Highlights from SXSW 2025
By Sorrel Feather, Comms Planning Assistant
I attended the IPA SXSW (South by South West) highlights event on Tuesday 1st April in Edinburgh, receiving an insightful presentation from Nigel Gwilliam into the future of artificial intelligence (AI) and biotech.
The South by South West conference and festivals was founded in Austin, Texas and the full event will make its UK debut in London this June. The event is expected to be chaotic in the best way possible. The festival will bring more new ideas from futurists and offer an opportunity to learn about future implications of AI and technological innovations such as robots and biotechnology.
A central theme from the Edinburgh highlights event was sustainability. Sustainability is being increasingly recognised in both the media landscape and across the world. With the rising concerns about the implications of climate change there has been a rise in the number of electric cars. I can appreciate the worries and do drive an electric car frequently in preference to petrol, which I use for longer journeys. Looking to the future, some vehicles have advanced even further to self-drive giving rise to the use of “robot taxis”. Personally, I don’t know how comfortable or trusting I would feel travelling in a self-drive car. As somebody who loves to travel, I was pleased to hear that airlines have started to use SAF fuel, which typically incorporates around 10% biofuel. This does raise the question of why they only use 10% though.
Moreover, the environmental crisis is already having harsh effects on humans. We were presented with the scary statistic that humans now carry a teaspoon of plastic in our brains, and we consume the equivalent of a credit card’s worth of plastic each week. These sobering facts highlight the need for urgent change.
Moving towards a more sustainable world is crucial to our future. At ROM this has been felt by the introduction of carbon offsetting for our campaigns, challenges of plastic free weeks and a vigorous recycling system.
Beyond sustainability, the role of AI and its development took centre stage as a hot topic. It was highlighted that AI is “evolving into a symbiotic new species”. The rapid development of AI has led to “agentic AI” having autonomous agents capable of working independently or as part of multi-agent teams. These agents communicate using their own gibberlink language which is more efficient than human languages. This raises questions about implications for the workplace: is AI use being declared, is it changing how we communicate or operate and moreover, could we be replaced?
Meanwhile, advancements are also being made in biotech innovations such as organoid intelligence. Lab grown mini brains have been developed using human cells that could one day power computers. Embodied AI robots, that replicate human form, stir feelings of unease. Something that was once purely science fiction is becoming scientific fact. These cutting-edge developments will undoubtedly have implications for humans in the future but personally I don’t think this will be for a long time.
As advertising agencies face the growing influence of AI, it is crucial to stay agile and adaptive whilst utilising human skills. The SXSW highlights events gave me a greater depth of knowledge surrounding all topics covered and provoked some thought to how we navigate the future.
