Floor 9

Welcome back to another episode of Floor 9. For this episode, host Tom Trudeau chatted with Adam Simon and Richard Yao from the Lab’s strategy team about our latest insights on travel. Together, they discussed some of the biggest trends in the travel and hospitality sector in 2025, including the financialization of the travel industry, the increasing use of AI chatbots in trip planning, and the appeal of intentional under-planning and flexible travel. All these topics ladder up to a discussion about the future of a “connected trip” experience that is being shaped by shifting consumer expectations and AI adoption.If you enjoyed the episode, please consider giving us a five-star review on Apple Podcast. Follow the Lab on LinkedIn and on Medium for our latest insights. Thanks for listening! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week on Floor 9, four members of the Lab team — Adam, Tom, Chelsea, and Elisa — assemble to discuss in-depth about everything brand marketers need to know about the latest news coming out of Apple’s WWDC developer event this week.Specifically, the team discussed Apple’s practical approach to AI, which focuses on incremental “quality-of-life” improvements, and what it means in the context of a heated AI race among the big tech companies. They also discussed the new “Liquid Glass” design that Apple announced for all upcoming operating systems, and what its spatial computing-oriented design says about Apple’s vision for the future of digital interactions. Furthermore, the team explored specific updates to Apple Wallet, CarPlay, Apple Music, and other corners of the Apple ecosystem that will have direct or indirect impact on brand experiences in relevant categories. If you enjoyed the episode, please consider giving us a five-star review on Apple Podcast. Follow the Lab on LinkedIn and on Medium for our latest insights. Thanks for listening! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week on Floor 9, host Tom Trudeau is joined by Lab members Chelsea Freitas and Ryan Miller for a dive deep into the evolving role of creators in the media ecosystem. From parasocial dynamics to AI's impact on content creation, the trio explores how influencer strategies are maturing—shifting from short-term content sprints to long-term brand partnerships. With insights on niche creators, multi-platform storytelling, and creators as storefronts, plus examples ranging from Nike’s tiered creator playbook to MrBeast’s media franchise, the team discusses what it takes for creators and brands to build trust, convert audiences, and stay nimble in a fragmented digital landscape. This episode is a must-listen for anyone tracking the future of influencer marketing and creator-led brand collaboration. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome back to Floor 9. As usual, we kicked off the year with an Outlook report to forecast some emerging trends in media and consumer behavior that we think will be crucial to brand strategy in 2025 and beyond. In this episode, your host Ryan is joined by Adam Simon, the Lab’s managing director and the author of the Outlook, and Chelsea Freitas, SVP of the Lab’s Strategy team, to take a deep dive into the key trends outlined in this report. Titled “Ports in a Storm,” this year’s Outlook is centered around the idea that consumers are increasingly seeking out “havens” in the face of an increasingly chaotic and stressful world. Together, the team discusses the rise of post-text, hyper-personalized media diets, the reshuffling of social media audiences, the impulse-driven consumer behaviors, the deployment phase of AI, and the opportunities and challenges they bring for brandsFor deeper insights into the discussion, you can also read the full 2025 Outlook report on our Medium blog: https://bit.ly/IPGLabOutlook2025If you enjoyed the episode, please consider giving us a five-star review on Apple Podcast. Follow the Lab on LinkedIn and on Medium for our latest insights. Thanks for listening! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Closing out this remarkable year of innovations, the entire Lab team came together for our annual recap of the biggest trends that defined the tech and media landscape in 2024, and look ahead to see what 2025 may bring. Together, the team discussed:The maturing deployment of AI and the long-term prospect of the AI hypeThe future of search and the impact that AI-driven challengers could have on Google’s dominance The shifting landscape of social media—more media, less “social”—and how creators navigate evolving platforms and parasocial dynamics. The major developments in mixed reality, esp. in hardware, and how its user cases might evolve The streaming landscape in the post-streaming wars era, doubling down on live sports and battling subscription fatigueJoin us for this year-end roundup as we celebrate our team, our guests, and you—our listeners—and head into 2025 with fresh insights and excitement.If you enjoyed the episode, please consider giving us a five-star review on Apple Podcast. Follow the Lab on LinkedIn and on Medium for our latest insights. Thanks for listening! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome back to Floor 9! This month, we welcome long-time host and director of partnerships, Ryan, back from his paternity leave to chat with Adam, the managing director of the Lab, to round up all the recent news around mixed reality headsets. From the Orion AR glasses prototype that Mark Zuckerberg showcased earlier this month, or Meta’s Ai-infused Ray-Ban smart glasses, to the developer-oriented Snap Spectacles, as well as the headset that kicked off this wave of spatial computing hardware, Apple’s Vision Pro, we covered them all! In addition, Adam and Ryan also analyzed the current competitive landscape among the tech companies trying to crack the MR hardware market and prognosticated how things might shake out over the next five to ten years. Listen now to hear our take on this potentially revolutionary emerging category. If you enjoyed the episode, please consider giving us a five-star review on Apple Podcast. Follow the Lab on LinkedIn and on Medium for our latest insights. Thanks for listening! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this special bonus episode of the month, the Lab’s strategy team assembles to discuss the highlights from the results of our latest Futurecaster survey! Futurecaster is the Lab’s proprietary innovation tool that identifies how your audience is engaging with the tactical areas of innovation across emerging technologies and media channels.In partnership with Dynata, we survey 2,500 smartphone owners aged 16-74, asking them about their awareness, past and planned usage, and perception of emerging technologies and media channels. That survey data is fused with our Acxiom data stack, allowing us to identify which tactical areas of innovation your audiences engage with.With each new edition of the survey, we gain interesting new insights into how consumers are adopting and interacting with new technologies. This year, the results showed noteworthy developments across a wide range of innovation territories, including generative AI, augmented reality and mixed reality, retail and lifecycle loyalty, smart city and mobility solutions, the experience economy, and the creator economy. For example, awareness of generative AI tools continues to grow, with 55% of respondents saying they have heard of them, up from 36% who said so last year. Listen now to learn more about Futurecaster and the key insights we learned from this year’s survey!If you enjoyed the episode, please consider giving us a five-star review on Apple Podcast. Follow the Lab on LinkedIn and on Medium for our latest insights. Thanks for listening! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This month on Floor 9, the Lab team assembles for a panel discussion on the future of the entertainment industry. Faced with rising streaming fatigue, high-churn “nomadic subscribers,”  and the looming threat of AI-generated “slop content,” Hollywood needs to be smart about navigating the post-streaming-wars industry landscape, and that begins with re-aligning their business model with the market reality. In this episode, host Ryan Miller is joined by Chelsea Freitas, Tom Trudeau, and Richard Yao to break down the various issues facing the entertainment industry today and point to the best practices going forward. If you enjoyed the episode, please consider giving us a five-star review on Apple Podcast. Follow the Lab on LinkedIn and on Medium for our latest insights. Thanks for listening! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

May marks the beginning of the tech conference season, and this year, we had three key players in the AI race — OpenAI, Google, and Microsoft — all hosting their respective developer conferences within a two-week period in May. If you missed the announcements, fret not! The Lab team is here to help you keep up with the fast-evolving AI developments and competitive landscape.In this episode, Chelsea Freitas from our strategy team, along with Ryan Miller and Tom Trudeau from our partnerships team, took the Floor 9 mic and discussed all the highlights from the recent developer conferences, including:Microsoft’s hardware-centric Surface event - 0:52Is AI-powered Surface laptops a legitimate competitor to Apple? - 3:27AI-powered Recall feature for the Copliot+ PCs - 5:01Key announcements from Microsoft's Build event - 9:03Will people call them “AI” as more AI-powered features become productized - 15:25The advertising implications of Copilot and Microsoft’s AI features - 16:45Key announcements from Google’s I/O developer event - 19:55The impact of Google rolling out AI search - 21:23Google integrating Gemini AI into its suite of popular products - 24:31Google’s new multimodal AI-powered creative tools - 29:03Last thoughts on the AI race and wrap up - 32:52If you enjoyed the episode, please consider giving us a five-star review on Apple Podcast. Follow the Lab on Twitter @ipglab and on Medium for our latest insights. Thanks for listening! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week on Floor 9, it’s about the Vision Pro! Ryan, Adam, and Chelsea regroup on Floor 9 for an in-depth discussion of Apple’s groundbreaking “spatial computing” headset. From our team’s first impressions of trying it on, to unpacking its use cases and market implications, the Lab team is eager to share our hot takes on Vision Pro. Key topics include:Assessing the Vision Pro launch and initial reception - starting around 0:57The Lab team’s first impressions of Vision Pro - starting around 3:31Discussing Vision Pro’s primary use cases - starting around 7:37Does Vision Pro signal a computing paradigm shift? - starting around 18:57The entertainment value of Vision Pro - starting around 21:40The user experience of Vision Pro: isolating or shared? - starting around 29:24Vision Pro’s impact on the mixed-reality headset market - starting around 34:23The marketing implications of Vision Pro and brand takeaways -  starting around 39:34If you enjoyed the episode, please consider giving us a five-star review on Apple Podcast. Follow the Lab on Twitter @ipglab and on Medium for our latest insights. Thanks for listening! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome back to Floor 9! As always, we’ll kick off the year with a CES episode, in which the Lab team assembles to recap the biggest trends we spotted at CES 2024, including:How the AI hype manifested on the CES show floors, both the good and the bad (1:05)How the translucent TVs wow'ed the crowd and could be interesting for retail (2:56)How interoperability emerged as a major trend for smart home devices (4:25)How digital health solutions continue to be on-demand and home-centric (11:09)How immersive experiences are evolving and supercharging next-gen entertainment (15:17)How some CES exhibitors brought a luxury touch to their products through cutting-edge tech and design (26:10)How the CES showcased the latest trends in play and toy: the rise of educational toys, and AI-enabled play (37:48)How the auto industry is rushing to integrate AI into the dashboard and re-adjust their EV strategies (47:44)And many more!In addition, we also each named our favorite CES product this year!To learn more about CES trends, read our written recap here on Medium.If you enjoyed the episode, please consider giving us a five-star review on Apple Podcast and Spotify. Follow the Lab on Medium for our latest insights. Thanks for listening!Correction: at the 22:21 mark, Richard mistakenly said "Roku" when he meant to say "Roxi" when mentioning their new interactive linear broadcast channel. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to our annual holiday shopping trends episode. This year, this holly jolly discussion is led by Chelsea Freitas,  VP of our Strategy team, and she is joined by two other members of our strategy team, Adam Simon and Katy Geisreiter. In this episode, the trio shared some must-know stats about this year’s holiday shopping trends and consumer behaviors, highlighted their favorite tech-enabled retail holiday campaigns, and debated the effects of funflation and other marco-economic forces on holiday shopping behaviors this year. Listen now!  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.