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San Jose wants YOU to build your AI startup downtown
I moderated a panel today with Autodesk CMO Dara Treseder and San Jose mayor Matt Mahan about how governments can use technology to build the future of smart, thriving, sustainable cities. While Mahan talked about the importance of technology to improve existing government services, he dropped some news about a soon-to-be-formally announced initiative.
The city is launching a grant program to incentivize AI startups to set up shop in San Jose. More details to come, so check back in tomorrow, but the program follows similar Silicon Valley-friendly initiatives from San Jose. For example, the city also offers an office leasing incentive program, which provides businesses that relocate to downtown zero business tax for two years and two free parking spaces.
“We’re working very hard to build an AI startup ecosystem in downtown San Jose adjacent to San Jose State University, which graduates more technical degree graduates every year than any other university in the state of California,” Mahan told me after the panel. “We think it’s a prime location to have more startups exist and grow. We already have about 20 venture-backed AI startups downtown and think it can be a much more robust ecosystem.”
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Conan O’Brien gets a golden Doom Hammer
Image Credits:SXSW / YouTube Johanna Faries, president of Blizzard Entertainment, and Conan O’Brien nerded out over the world of gaming at SXSW on Tuesday. O’Brien, the iconic comedian, is a self-proclaimed “clueless gamer” who has been known to dabble (badly, by his own account) with World of Warcraft and Diablo. (Side note: O’Brien said he’d like to be “a demon, maybe a necromancer” in the next Diablo game.)
The two noted that SXSW’s inclusion of a gaming talk was overdue recognition of the importance of the industry, which is increasingly influencing even film and TV, as gaming IP is transformed for the screen. Their chat came a few days after Activision announced the return of BlizzCon, a celebration of all things Blizzard that usually includes things like big game announcements and a chance to create “a different kind of gathering well for gamers,” per Faries.
It’s the community aspect of gaming — the coming together of people around the world who can appreciate interactive storytelling and artistry in games — that O’Brien said he loves.
As a thank-you for his commitment to the gaming community, Faries gifted O’Brien onstage a giant gold Doom Hammer, a nod to WoW fans. O’Brien said he would cherish it, even as his wife will tell him “that is not going anywhere on the first floor.”
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IBM’s Arvind Krishna also thinks AI is ‘a tool’
Move over, Mark Cuban, you’re not alone in your AI thinking. IBM CEO Arvind Krishna took the stage at SXSW to talk about the powers of AI, which he thinks is a valuable technology — but no panacea.
Krishna said he thinks AI will ultimately make programmers more productive, boosting their and their employers’ outputs rather than eliminating programming jobs, as some AI critics have predicted. Krishna compared the debates over AI replacing workers to early debates over calculators and Photoshop replacing mathematicians and artists.
“It’s a tool,” Krishna said of AI. “If the quality that everybody produces becomes better using these tools, then even for the consumer, now you’re consuming better-quality [products].”
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Pick your reality
Image Credits:Kirsten Korosec / TechCrunch I spotted these two vehicles — one a Tesla Cybertruck, the other an electric autonomous shuttle by Dallas-based Mozee — while walking around downtown Austin. The image, which I captured, reminded me that we exist in multiple realities and truths. I know, so very deep. Must be all the tacos I am consuming.
Which reality do you identify with?
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Paramount CTO says AI won’t direct movies, but …
Paramount CTO Phil Wiser remains optimistic about the future of AI, but he said he doesn’t think it can replace the role of a director or create a full-length movie.
“No one’s creating a movie out of a single prompt going into a text-to-video tool. That’s not happening anytime soon,” Wiser said Tuesday on the SXSW stage. “[AI isn’t] sitting in a director’s chair, which is probably never going to happen.”
Wiser acknowledges the strengths of AI video generation models, particularly in producing short animated clips. However, he pointed out that these models still struggle with aspects like story arcs and maintaining character consistency from scene to scene.
Rather than replacing a director, Wiser thinks AI will continue to be used in various other aspects of filmmaking, such as voice tools, dubbing, color correction, and de-aging.
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will.i.am reinvents the radio with AI
Musician and technologist will.i.am took the stage at Qualcomm’s SXSW keynote on Tuesday to demo RAiDiO, the conversational AI platform he’s been developing for over a year. Unlike many assistants, RAiDiO can “reflect” on what’s being said, will.i.am claimed, and uses colloquial language in one of several realistic synthetic voices.
“It’s not just, like, an LLM chatbot,” will.i.am said onstage. “There’s some magic that’s happening there.”
RAiDiO, which will.i.am has spoken about before, has access to real-time info from the web, can understand conversations in multiple languages, and offers several streaming “radio stations” to choose from. will.i.am teased a collaboration with an unnamed automaker — to be announced later this week — that’ll bring the RAiDiO experience to cars. -
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Mark Cuban talks AI, says it’s ‘never the answer,’ it’s a tool
Tech investor and entrepreneur Mark Cuban is bullish on AI, saying that entrepreneurs today should be learning everything they can about the new technology. However, he cautioned that although AI could take the place of mentor, in terms of answering questions, it shouldn’t be relied on as a solution.
“AI is never the answer. AI is the tool. Whatever skills you have, you can use AI to amplify them,” he said.
“A lot of creative people think, well, AI is gonna write all the scripts,” said. “AI doesn’t know a good story from a bad story. You need to be creative. AI can do the video — trust me, I can create AI-generated videos. They’re still gonna suck.”
“Whatever skills you have, AI can amplify them. But not using it means somebody else is going to be amplifying their skills — and that could be the difference between getting ahead of you or not,” he said.
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Waymo vs. Uber: Let’s all take a trip down memory lane
Image Credits:Kirsten Korosec When I entered the Waymo-Uber party Monday evening, I stopped and reflected on what a wild moment this was. The scene, which included a performance by singer Megan Moroney, Terry Black’s BBQ, and a Waymo robotaxi parked on a platform above a pool, wasn’t particularly grandiose — at least on the scale of SXSW parties. But seeing Uber and Waymo employees toasting with mugs of prickly pear margaritas was, especially for this reporter.
Seven years ago, Waymo and Uber were in the middle of a trade secrets theft trial —a shaky foundation for a future partnership. The two companies abruptly settled just five days in the trial, in which Waymo had alleged Uber had stolen self-driving technology. Insiders told me that Waymo and Uber started talking about partnering in 2022, eventually leading to a launch in Phoenix about 18 months later.
Now, with Uber and Waymo pairing up on a robotaxi service in Austin, and soon Atlanta, this relationship appears (at least publicly) to be on solid ground.
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Mod Bikes launched its new Groove e-bike
Image Credits:Kirsten Korosec / TechCrunch We took a quick spin around the demo pavilion at SXSW and stopped by Mod Bikes, an Austin-based e-bike company that just launched its new Groove model. The $2,000 bike has a vintage feel and a step-through frame, with thick enough tires to make any rider feel safe and sturdy. Or so they tell us; we’ll be testing it out Tuesday to confirm and will report back!
But before we do, one interesting tidbit the guys at Mod shared with us: The company assembles its bikes in the U.S., but many of its parts come (as expected) from China. That means the startup is already starting to feel the sting of Trump’s tariffs and has had to get creative to avoid offloading higher costs onto the consumer.
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Rivian is literally everywhere
Image Credits:Kirsten Korosec / TechCrunch It’s typical for the headliner sponsor of SXSW to have a presence. But sheesh, Rivian — the title sponsor — really is everywhere. The EV maker is clearly trying to make a big splash and connect with attendees: It has at least four installations, including in the exhibition area inside the Austin Convention Center and an outdoor obstacle course, which I tried out.
Sadly, they didn’t let me drive the course, which included two large hills and one section that took the second-gen R1T pickup truck off camber. The driver put the vehicle in all-terrain high to tackle the course, which took about three minutes to complete.
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Bluesky is thinking about how to block AI scrapers
Bluesky CEO Jay Graber said during her SXSW panel that the social network has been working on a framework for user consent over how they want their data to be used for generative AI. The proposal involves a system similar to robots.txt, but would instead ask companies to respect users’ settings on data reuse.
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Two open web initiatives may be teaming up
Entrepreneur Frank McCourt, whose Project Liberty is developing open internet infrastructure, announced at SXSW that his organization has been in discussions with internet pioneer Tim Berners-Lee about an integration with Solid, his open source project aimed at giving people control over their own data.
“We’re debating, or talking, right now about how to incorporate that — him and Solid, his Solid Pods — into the project,” McCourt teased.
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Live
AI
SXSW 2025 live coverage: Mark Cuban is bullish on AI, Rivian is ‘literally everywhere,’ and Conan O’Brien gets a Doom Hammer
TechCrunch will be on the ground at SXSW 2025 — the annual tech, music, comedy, and film conference that kicked off Friday in Austin — in search of the zeitgeist of this AI-centric era.
The tech portion of the annual event kicked off Friday and will run through March 13.
The conference begins with several tracks that fall squarely in TechCrunch’s area of interest, including the creator economy, culture, startups, health and medtech, and energy.
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