TOGETHER WITH

It’s Wednesday and if your feed is spiraling out of control, Instagram has a quick fix: a new “fresh start” feature that allows users to reset their recs in seconds.

YOUTUBE TO HOLLYWOOD

Hollywood is cautious about AI. These YouTube vets are going full speed ahead.

The studio: Two YouTube vets are taking a big gamble on generative AI. George Strompolos and Jamie Byrne—both of whom worked in early creator-facing roles at YouTube—are joining forces with genAI artist and director Dave Clark to launch Promise, an entertainment studio that aims to reimagine Hollywood productions with generative AI.

The three co-founders plan to “produce original films, series, and new formats” by working with artists who employ generative AI as a primary production and creativity tool (including Clark himself). That primary part is an important distinction. “We aren’t thinking of generative AI as a VFX tool to make the snow look pretty when it falls,” said Strompolos to the Wall Street Journal. The first step in realizing that vision is the development of a piece of workflow software called Muse, which will integrate generative AI innovations throughout the production process.

Stompolos, Byrne, and Clark’s vision has already secured backing from major VCs like investor Peter Chernin and Andreessen Horowitz‘s Andrew Chen, whose portfolio includes an investment in Clubhouse.

The founders: There’s a reason investors are showing interest in Promise. While Muse won’t be the first piece of AI-generated video tech in the pop culture sphere (OpenAI’s Sora, ByteDance’s text-to-video models, and others have already entered the field), Promise’s founders set it apart. Strompolos was one of the original architects of the YouTube Partner Program, while Byrne served as one of YouTube’s longest-tenured higher-ups before departing from his in 2022. (He started in 2006 pre-Google acquisition.)

Strompolos also led the seminal multi-channel network Fullscreen, where he invested millions in creator content. That experience connected him with Chernin, who acquired a controlling stake in Fullscreen in 2014 and full ownership of the company by way of Otter Media (a JV between The Chernin Group and AT&T) in 2018. Strompolos left the company later that year.

The future: Will Promise be able to overcome Hollywood’s persistent distrust of AI? It’s not guaranteed, but those industry connections and deep understanding of digital content and creators will certainly help. It also has to actually work.

Ben Affleck recently appeared on stage at CNBC’s Delivering Alpha event and talked extensively about AI. “Movies will be one of the last things, if everything gets replaced, to be replaced by AI,” he said. “AI can write you excellent, imitative verse that sounds Elizabethan. It cannot write you Shakespeare.”

So will AI or humans be the poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more? We’ll see what the promise is tomorrow, tomorrow, and tomorrow.

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HEADLINES IN BRIEF 📰

• Shorts channels dominated the YouTube charts last week, with 35 short-form hubs claiming spots in the U.S. Top 50. (Tubefilter)
  
  

• At an average of 108 million viewers, Netflix says the fight between Mike Tyson and Jake Paul was “the most-streamed global event ever.” (The Verge)
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• Bluesky has hit 20 million users after nearly tripling its user base over the course of just three months. (Engadget)
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• The U.S. Department of Justice reportedly plans to urge Google to sell Chrome as part of an effort to limit the company’s alleged monopoly in the search engine industry. (Engadget)

INDUSTRY INSIGHTS

X has named a new defendant in its advertiser lawsuit: Twitch

The lawsuit: X is taking yet another company to court. The platform has named Twitch as one of several defendants in an ongoing lawsuit that accuses advertisers of anticompetitive practices.

X initially filed that suit in August, when it accused The Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM)—an initiative formed by the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA)—of orchestrating a widespread advertiser boycott that took place in 2022 on Twitter. At the time, the chaos of Elon Musk‘s early reign and his apparent facilitation of hate speech led numerous brands and agencies to withdraw or scale back their ad efforts.

GARM was discontinued in the wake of X’s lawsuit—but the Musk-owned platform isn’t backing down. It’s now arguing that Twitch (along with several other companies) colluded to withhold billions of ad dollars from its platform by refraining from buying U.S. X ads over the last two years and endorsing GARM’s brand safety standards.

What’s next: The lawsuit itself could play out in X’s favor—after all, Musk’s prominent position in Donald Trump‘s reelection campaign has increased his power considerably. But even if the platform prevails, there’s no guarantee buyers will come back. Despite providing greater transparency on its moderation efforts, rolling out premium products for advertisers, and personally courting agencies, X is expected to continue facing declining ad budgets in 2025.

MARKETING MACHINE

YouTube ad matchmaker Agentio has secured $12 million in new funding

The funding: One year after completing a $4.25 million seed round, Agentio has secured another $12 million in funding. The YouTube ad matchmaker collected that fresh capital in a round led by Benchmark, which drew participation from Craft Ventures, AlleyCorp, and various “industry-leading marketing executives and creators” per a release.

Agentio eventually plans to deploy its Series A funds to expand its efficiency-focused matchmaking model—which automates connections between creators and brands on YouTube—to additional platforms. In the meantime, however, the company is seeing impressive returns on YouTube.

The platform: Agentio’s namesake platform launched last year as an AI-guided marketplace that allows potential sponsors to connect with like-minded creators directly rather than operating through multiple channels in a weeks-long process. So far, the results have been promising: in a statement, Agentio Co-Founder and CTO Jonathan Meyers claimed that participating “brands are working 10x as fast and seeing as much as 15x better return on ad spend.” CEO Arthur Leopold (who previously served as the President of Cameo) added that the platform now allows brands to buy YouTube ad reads “as easily as they buy Meta or Google ads.”

That approach has already attracted notable sponsors like DoorDash, MasterClass, and HelloFresh, as well as top creators like Nick DiGiovanni, Matty Matheson, Rhett & Link, and Chad Chad.

The context: Agentio’s latest funding injection comes at an auspicious time. The potential breakup of Google’s alleged ad buying monopoly will likely drive more traffic to third-party solutions like Agentio—and with brand safety concerns on the rise, marketers will look to trusted partners for their creator needs. Agentio is eager to fill that role: Leopold told TechCrunch that his platform can “instantly” determine whether a creator is brand safe.

WATCH THIS 📺

Minecraft fans have more than a movie to look forward to

The film: The first full trailer for A Minecraft Movie dropped yesterday, triggering mixed reviews from longtime gamers. So far, the film seems to be a chaotic, hi-fi take on the game’s beloved lo-fi universe, with actors like Jason Momoa and Jack Black thrown in for mass appeal.

The parks: We’ll all have a chance to dive into A Minecraft Movie when it hits theaters in April—but that film isn’t the only Minecraft experience fans have to look forward to. Merlin Entertainments has announced plans to build two theme parks inspired by the game, which will hit the U.S. and the U.K. between 2026 and 2027.

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Today's newsletter is from: Emily Burton, Sam Gutelle, and Josh Cohen. Drew Baldwin helped edit, too. It's a team effort.