TechCrunch shall be on the bottom at SXSW 2025 — the annual tech, music, comedy, and movie convention that kicked off Friday in Austin — searching for the zeitgeist of this AI-centric period.
Yup, we’re one sentence in and AI has already made its entrance. And why not? A fast scan of the huge SXSW schedule illustrates that AI is on heart stage in Austin — and globally. It’s value noting that this 12 months there appears to be an emphasis on how AI is being utilized to the true world, not simply hypothesis on what it may very well be.
SXSW tends to replicate what the tech ecosystem of founders and backers are engaged on. And it typically coincides with the hype cycle. Autonomous autos, scooter mania, crypto, psychedelics — they’ve all had their second at SXSW.
The tech portion of the annual occasion kicked off Friday and can run by means of March 13. The convention begins with a number of tracks that fall squarely in TechCrunch’s space of curiosity, together with the creator financial system, tradition, startups, well being and medtech, and vitality. The AI monitor formally begins Sunday, however it’s already making cameos. As an example, Sign President Meredith Whittaker, who was interviewed onstage Friday, known as out agentic AI as a safety and privateness risk, and a well being professional warned that it may be harmful for individuals to be too reliant on AI for companionship.
Deep tech like area and quantum computing can even make its mark on the present, as will local weather, sustainability — look out for Rivian founder and CEO RJ Scaringe’s keynote March 11 — and transportation.
Autonomous autos are again, however this time they’re on the street — not simply the subject of dialog in a panel. Earlier this week, Uber and Waymo launched a robotaxi service in Austin. The so-called “Waymo on Uber” robotaxi service is obtainable to any member of the general public who has an Uber account. And also you higher imagine TechCrunch shall be hailing these robots and speaking to human Uber drivers about what they assume.
TechCrunch can even be speaking to the VCs, founders, and business specialists at SXSW to get the heartbeat of how the tech world is adjusting to the Trump administration and, in fact, to seek out the following new new factor. We’ll even be being attentive to the quite a few keynotes and interviews with tech and enterprise luminaries, notably Alan Baratz of D-Wave Quantum, Qualcomm President and CEO Cristiano Amon, Colossal Biosciences founder Ben Lamm, and Arm CEO Rene Haas.
Don’t fear, we’ll have a little bit of enjoyable, too.
