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SXSW 2025: What We’re Paying Attention To
As I hit the ground at SXSW 2025, it’s clear that AI has already taken center stage. And why not? A quick scan of the massive SXSW schedule illustrates that AI is on center stage in Austin — and globally. It’s worth noting that this year there seems to be an emphasis on how AI is being applied to the real world, not just speculation on what it could be.
SXSW tends to reflect what the tech ecosystem of founders and backers are working on. And it often coincides with the hype cycle. Autonomous vehicles, scooter mania, crypto, psychedelics — they’ve all had their moment at SXSW.
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.
The AI track officially begins Sunday, but it’s already making cameos. For instance, Signal President Meredith Whittaker called out agentic AI as a security and privacy threat on stage Friday, and a health expert warned that it can be dangerous for people to rely too heavily on AI for companionship.
Deep tech like space and quantum computing will also make its mark at the show, as well as climate, sustainability — look out for Rivian founder and CEO RJ Scaringe’s keynote on March 11 — and transportation. Autonomous vehicles are back, but this time they’re on the road — not just the topic of conversation in a panel.
This week, Uber and Waymo launched a robotaxi service in Austin. The so-called “Waymo on Uber” robotaxi service is available to any member of the public who has an Uber account. We’ll have more on this development as it becomes available.
In addition to AI and autonomous vehicles, we’re also keeping a close eye on Google’s Gemini-based text embedding model, Elon Musk’s AI company xAI acquiring 1 million-square-foot property in Memphis, and Google adding a Gemini panel to Calendar to help you manage your schedule.
Source: https://techcrunch.com/2025/03/07/sxsw-2025-what-were-paying-attention-to/
