How Michael Wolf Is Rethinking Attention in the Age of Multitasking

Summary

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Podcast Summary: Next in Media

Episode: How Michael Wolf Is Rethinking Attention in the Age of Multitasking

Host: Mike Shields
Guest: Michael Wolf, CEO of Activate Consulting
Date: April 14, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode dives into how the measurement and value of consumer “attention” is rapidly evolving as media and technology habits shift—especially due to the explosion in multitasking and fragmentation across platforms. Michael Wolf shares insights from Activate’s industry-defining reports, discussing trends like the redefinition of television (notably, YouTube’s rise), the implications for advertisers facing diluted attention, the impact of streaming mergers, the future of sports and gaming, and why spatial computing and VR shouldn’t be dismissed yet.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Multitasking Revolution & Diluted Attention

• The "Attention Clock":
  • Activate measures not just total media usage, but the degree of multitasking—described as a “time multiplier.”
  • "The average American is spending actually more than 30 hours this last year, 32 hours and 17 minutes a day. And of that 13 hours a day is technology and media..." (Michael Wolf, 02:30)
• Impact by Media Type:
  • Audio is heavily multitasked—60%+ listen while doing something else.
  • Video games (PC/console) are least multitasked due to their immersive nature.
• Business Implications:
  • Both media and advertisers are struggling to adjust: “You’ve got this partial attention to everything.” (Michael Wolf, 04:04)
  • Current measurement and pricing models don’t yet account for split attention.

2. Fragmentation and Concentration Across Platforms

• TV versus Streaming:
  • Major TV companies (e.g., Disney, NBCU, Paramount) still dominate, but even combined, some streaming platforms are small players.
  • “Today, you’ve got 64% of television viewership among the biggest companies… Streaming is 36% of all television viewership. YouTube is by far 12.5% of all CTV, followed by Netflix, sort of down to about 9…” (Michael Wolf, 04:35)
• YouTube Redefining TV:
  • For Gen Z and beyond, YouTube is television.
  • Notably, YouTube Shorts has surpassed all other social networks in time spent (06:41).
  • Viewership is fragmented but also concentrating among a few platforms, with YouTube and Netflix as primary leaders.

3. The Ascendance of Video (and Decline of “Social”)

• Video Now Dominant Across Social:
  • Five years ago, social was about half video, half text. Now:
    • “71% of all social...is now video, and the video is not from your friends… TikTok, 81% [from influencers]; Instagram, 72%; YouTube, 94%; Facebook, more around 50% because of older demographics.” (Michael Wolf, 07:57–08:48)
  • Social platforms have shifted from being about friend content to being more about entertainment and influencer-driven video.
• Advertiser Perspective:
  • YouTube lags linear TV in driving large, simultaneous shared events (e.g., Super Bowl), but is gaining ground with huge live streams like Coachella (09:17–10:35).

4. The Paramount-Warner Merger: More Hype Than Muscle?

• Market Size Reality:
  • Despite the media hype, even merged, Paramount and Warner will have a smaller slice of TV.
    • “Even after that merger, you’re still at 3.7% [of TV viewership].” (Michael Wolf, 04:35)
• Growth Pathways:
  • Mergers can help build scale and marketing muscle, but customer acquisition and retention are expensive and difficult.
  • “The biggest problem with these streaming services…is what they have to spend on customer acquisition... And they're giving all that money away to Amazon...but to Apple and Roku and other places.” (Michael Wolf, 14:21)

5. The Promise (and Limits) of AI and CTV Advertising

• CTV Not Yet for Small Brands:
  • Unlike social platforms, CTV is still focused on big brands and agencies, not self-serve.
    • “It’s not yet really set up for smaller brands to use CTV extensively as a self service… The algorithm ends up really going to the people who can pay the most.” (Michael Wolf, 15:02–15:37)
• AI’s Personalization Potential:
  • AI could drive real-time creative changes (e.g., personalized ad creatives with different talent).
  • Future ad integrations: “It’s essentially like virtual product placement… we should expect to see a lot more.” (Michael Wolf, 11:39–11:59)

6. The Creator Economy and “Scalable” Influence

• Creator Integration Still Manual:
  • In-stream influencer marketing can’t yet operate at scale—custom sponsorships are still the norm.
    • “It’s going to be much more of a repertory company of different stars of different creators versus somebody doing it just as a platform…” (Michael Wolf, 16:40)
  • Large creators (e.g., Mr. Beast) are now building their own mini-media networks.
  • Cross-platform stardom remains rare—most creators do not scale equally across channels.

7. Gaming: The Next Big (Attentive) Thing?

• Gaming Time is Deeply Engaged:
  • Core platform games (e.g. NBA 2K, Grand Theft Auto, Roblox) command undivided attention, especially among Gen Z/Alpha.
  • In-game ads must be authentic and immersive, e.g., integrating real brands into venues inside games.
    • “That's advertising, it's not performance advertising…that’s really much more authentic, integrated, native than the kind of interruption advertising that we see elsewhere.” (Michael Wolf, 19:08)

8. Sports Viewing: Still A Tentpole, But Changing

• Gen Z and Engagement:
  • The leagues are experimenting to keep Gen Z involved; sports betting, fantasy leagues, and specialized prop bets help sustain engagement throughout games.
    • “But a big piece of it now is sports gambling…If you’re betting on it, you’re going to keep coming back.” (Michael Wolf, 19:54)

9. Is Spatial Computing and VR Over or Just Beginning?

• Vision Pro & AI Glasses: Still a Big Bet:
  • Despite slow early Apple Vision Pro sales, major tech companies are investing heavily in spatial/AI devices.
  • The next leap: “Spatial computing” as the bridge between AI, VR, data, and real-world environments.
  • The hard part is not hardware, but cloud-scale data integration and privacy.
    • “Every major technology company [is] throwing a lot of money into this...it requires massive amounts of data...not the device.” (Michael Wolf, 21:32–23:25)
• Meta’s Pivot:
  • Meta is focusing less on building a “third place” metaverse and more on hardware/platform potential.
    • “That more naturally resides in video games. There’s not going to be one place…They’re already there. It’s Minecraft, Roblox, Fortnite.” (Michael Wolf, 23:53-24:05)

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Notable Quotes (with Timestamps)

• On attention measurement:
  “The average American is spending actually more than 30 hours this last year, 32 hours and 17 minutes a day. And of that 13 hours a day is technology and media...”
  — Michael Wolf (02:30)

• On multitasking and fragmentation:
  “So we're seeing this fragmentation of attention. And what's happening is you've got this partial attention to everything.”
  — Michael Wolf (03:49)

• On the rise of video in social:
  “71% of all social...is now video, and the video is not from your friends… TikTok, 81% [from influencers]; Instagram, 72%; YouTube, 94%...”
  — Michael Wolf (07:57–08:48)

• On YouTube and live events:
  “What YouTube doesn't have is what big television does, which is big events that require simultaneous viewing…YouTube has only now begun to get those guns. Like, Coachella is one of YouTube's biggest simultaneous events. Right now, it's about 200 million people watching Coachella concurrently.”
  — Michael Wolf (09:17–10:35)

• On CTV ad access for small brands:
  “It's not yet really set up for smaller brands to use CTV extensively as a self service…They’re more interested in larger advertisers…”
  — Michael Wolf (15:02–15:28)

• On spatial computing’s future:
  “Every major technology company [is] throwing a lot of money into this...it requires massive amounts of data...not the device and it's really data in the cloud.”
  — Michael Wolf (21:32–23:25)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Media multitasking and the “attention clock”: 02:30–04:18
• TV, streaming share, and platform fragmentation: 04:35–06:18
• YouTube as TV; Shorts, social video dominance: 06:41–08:48
• Advertiser perspective on YouTube v. TV/live events: 08:54–11:22
• Paramount/Warner merger impact: 13:24–14:36
• CTV, self-service, and AI ad opportunities: 15:02–16:19
• The creator economy’s platform limits: 16:40–17:52
• Gaming’s unique engagement/ad future: 17:58–19:08
• Sports fandom, Gen Z, and betting: 19:18–20:42
• Spatial computing & VR, Vision Pro, future outlook: 20:54–24:15

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Conclusion

This episode provides a broad yet nuanced look at where media attention is headed. Michael Wolf emphasizes that today’s battle isn’t just for time, but for meaningful, undivided attention—an increasingly rare commodity in the age of multitasking and platform fragmentation. Brands and platforms that adapt with more authentic integrations, embrace AI-driven personalization, and stay patient with emerging interfaces like spatial computing stand to win the next wave of consumer engagement.

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Transcript

[Michael Wolf]

For younger people, definitely YouTube is television. But interestingly, and nobody would have thought about this, YouTube shorts is bigger than all of the social networks. It's just the amount of time that people are spending and Everybody thought that TikTok would really hurt everybody else. And so as a result, after TikTok, you've got YouTube launch shorts and Facebook

[Mike Shields]

and how good were those copycats going to be? TikTok's running away with it and has. Right.

[Michael Wolf]

So it is taking a huge part of people's time, time and attention away. And now that most of YouTube, a large percentage of it, isn't on mobile, it's on ctv, on Apple TV or Fire or any of those. And so people are just. Their viewership is fragmented, but it's also concentrating among a smaller set of services.

[IntentIQ Narrator]

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[Podcast Host]

IQ.com this week on Next Media, I talked to Activate Consulting CEO Michael Wolf about the good news and bad news facing advertisers.

[Mike Shields]

On the one hand, there's a lot

[Podcast Host]

more video time out there to capture consumer attention. On the other hand, attention is being diluted because of multitasking. So what's a brand to do? Well, we get into that, plus Paramount Warner versus Netflix and YouTube. Why we shouldn't give up on VR just yet.

[Mike Shields]

Hi, everybody. Welcome to Next to Media. I'm Mike Shields. My guest this week is Michael Wolfe. He is the CEO and founder of Acctivate Consulting. Hey, Michael, how's it going? Thanks for being here.

[Michael Wolf]

Oh, it's a pleasure. Great to be with you all.

[Mike Shields]

Love talking to you, especially you're well known for doing this hugely comprehensive report every year about the media and advertising universe and gaming and all these different pieces. One of the things that stood out recently, we've all been talking about how to measure attention, right? And whether a YouTube view is the same as a TV view and then is the same as a TikTok view. And now you're, you're starting to talk about what happens when these things are happening simultaneously or when attention gets diluted. What happens to the way we measure

[Michael Wolf]

it every year we do something called our activate attention clock, and we've been doing it now for 11 years. And what we've done is we have measured not just the amount of time that people spend on a technology and media activity, but how much time they spend multitasking. Because multitasking is truly a time multiplier. Yeah, we've always said, like the average American is spending actually more than 30 hours this last year, 32 hours and 17 minutes a day. And of that 13 hours a day is technology and media, 1304 today, 1319 in the future. So if you think about it, another 15 minutes and what that means.

[Mike Shields]

So it's significant. Right. And there's real doubling up there, obviously.

[Michael Wolf]

Right. So if you look at it, most of the activities, for example, audio. Audio is roughly two and a half hours a day. And three quarters of people when they're listening to music or doing something else, something north of 60% are doing something else. Like everywhere you go, it's. Whether it's social media. The one activity that has tended to be less multitasked has been video games,

[Mike Shields]

because you really can't, depending on how immersive the game is.

[Michael Wolf]

And those are PC and console console games, because if you're playing a casual game on your phone. So we're seeing this fragmentation of attention. And what's happening is you've got this partial attention to everything.

[Mike Shields]

Right.

[Michael Wolf]

And so it has a huge impact on not just people themselves, because everything we do, we say starts with the user, but at the same time, any businesses that are trying to capture that attention.

[Mike Shields]

And yeah, have the businesses on either side, either the media companies or the advertisers, caught up to this reality, because these things are often executed in silos and purchased in silos. And it's assumed that if you get attention in one space, it's 100% of the time, at least in the pricing. Have we caught up to this reckoning?

[Michael Wolf]

Yeah, if you look, it's. It's uneven. So roughly Today, you've got 64% of television viewership is among the biggest companies. Disney at the moment is the largest, roughly 14%. You've got NBCU 11 tied with Paramount. And then if you look on the streaming side, you have. Streaming is 36% of all television viewership. And you start going through that here, the numbers are interesting. YouTube is by far 12 and a half percent of all CTV, followed by Netflix, sort of down to about 9, Disney around 5. Amazon ran 4. So you begin to see that even in streaming, it's extremely fragmented with the leader being YouTube and Netflix and everybody else. Interestingly enough, Paramount's 2.3% Warner is about 1.4%. So you still, even after that merger, you're still at 3.7%. Hopefully they're expecting to grow it. So my point is it's fragmented everywhere, but. So that's one business. But there's another side of this which is you have like different reasons for people to go and shop. So roughly today for younger demographics, 80% of all shopping starts not with Google or Bing. It starts at the sites. It starts at Amazon or Target or Walmart. We're seeing not just this fragmentation of attention, but we're also fragmentation of how people learn about what they want to buy and where and how they buy.

[Mike Shields]

And that's. We're taking a snapshot of the moment in time. AI promises to potentially up on that even more. I want to come back to you. A lot of points you made there, but the obvious big one of the last couple years is YouTube on TV. You've been very vocal about how that is television for Gen Z. Yeah. Anecdotally I see that in my universe world that, that more and more people are watching YouTube with intent. Are you seeing that with other, other demographics?

[Michael Wolf]

We're seeing it across demographics. For younger people, definitely. YouTube is television. But interestingly, nobody would have thought about this. YouTube shorts is bigger than all of the social networks. It's just the amount of time that people are spending. And Everybody thought that TikTok would really hurt everybody else. And so as a result, after TikTok, you've got YouTube launch shorts and Facebook.

[Mike Shields]

How good were those copycats going to be? Tick Tock's running away with it and.

[Michael Wolf]

Right. So it is taking a huge part of people's time and attention away. And now that most of YouTube, a large percentage of it isn't on mobile, it's on ctv.

[Mike Shields]

Right.

[Michael Wolf]

On Apple TV or Fire or any of those. And so people are just. Their viewership is fragmented, but it's also concentrating among a smaller set of services.

[Mike Shields]

Yeah. If we thought about the long tail in the open web for many years, TV is proving to be the opposite.

[Michael Wolf]

It is, no doubt. And overall attention is concentrating among a smaller set of sites.

[Mike Shields]

Yeah.

[Michael Wolf]

I'll tell you something interesting about video and this is fascinating. What we've been able to watch. First of all, video is eating everything on the Internet.

[Mike Shields]

Right.

[Michael Wolf]

But when you look at social. If we were to reverse five years ago, we would have seen roughly 49% of social was video. 51% was text. And that number has continued to grow to the point where 71% of all social. And I'm talking about YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, all the others, 71% is now video, and the video is not from your friends.

[Mike Shields]

It's really not social in a lot of ways. Right. It's entertainment.

[Michael Wolf]

So TikTok, 81% of it's from influencers.

[Mike Shields]

Yeah.

[Michael Wolf]

Instagram, 72%. YouTube, 94% of it. Facebook, it's more around 50%. The reason it's around 50% is because Facebook has become a much older demographic.

[Mike Shields]

Yeah. You still have grandma sharing the pictures and commenting about it.

[Michael Wolf]

Exactly, Mike. Right, exactly.

[Mike Shields]

Coming back to YouTube, they have made great strides in telling this story about how big they are in television, and they've been able to get compared to TV in the ad world. But there's a recent journal story that talks about how still how far they have to go. It seems like certain brands just still categorize them as different. Why do you think that is? Should Madison Avenue open their minds a little bit about that? Or what are the implications if they don't?

[Michael Wolf]

So what YouTube doesn't have is what big television does, which is big events that require simultaneous viewing.

[Mike Shields]

Yeah.

[Michael Wolf]

We look on television, of course, it's sports everywhere. Sports is, in a lot of ways, keeping people on television. Sports and news is a lot of. But you end up with big events. It's not just the Super Bowl. It's the Oscars, it's the Grammys.

[Mike Shields]

Right.

[Michael Wolf]

It's the country music Awards. It's so many big events where everybody's watching at the same time, very large audiences. And YouTube has only now begun to get those guns. So if you look at YouTube, like, Coachella is one of YouTube's biggest simultaneous events. Right now, it's about 200 million people watching Coachella concurrently. Probably in a couple of years, it'll be 500 million. And you've got the NFL. In fact, Satya Nadella, when he talked about different sources of programming, he mentioned those too. So they've now taken the Oscars. We're gonna see more and more sports. That's how it becomes much bigger. Otherwise, you've got advertisers who are looking at this very much as a direct response vehicle.

[Mike Shields]

They're gonna still see that as on demand and creators, which is not negative. But the tent polls help bring in the big brands. Like, I almost wonder if YouTube maybe should have gone more aggressively after the NBA or MLB or something, just to get in that game, a little more, no pun intended.

[Michael Wolf]

If you look at. Yes, they've got Mr. Beast with roughly in any one video an average like 26 million views. You've got the Stokes twins, you have Zach film, you've got all these top influencers and or creators. But interestingly enough, for an advertiser, they're not as valuable Actually for a sponsor that's embedded in the programming, it's very interesting. But those sponsors aren't driving real engagement and advertising for YouTube itself.

[Mike Shields]

Right. Yeah. I often wonder if there's a way that YouTube should eventize their media buying option somehow where you could buy the making this up. If the brands want some alternative to getting 10 million people in one day like they do in sports, somehow they could do that with a bunch of creators on your premiere date or something like that.

[Michael Wolf]

Yeah. And most branded advertisers, top of funnel advertisers, they're much more interested in something that's simultaneous embedded in a show. I think what we will see with AI is we're going to see a number of advertisers who are. It's essentially like virtual product placement.

[Mike Shields]

Yeah.

[Michael Wolf]

And there we should expect to see a lot more.

[Mike Shields]

Okay, let's take a quick break. I'm here with Josh Melick. He's the SVP of Product and Data at App Science, a division of sabio. Hey, Josh, thanks for being here.

[Josh Melick]

Yeah, nice. Thanks for having me, Mike.

[Mike Shields]

So, Josh, you guys have made household graph a big differentiator in what you do. Why is that?

[Josh Melick]

You know, from the very beginning, data and data and audiences has been what we focused on. We combine mobile data with CTV data and we think that gives a really good picture of audience. I wouldn't say that we focus on every element or every type of segment, but there's quite a few segments that we really focus on that are important to our clients and advertisers. Multicultural audiences, younger generational cultural shifts, where a lot of these areas that are really important to the advertisers we serve. And we focused on that from the very beginning.

[Mike Shields]

So how central is the household graph to the media that you run?

[Josh Melick]

You know, we use our data on like something like 95% of our campaigns. So it's very central, it's very important to what we do. Now we do bring in outside data as well. And actually I think often the most interesting audiences or the most impactful campaigns use our data along with some data by the advertisers, perhaps some of their first party data or some other data as well, and we think that's really where it's powerful. And yeah, all of our campaigns are using something like that.

[Mike Shields]

All right, great stuff. Thanks, Josh. Back to the show.

[Josh Melick]

Thanks, Mike.

[Mike Shields]

I want to ask you, you mentioned the Paramount Water deal. It's been a fascinating couple of months for that story. Of course it's going to take a long time for that deal to close. But you noted like it's spoken of as if there might be a potential monopoly in some circles, but combined it's still going to be a smaller piece of the TV viewership than the big guys. Can they grow that? How does that change the ad market? What needs to happen next there?

[Michael Wolf]

They can definitely grow it. They've said there will be no more Paramount plus, but the evidence is that they were able to convert CBS plus and Showtime into Paramount Plus. There's evidence that shows that you start merging these services, they get bigger and, and they've got a lot to promote with. You've got once again coming back to the value. You've got CBS Sports. You've got so much on the network. And so the biggest problem with these streaming services, everyone looks at and says how much money they're spending on programming. The bigger challenge is what they have to spend on customer acquisition.

[Mike Shields]

Yeah.

[Michael Wolf]

And they're giving all that money away to Amazon, which is the place where most customer acquisition takes place, but to Apple and Roku and other places. So them being able to use their giant megaphone will go a long way

[Mike Shields]

and it would seem imperative to hold on to the NFL. I know they're already talking about trying to renew that. Yeah, you mentioned AI. There's a, I guess a two part question. I think there's been some hope, wishful thinking maybe, that we'd see a lot more small brands come to the CTV world really quickly in part because of AI. That hasn't totally happened yet. And then I want to ask you about what you're thinking in terms of making it easier to spend with creators. Thanks to AI if you can maybe break those pieces down for me.

[Michael Wolf]

Yeah, so I think it's not yet really set up for smaller brands to use CTV extensively as a self service. Considering the social networks and Google and YouTube, they're all really set up for self service, but CTV really isn't yet. And then also any of the CTV platforms, they're more interested in larger advertisers

[Mike Shields]

as much as they're talking a big game. They're going to cater to their top agencies and the top 500 brands.

[Michael Wolf]

But it's Similar to television. There's scarcity here.

[Mike Shields]

Yeah.

[Michael Wolf]

And their algorithm ends up really going to the people who can pay the most. And unlike Google search or something where the algorithm could be more valuable to one company or another. This is measurable.

[Mike Shields]

Yeah. It's auction based. It's different.

[Michael Wolf]

AI will change the dynamic a lot more because we really going to be able to get to a point where there's a lot more personalization and advertising. We are getting close to the point where the ad you see is different than the ad I see in video. Because the ability for AI to even with a celebrity to recut it, it's very, very different.

[Mike Shields]

Yeah. Okay, what about that? You mentioned the virtual product placement idea. There's obviously a lot more interest in the creator economy among brands and the bottleneck seems to be it's just not that easy to spend with a bunch of them at once. These integrations tend to be very custom and there's a lot of companies trying to change that. Are you hopeful there that someone can figure that out and is it going to be an AI driven thing?

[Michael Wolf]

I'm hopeful they're going to figure it out, but it's going to be much more of a repertory company of different stars of different creators versus somebody doing it just as a platform on top of them. There's already a way for creators that they're popular but not with many views, which is they sell advertising through YouTube.

[Josh Melick]

Yeah.

[Michael Wolf]

The largest ones are in many cases are now selling their own advertising and splitting it with YouTube or even taking a bigger piece of it than YouTube and they get more powerful. Mr. Beast is a good example because it's not just him, it's all the other people in his stable of talent.

[Mike Shields]

Yeah. And they're attempting to have their own upfronts and it's just that is not something that can be just be a self serve scaled up kind of thing overnight. They don't want to devalue what they're building.

[Michael Wolf]

No, not at all. And what's fascinating about Mr. Beast is he's one of the very few influencers that's on more than one platform.

[Mike Shields]

Right.

[Michael Wolf]

So he's number one on YouTube and something like number four or five on Facebook, but by the way, not strong anywhere else. Not on Instagram.

[Mike Shields]

Right.

[Michael Wolf]

Not on TikTok. And so these people don't necessarily travel across their very platform specific.

[Mike Shields]

Yeah. What about you mentioned how among all these different platforms, gaming is the one that really still maintains people's attention without a lot of distractions by nature. Especially the harder Core stuff. I feel like I've been waiting forever for in game advertising to be a bigger deal. But you talk about how important that time is now, especially for Gen Z and Gen Alpha. Where are brands in terms of gaming? Is it always going to be a side thing or do you. Are you hopeful that it gets bigger?

[Michael Wolf]

Yeah. I think it has to be more authentic. In game advertising started with literally a sign of your character. The difference is. So if I look at a game like NBA 2K, there's the ability. It's not just even part of the gameplay like you're playing with other people. You can have a coffee with your friend and you can imagine that the coffee with your friend is at Starbucks.

[Mike Shields]

Right.

[Michael Wolf]

So that's advertising, it's not performance advertising. Similarly in Grand Theft Auto there's a casino and there's actually multiple casinos. But I can imagine that casino isn't just a generic casino. That it's valleys.

[Josh Melick]

Yeah.

[Michael Wolf]

And that there could be even real betting in those games.

[Mike Shields]

Why not?

[Michael Wolf]

These days I think that's really much more authentic, much more integrated, much more native than the kind of interruption advertising that we see elsewhere.

[Mike Shields]

Yeah. I want to come back to sports again because you mentioned they're so important to brands. It's propping up the TV industry. But there is. I don't know if it's worry but Gen Z consumes sports differently and there's some thinking about whether we're ever going to get these guys to sit through three hour games like we're used to. Do the leagues need to do something about that. Are they doing enough and try embracing creators and social media aspects of sports. What do they do there?

[Michael Wolf]

The leagues are trying to do some things make the game more interesting. One of the biggest drivers of people watching sports starts with fandom and then it's individual players. But a big piece of it now is sports gambling.

[Mike Shields]

Yeah.

[Michael Wolf]

And now that you've got a lot more in game betting, you've got prop bets. It isn't just about money, it's about engagement. You do find people that watch an entire game front to back. And there are other cases where they're watching a small piece of it. If you're betting on it, you're going to keep coming back. If you're part of a fantasy league, you're going to come to you. But especially as those bets become very specialized. This player, this number of points, these two plays, then people are going to watch through the end.

[Mike Shields]

Yeah. Whether that is good for society or not, it's maybe an open question.

[Michael Wolf]

But I have to say, I never like to consult or extrapolate from my own experience, but I live in a house with two Gen Z sons and they are watching the whole game. Part of it is they're betting on the game.

[Mike Shields]

Yeah.

[Michael Wolf]

All right.

[Mike Shields]

As long as. As long as you're being responsible, I feel good about that. Lastly, Michael, what else, either from your recent report or what are you watching this year that brands or media executives should be thinking about that we haven't covered here? What's on top of your mind?

[Michael Wolf]

Yeah, I think that probably for me, the most important thing that's happening today is spatial computing. It's been discounted. The Vision Pro, like, at best estimates, has sold four to 500. Apple doesn't really. Just the numbers, even if it's 600,000. But how can you argue with the fact that you have practically every major technology company throwing a lot of money into this?

[Mike Shields]

So even with it seems, oh, Meta's pulling out of Metaverse, it's over. You're not seeing that.

[Michael Wolf]

No, Meta's pulling out of Metaverse, but they're not pulling out of the AI glasses, actually.

[Mike Shields]

The hardware. Yeah.

[Michael Wolf]

Yeah. So if I look at the AI glasses, some of the things are even rumored, but you got people who really have a product and are in process. Meta, Alibaba, Google, Huawei, Snapchat, Nvidia's created. They have a patent for a set of AI glasses.

[Mike Shields]

You're right, we're not talking about this enough.

[Michael Wolf]

Yeah. And so everyone's looking at the VR side, which of course is Meta, and it's HTC and Samsung and yes, Apple. But despite the low sales on Vision Pro, every day there's somebody creating a new application. There's actually rumors that Apple will not just create one spatial device, but three AI device with Spatial and their target glasses, a fob and AirPods with cameras. So there are a couple things that are really critical about this. One, yes, they've got to get the hardware right, but they will. And suddenly it's a way of bringing AI into the wild and it's a way of bringing games, video, everything else. One of the first applications on the Snap glasses is you play a game because you get used to using it. The part that nobody talks about is that this requires massive amounts of data, so it requires artificial intelligence. So it's really through an LM Visual because it recognizes an object, and Spatial because it recognizes it in real world. But then it needs data, and the data is probably the thing that is the most difficult. Not the device and it's really data in the cloud. So it's capturing not just what I'm seeing and what you're seeing, but what everybody else is seeing. It goes into a giant network and then that informs everyone else. So you could say, why would anybody do that? There's privacy concerns. If you have a Tesla, your Tesla has a ton of cameras around it.

[Mike Shields]

Yeah.

[Michael Wolf]

And you don't get to use any of the special features, whether it's self driving or assisted driving, unless you turn that on. And that is data that is shared with everybody else.

[IntentIQ Narrator]

Right.

[Mike Shields]

See, we're already there. We just don't realize that we're getting there.

[Michael Wolf]

Exactly. And I'm also very excited still about the VR piece of it. What META did by shutting down Horizon Worlds is they realized they weren't going to create like that one third place for everybody.

[Mike Shields]

Right.

[Michael Wolf]

That more naturally resides in video games. There's not going to be one place that. And by those places that everybody goes to, they're already there. It's Minecraft.

[Mike Shields]

Roblox. Yeah. Fortnite.

[Michael Wolf]

Fortnite.

[Mike Shields]

Right. All right, so we shouldn't. We got to be a little more patient around spatial computing and VR because that will be. Like you said, that will be a very profound behavioral change and huge implications if that comes true.

[Michael Wolf]

Very much so.

[Mike Shields]

All right, well, Michael, awesome conversation. Fascinating stuff as always. And let's do this again sometime. Thanks so much.

[Michael Wolf]

It's a fascinating moment in technology, Internet media, entertainment, and I'm excited to be here with you and continue to watch and listen to you.

[Mike Shields]

Absolutely. Thanks, Michael.

[Michael Wolf]

Thank you.

[Podcast Host]

Thanks again to my guests this week, Activate Consulting CEO Michael Wolf and my partners at sabio and Antenna iq. If you like this week's episode, please take a moment to rate and leave a review. We have lots more to bring you, so please hit that subscribe button. We'll see you next time for more on what's next in media. Thanks for listening.