Month: September 2023

EA FC has become prime in-game advertising inventory — and its decoupling from FIFA last year could spark a marketing bonanza inside the prominent sports game.

On Sept. 29, Electronic Arts will release EA Sports FC 24 — the first iteration of the company’s wildly popular football title after EA parted ways with FIFA last year. Unshackled from its relationship with the governing body, EA now finds itself free to bring a wider and deeper range of advertisers inside the game.

“The name of the game has to change, but it comes with a lot of opportunities, the predominant opportunity being freedom of choice — sort of removing some of those more restrictive limitations that FIFA rightly placed on us, as a partner,” said David Jackson, vp of brand for EA Sports FC. “We no longer needed to prioritize what they call their OLPs, or official licensed partners, when it came to giving them visibility in-game. So we have a choice, now, to sort of chart our own destiny in terms of those brands that we want to work with.”

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Generative AI unsurprisingly took center stage during last week’s Google Cloud Next, a three-day event that precedes other major tech events this fall, including the Apple Event, Salesforce’s Dreamforce, Meta Connect and Adobe Max. However, it was just one of many AI-related events bubbling up in the news cycle last week as the race to build and regulate AI continues at breakneck speed.

What happened at Google Cloud Next:

• Google also announced numerous updates to its AI platforms like Vertex and Duet, while also unveiling new or expanded partnerships with companies like Nvidia. In his opening remarks, CEO Sundar Pichai said “tens of thousands of developers” are using more than 100 AI models on Google Vertex while more than 1 million people are already using generative AI features in Google Workspace. 
• Alongside all the talk about the benefits of AI, Pichai said the company’s also developing ways to mitigate risks including a new “watermark” for AI-generated images to help distinguish and verify what’s computer-made and what’s not. 
• Executives from dozens of companies joined Google on stage to talk about their partnerships including General Motors, IHOP, the Boston Red Sox, Urban Outfitters, Estee Lauder, GE Appliances and FOX Sports. Another was Six Flags, which announced plans to integrate Google’s generative AI tools into the theme park’s mobile app and website later this year to create chatbots that answer questions and help visitors plan their day with personalized recommendations.

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A WSJ poll finds indictments are helping Trump in the Republican primaries, but not with all voters.

We’ve not fully arrived at crazytown. But the urge to curtail individual freedom is visible in countless blueprints for a controlled future.

The Beltway double standard on the health of public officials is something to behold.

For once, a weather-related disaster is too important to cheapen for the ‘narrative.’