To no one’s surprise, AI was everywhere at SXSW—but some industries seem more ready for it than others

Ay yi yi…or shall we say, AI, AI, AI?

That’s how pervasive artificial intelligence was at South by Southwest this year—and as the weekend that I attended went on, it seemed the general attitude toward the ever-present tech topic ping-ponged between performative excitement and prolonged wariness. A circus in search of a ringmaster.

There was no industry agnosticism about it either: The entertainment sector saw panels on everything from using AI to revitalize film history to NBCUniversal’s celebration of its new AI-powered Your Bravoverse product to dissecting AI’s impact on IP and fair use.

Meanwhile, the creator economy reckoned with how AI slop might change the online world while also searching for ways to implement the tech.

And the tech industry, of course, juggled ideas about how AI will change everything from healthcare to inclusive storytelling—while still acknowledging infrastructure and ethical challenges ahead.

It’s a big tent, and everyone wants in, so they say.

It was the tech du jour, except perhaps “jour” should be replaced with a term that encapsulates AI’s ability to be top of mind over the past year or so. But while it’s everywhere today, it’s not unique in its ubiquity, even at SXSW, according to Dallas Dolen, US technology, media, and telecommunications industry leader at PwC.

“Last year, there was a lot on blockchain, and crypto, and different forms of payment. That seems to be completely by the wayside at this point,” Dolen told me. “[This year], you can't go 20 feet without seeing something about AI and the disruption it's having to broader society, and certainly to the specific things that are a focus here with media, music, and movies in particular.”

Don’t freak out

In entertainment, AI presents a push and pull of creative concerns and engagement opportunities. For executives like Kimberly Francella-Faver, SVP of brand partnerships and marketing at NBCUniversal, the tech is nothing to be afraid of, especially when combined with human refinement.

“You can’t be afraid of technology. Technology is not going to take your job,” Francella-Faver told me. “You want to be afraid of people learning and understanding the technology. They’re the ones who are taking the jobs.”

With Your Bravoverse, Francella-Faver sees AI as essential to making the vast capabilities, like the more than 600 billion combinations of content, possible and efficient. To humanize it, she said host and Bravo personality Andy Cohen (who has been AI-ified into an avatar for Your Bravoverse) is heavily involved in advising on certain storylines and working with Bravo executives to ensure “that everything feels and looks right.”

Kenny Gold, managing director and head of social, influencer, and content at Deloitte Digital, agrees that AI isn’t here to steal jobs, especially for creators. Instead, the tech should be thought about more specifically; generative AI could help creators make content more quickly, while agentic AI could aid in back-office tasks like payroll and content data management.

Still, he knows that not everything AI is smooth sailing for creators or marketers at large.

“Naturally, any disruption creates friction,” Gold told me. “It’s the organizations that embrace it and understand it and use it for what their organization needs to do that makes it go to life.”

Or…maybe freak out?

When I talked to Dolen and his colleague Ali Furman, industry leader for US consumer markets at PwC, they noted that some of the AI discussion at SXSW this year had shifted to broader, potentially negative societal effects, like its impact on creativity in music and film—fields that SXSW typically champions.

“From a futures point of view, there’s been a lot of forecasts as to some of this stuff being perhaps a little bit on the grayer-to-negative side than it was super positive previously,” Dolen said.

Still, the PwC folks took an optimistic POV on AI themselves, pointing out its ability to potentially revolutionize the shopping and business experience. Furman noted that while it’s easy to see younger demographics’ high screen time as a screen addiction, it’s also important to note that their screen and AI nativity is highly impactful on household spending.

Relatedly, here’s one area Furman said is currently underutilizing AI, especially when it comes to how Gen Z and Gen Alpha may be using it: consumer brands. She said brands in spaces like hospitality, travel, and retail should be paying attention to agentic commerce, a newer channel that allows users to not only search for products and brands within an AI platform like ChatGPT or Claude but actually complete the purchase without ever leaving their AI of choice.

Retailers like Walmart and Target have been early to the game, announcing deals with OpenAI and Google Gemini to pilot such experiences. In early March, Target announced that it would spend “an incremental $2 billion in 2026” on things like “training to elevate the guest experience” and “accelerating technology—including AI—to make shopping easier and more personalized.” Prat Vemana, Target’s chief information and product officer, recently told Adweek that at this stage, consumers seem to be more in a search and inspiration space than directly purchasing within AI platforms.

“It’s super early days, but it’s going to impact every single consumer industry, because we know people are using AI for high-consideration-type of purchases, [like] vacations…or things that are very personal to them related to their health,” Furman said. “Consumer products aren’t quite as focused on it yet, but they should be, because…if their products and brands are not optimized to show up in this type of agentic search, they’ll risk becoming invisible.”

Gen Z and Gen Alpha will also be significant AI-native shoppers, Furman pointed out, and as their purchasing power grows, their expectation for AI shopping experiences will be baseline.

Overall, Dolen said AI, both at SXSW and in corporate culture in general, is “manifesting itself in a quote positive way, which is to run the business better, but also can be viewed in a negative fashion, depending on the lens that you apply to it,” like potential impacts on the labor market.

Across demographics, from generational divides to job roles, understanding of AI also still continues to fluctuate—and that could be an area of concern.

“We’ve seen in every industry…most board members are not using this technology. Now, ironically, they’re the ones who are supposed to, on behalf of the shareholders, hold management accountable for what they’re doing and adapting to this future world,” Dolen said. “I’ve had some very fun conversations on this topic, but it’s also concerning too, because there’s a very steep ramp that has to be climbed in terms of education for those board members.”

Translation: The AI circus is coming to your town, whether you want to clown around or not.