Context is King
FM (Friday Morning) Reflection #23
This is the time of year when everything that's hot-new-exciting-different gets a lot of attention. The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) is in full swing in Las Vegas, which means we should brace ourselves for a steady stream of product announcements as journalists and writers release a gusher of “news” about of the things they've seen with the rest of us.
CES is a huge event, and if anything can take over Las Vegas, CES is probably it. The Associated Press reported that last year’s show registered more than 138,000 attendees. And it’s BIG, with 2.5 million net square feet of floor space set aside for this year’s gathering.
If you’ve ever attended CES, you know this translates into a lot of walking. And now that we have trackers for everything, I can tell you that my largest daily step count — 33,346 steps — was racked up while walking the show floor. A quick check of a steps-to-miles calculator says that's about 15.5 miles. Needing good shoes is no joke for CES attendees.
Organizers expect more than 4,500 exhibitors to participate in 2025 with nearly a third of those representing startups. This explains the reality of something else you might observe as an attendee — many products shown at CES never make it into large-scale production to the point where the average person would happen across them in the wild. After all, it's a show and there must be enough interest in each product for its individual show to go on. The reality is that some ideas and products aren’t viable or just don't break through.
Much of whether a product concept sees the light of day has nothing to do with whether it’s a “good idea.” A lot depends on timing and where we are economically and culturally in any given moment.
Just because something is there doesn’t mean we will notice. I was walking to catch the train earlier this week, the night after we received a few inches of snow, and bright red berries on a holly bush alongside the path caught my eye. I had walked past this location hundreds of times and never noticed. But the jubilant color of the berries jumped out in contrast with its dark foliage against the bright snowy backdrop.
How is it that I had never seen these before? The answer is that the context had changed. And now that I’ve seen the holly bushes and berries, and ironically, they’ll probably just start to blend into the literal scenery after a while.
It’s the same with technology innovation. Generative AI first popped into our collective consciousness in November 2022 with the public arrival of ChatGPT—a chatbot based on OpenAI's 3.5 model. It was the hot thing because nothing like it had come into public view before.
But there were many versions that led up to that. GPT-3.0 was released in 2020, and OpenAI itself was founded in 2015. It took years of investment and growth before it broke into the headlines. Because of that release, the context of what we expect and interact with technology and predictive algorithms changed.
Thinking about it now, I can hardly believe we’re already into year three of the Generative AI evolution. There was a whirlwind of AI announcements at the end of 2024, and yet, I wonder how many people noticed. Back in 2022, ChatGPT both shocked and excited the world. It created a new playing field. Now our context is different. AI seems to be everywhere. And the idea of LLM-driven chatbots is no longer new news.
We’re getting to the exciting part of the story. We're starting to see how each of the major players are staking out territory and their product strategy, and innovations based on these products will soon start to show up in daily life.
Google and Microsoft are battling for the corporate workspace and delivering a host of feature enhancements to boost productivity. OpenAI is evolving their models to improve based less on data acquisition alone and more from a focus on "more thinking" (my words). I really like the new collaborative Canvas in ChatGPT, and I think the recently launched ability to integrate with live APIs could be the next killer app.
Perplexity is trying commerce—which really tried my patience when my order for a new laptop was plagued with delivery and customer service issues. Salesforce is ramping up their marketing machine with a vision of agents-everywhere-all-the-time. Plus we have new capabilities from Apple baked into their product line. You get the idea.
We're moving past the novelty phase and starting to see real stuff being built with Generative AI. We're moving from AI-as-a-thing to AI-in-everything.
I'm using AI tools daily, and I can see examples of where my productivity is increasing. I'm not talking about summarizing emails. The other day I needed to write a Unix shell script, and that took me about an hour—it solved my problem, eliminated hours of manual effort to create from scratch, and it’s something I will reuse many times.
We’re offered "life hacks" all the time...often to sell products and subscriptions...and now I can create my own. This is just one example, and throughout my day, I see applications that generate real and material value in ways that a CFO or CEO will recognize.
Technology moves fast, but people, well, we're slow to change. This is not just because of the rate at which we can adjust our own behavior, but because our work gets done in systems and communities and these have to evolve as well.
It’s time to get ready. It’s clear that a wave of Generative AI is about to arrive in the context of our daily lives, and not just by “adding AI”, but with AI integrated into all the other things we do every day…in year three…which seems about right to me.
Photo Bonus
Context is everything. This capped mannequin head caught my attention and made me laugh with its unusual elevated perch, seemingly looking down at the busy passers by on a Manhattan street. I called this one “Heads Up!” What would your caption be? I’d love to see your ideas in the comments!