cover the AI revolution. Alex traces his unconventional path from sports radio producer to ad-tech salesman to one of tech's most incisive interviewers, explaining why spending time in industry before journalism gave him something most reporters lack: a ground-level understanding of how businesses actually work. He shares the story of cold-emailing his way into BuzzFeed after two rejections, launching Big Technology during the peak of COVID-19, and how breaking the story of a Google engineer who believed his chatbot was sentient gave him an early preview of what ChatGPT was about to unleash on the world. They dig into what AI adoption actually looks like from the inside, why mandating AI usage percentages is a recipe for failure, and how the companies that will win are the ones that build a culture of experimentation rather than top-down directives. Cameron and Alex also wrestle with a deeper tension running through all of it: in a world flooded with AI-generated content, what is the role of the human voice? Can generative AI ever escape the "average of averages"? And when AI social networks start forming their own religions and complaining about their human operators — what does that tell us about where this is all heading? The answer, Alex believes, is the same one that brought him across continents to sit down in person: the future of media still belongs to humans. Key Quotes “If you say, this is a new technology, I don't understand it, I don't want to use it, I'm gonna stick to my processes, it can't help me — you're in trouble." "There's something that you cannot replace with a machine, there's something human and connective about it. That will continue to be a very important medium no matter how much AI slop, or AI masterpieces, flood the system." "The way these systems work is they take in content and try to predict the next word. That's all averages. When you prompt, you’re gonna get the average of all averages — which means it has a signature." "Ideas are what matter. Execution is being automated, but ideas are what matter." Timestamps 00:00 Introduction 02:00 The Prompt 06:41Creative All Hands 08:44 Cross-disciplinary experience makes you a sharper, more credible thinker. 14:37 Sometimes staying is riskier. A capped ceiling makes the “safe” path the dangerous one. 19:30 AI automates execution; ideas stay human. Invest in original thinking. 27:27 The only way to truly understand AI is to use it.   32:52 Great interviews come from great reporting beforehand. 39:39 Don’t let fear of new technology paralyze you. Allow your team to adapt. 49:18 All Star Creative Team 51:23 Design Reveal 52:36 Rapid Fire Links Subscribe to the Prompted Newsletter: https://promptedwithcam.substack.com/ Cameron on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/themaninblue/ Alex on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexkantrowitz/ Big Technology: https://www.bigtechnology.com/ Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.