#OMR24: Hipsterness flocks to AI(m) Kardashian, Swisher and Schmidhuber

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The OMR Festival is probably the most important event of the year for anyone working in marketing. Or do something with the media or are simply interested in exciting topics, exchange and input. The festival also answers what is probably the most important question: Which sneakers are currently in fashion? Spoiler: It's becoming more diverse, even if white still dominates. However, those who wear white and flat and possibly Nike are less likely to be at the forefront of the digital business. Autry has taken over from Veja, and entrepreneur Sébastien Kopp will be talking about the history of the latter shoes on the main stage. Everything was fair, of course, and Kopp explained to a trade fair full of advertisers that Veja had never invested in marketing. All the money went into the product and the value chain.

The ugly dad sneakers with lots of meshes continue to prove hipness. Women are now wearing Adidas Samba again, men still do. Instagram and influencers such as Gigi Hadid, Hailey Bieber and Kendall Jenner have declared them a trend shoe. And anyone who doesn't know who Hadid, Bieber and Jenner are has no business at the OMR.

Kim and Kara wear black

Jenner's sister Kim Kardashian even flew in: this year's star guest of the festival in high heels. Why the reality show queen is appearing in Hamburg can be answered with a joke by Kai Pflaume from last year: he said that AI was already in his name, which is why he was extremely suitable for presenting the main stage - he is also allowed to do so this year, complete with mega hip, really fat and deliberately ugly mesh sneakers. Kim Kardashian can now make a similar claim to KAI. She is quizzed on stage by tech veteran Kara Swisher. She is known for conducting intensive interviews, but this time she remains mildly inconspicuous.

Standing ovation on entry. Or: all smartphones up, no clapping possible. Kardashian was at the Met Gala yesterday. She slept on the plane, she says, the after-show parties are not her thing. Kardashian, Swisher and OMR founder Philipp Westermeyer talk about Kim's social media activities. "I post, and then I ghost," she says. Only she herself has to feel comfortable with what she posts, which is why she doesn't even look at the comments. She doesn't have time anyway, as she is a mother of four children.

Incidentally, they have very clear boundaries when it comes to social media. Not in the morning, not in the car, not while eating. Kardashian finds it impressive how creative her children are when they produce videos. But there are time limits and restrictions, then the cell phone comes off.

Kardashian draws a clever comparison between social networks and AI. We still have to get to know the new technology, just as we first had to understand social media. Regulations and boundaries are important. She can't imagine performing like Rihanna at the Met Gala, who was there as a video version of herself in 2022. I'd rather shoot an extra day on set to be myself than a computer-generated version of myself. "I don't trust it yet, I want to keep watching it first."

Incidentally, Kardashian is not officially invited as an influencer, but as an entrepreneur. Her best tip for entrepreneurs: find a product that doesn't exist and that you would like to have, it has to be authentic and there has to be a need for it. Find a solution to a problem.

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Eindrücke vom OMR Festival 2024 (14 Bilder)

It's not just the Kardashians' appearance that pushes the Conference Stage to its limits. Even during the welcome with Federal Minister of Economics Robert Habeck and ZDF talk show host Markus Lanz, there is no getting in. The queue outside stretches around the exhibition hall. It's like this every year. And as stylish, well-thought-out and fun as the rest of the event is, the admission process is annoying. Visitors watch the speakers on stream on site. There is even a gigantic screen on the grounds. At least a broadcast of the main stage there in the morning would be desirable. With Kardashian, there is at least a stream on another stage.

Tiktok, AI Girlfriends and Google's comeback

"We are bringing international stars of the digital scene and hidden champions of the industry to Hamburg for the OMR Festival 2024," says OMR's own marketing. After all, producer legend Rick Rubin from Def Jam Recording and artist Jeff Koons are international. Scott Galloway from New York University Professor says that TikTok is sold in the USA because money will do the trick. And according to Galloway, it is also right and important that TikTok has an incredible influence on an entire generation.

Another prediction: Google will once again take the lead when it comes to AI. Galloway refers to this as "Empire Strikes Back". For him, OpenAI is a "division of Microsoft". AI requires money and data. Big tech has both. However, the world will change the most because drugs like Ozempic will become available. The diet drug will make the world slimmer and fitter, and food companies could go for the jugular. Loneliness is another major problem in the world and AI Girlfriends are no solution: "Please go out, get drunk, believe me, nothing great will ever happen to you in front of a screen."

AI, energy, politics and Lobo

The theme of this year's festival is not quite as striking as AI was last year. It's refreshing. It's a bit like the shoes. Some things are just white and flat, for example Bastian Schweinsteiger as a soccer expert, who is seriously billed as a "Soccer Expert". Others are more like indoor handball shoes.

Jürgen Schmidhuber has been researching and talking about the basics of AI, agents and general artificial intelligence for decades, but only now are the masses listening to him. He talks to Larissa Holzki from Handelsblatt and Jonas Andrulis from Aleph Alpha. Andrulis reveals that they are working on a new operating system. It's not about developing an AI model, that would be a bad business model. Generative AI is just one component. If a DAX-listed company wants to transform its business, it has to select the fundamental technology, not the generative AI that goes into it. A goal almost as high as Kim Kardashian's heels.

In the exhibition halls, numerous young companies present their fresh ideas, sales departments meet with platforms and service providers, and advertising deals are concluded. In the master classes, for which you have to register in advance, there are tips for advertisers. What is currently going down well at TikTok? Being half-serious, half-ironic with his OMR style. No joke, it's a hot topic on the social networks. In addition to the stage program, this festival also has a very solid, practical character, which sometimes gets lost as an evening act in the outside world via the Kims and Tokyo Hotels.

TikTok, Google and Meta, Amazon and all the big names have, of course, set up their stands. Numerous C-levels and founders of various companies are allowed to stand on the stages: Kerstin Erbe from dm, Tina Müller from Weleda, Aileen Kuhlmann from Lemonaid and ChariTea. Most of the speakers have the additional title "podcaster" under their job title. That's as clear as mud and as important as the right footwear. Who else should not be missing? Sascha Lobo. The German digital explainer veteran is always good for a quote, even if he misses the mark this time.

Lobo shows a video by Meta's head of AI and Turing Award winner Yann LeCun. If you move a table with a vase on it, the vase moves with it. You couldn't explain that to a machine with text, says LeCun. But Lobo believes that AI has understood and learned this because ChatGPT responds correctly: The vase moves too. But not because – as Lobo thinks – ChatGPT "understands" what is happening. This is not how large language models work. They reflect probabilities and approximations, AI has no understanding - as LeCun says.

And AI expert Jürgen Schmidhuber also explains to the audience how such misunderstandings occur. When language models surprise us with "knowledge" – such as solving a task or answering a test correctly - it is not because they understand the question, but because the answer is in the data they have been trained with.

Jonas Andrulis also confirms that writing material for training is a million-dollar business. While Schmidhuber sometimes uses ChatGPT to do homework – he means his students' assignments – Andrulis doesn't use ChatGPT at all. The quality is not good enough for what he wants to convey linguistically. Nevertheless, both of them and Lobo agree that AI is ushering in a transformation. "An industrial revolution in office work", says the Aleph Alpha boss, which will eliminate all the "standard crap" - and which we need considering the shortage of skilled workers.

(emw)