Latest news with #Interdependence
Newsweek
29-07-2025
- Business
- Newsweek
AI Impact Awards 2025: Media Execs Say AI Won't Replace Human Creativity
AI advances in industries like software development or health care are largely understood to improve efficiencies when dealing with numbers and data. But there is still concern about the use of automation and generative AI in creative industries, where a unique human touch is paramount. The winners of Newsweek's AI Impact Awards in the category of Arts & Media represented three different industries that are using this emerging technology. For them, using AI doesn't eliminate human input. It increases efficiency, democratizes their fields and allows for more creativity to hit the marketplace. Interdependence Interdependence is a PR and strategic communications firm, with offices in every major market across the U.S., that works with clients across industries, including entertainment, consumer and travel brands. It is the winner of Newsweek's AI Impact Award for Best Outcomes, Digital Media & Arts. In addition to traditional media relations, the company manages social media, influencer marketing, branding and SEO. Interdependence now uses generative AI on a platform called Interviewed to identify trends based on what customers are searching for online. "The trend alerts are based on click rates," Interdependence President Sarah Schmidt told Newsweek in an interview. "So when our AI determines that a click rate is spiking, that's when we know that a certain topic or trend is emerging to trend, and that's our cue to go out with it." For their client Overtone, a semipermanent hair dye company, Interdependence identified major hair trends on social media. When celebrities like Kylie Jenner, Busy Philipps and Megan Fox dyed their hair pink last year, Interviewed picked up a rapid spike in conversations around pink hair in both traditional media and social media, as audiences were eager to re-create the look. Interdependence gathered trend data and alerted beauty editors, journalists and influencers covering the trend to pitch Overtone's product that was relevant to the trend. Interviewed has a database of 25,000 journalists to identify who has written about emerging trends or similar topics. The AI tools' rapid response allowed Interdependence to "get ahead of" the trend in a way that was timely and relevant, Schmidt said. "By aligning with celebrity-driven beauty trends, we secured top-tier placements at the peak of interest, positioning Overtone as an industry leader in on-trend hair color," Interdependence said in its awards application. The "King Kylie Pink" hair trend garnered nearly 79 million impressions, and the brand's product was placed in eight major media outlets, including Byrdie, Glamour, MSN, Allure and Yahoo Lifestyle, according to Interdependence. Schmidt said the company is constantly adjusting the tool by updating specific keywords that will pick up trends quicker, "before they blow up," and track better data for clients. And when teams can spend less time tracking and making dashboards, Schmidt said, they can focus on higher-level tasks, like developing creative strategies to help clients continue to innovate and expand. Integrating technology internally will be "a game changer" for PR firms, like Interdependence, which, Schmidt said, relies on storytelling and personal relationships. AI Impact Awards: Arts & Media AI Impact Awards: Arts & Media Newsweek Illustration "We want to maintain our competitive advantage; we are continuing to push the boundaries, continuing to innovate, and we are committed to having the most advanced tech stack in public relations," she said. "We want our team to have every tool at their disposal that is going to make them efficient, optimized and smart so we can continue to add that value to our clients." Automation of lower-level tasks through AI tech is encouraged throughout the company, but, Schmidt said, there is still that human touch to everything teams do. "We really are living at the corner of tech plus human plus innovation," she said. "We never will downplay the importance of our humans and their strategy, their creativity, their ability to make relationships and connect. That's something that AI can never do. And so from that perspective, PR still needs to be uniquely human. We just power our team through these innovations to get to fully optimize them and make their work as strategic and propped-up with tech as possible." Spines AI is not only helping improve internal and external efficiency but also increasing accessibility in arts and media creation. Thirteen years ago, Israeli author Yehuda Niv encountered many roadblocks and inefficiencies when trying to publish his book. He later founded Niv Publishing, which grew into one of Israel's largest publishing houses, with more than 1,200 titles published annually. But still, the publishing process remained slow, costly and inaccessible for so many people. Using AI technology, Niv founded Spines, an AI-driven publishing platform that "removes the barriers that prevent authors from bringing their books to market," the company said in its application. Spines is now the winner of Newsweek's AI Impact Award for Best Outcomes, Written Media & Arts. A book normally takes six to 18 months to get published. But with Spines, Niv said, the process takes two to three weeks. And it costs thousands of dollars instead of tens of thousands of dollars. To circumvent those challenges, Spines deploys AI to automate key stages like spelling and grammar checks, page formatting, cover design and audiobook creation. Spines also offers marketing services to create and manage campaigns for authors across a wide distribution network. This drives down costs and saves time, while allowing authors to retain 100 percent of their net royalties and full control of their content post-publication. "We take care of everything, and then the authors can focus on what they are doing best, which is writing books," Niv told Newsweek in an interview. "We are ready to empower authors with the power of AI to help them to boost their writing, to boost their stories [and] to make them reach more." The company has published over 2,000 titles in 2024 and is on track to reach 8,000 by the end of 2025, the company said. Beyond revenue and volume growth, Spines also measures its success by author satisfaction and retention, noting a high percentage of returning authors who publish multiple books. Post-publication tracking also indicates that the platform is able to drive book sales and visibility to a wide range of audiences. One of the biggest challenges of the platform was resistance and skepticism from those coming from a traditional publishing background. But Niv assured Newsweek that Spines is not trying to replace the authors—Spines is here to help authors realize their dreams in the most efficient way. To those who assume increasing access to publishing will decrease the quality of the books, Niv says, "Who are you to choose what is high quality and what isn't?" "Because the publishing space was controlled for a very long time by the elite publishers who [decide] who is worthy and who isn't worthy to become an author," he said. "And I am here to say that if someone spent a year of his life writing a manuscript, he's worthy of getting his book published. Let the readers decide if it's good writing or not. Let's give him a chance." Moonvalley Like Spines, Moonvalley aims to eliminate the traditional barriers for filmmakers by cutting production costs and helping artists realize their vision faster. The company won Newsweek's AI Impact Award for Best Outcomes, Visual Media & Arts. It was founded to "make generative video technology" for filmmakers and creative professionals. It provides AI tools to creatives "that enhance their vision rather than replace their craft," the company said in its application. CEO Naeem Talukdar told Newsweek that Moonvalley is focused on the creators and building control for them to best execute their work. "We're building models that can go in and move cameras around, change the lighting and have people decide who's involved and where they're moving and how they're moving," he said, adding that this process is broadly defined internally as generative filmmaking. The company built Marey, an AI video model designed for professional filmmakers. It's also the first clean AI model, where the data, video and imaging used to train the models come from licensed content generated by a network of hundreds of creators, including film school students, independent filmmakers, international studios and film catalogues. Moonvalley recently announced that it is opening public access to Marey. In a recent press release, Moonvalley Chief Scientific Officer Mateusz Malinowski said Marey gives directors the same level of controls they expect on set and by working with filmmakers directly: "We built technology that amplifies and empowers their creative vision rather than replacing it." At Moonvalley's in-house studio, Asteria, filmmakers are incorporating these AI tools, which allow the company to "build technology that's actually built for creators, rather than just kind of being these abstract models," Talukdar said. Moonvalley built specialized interfaces that let filmmakers direct the AI model using sketches, storyboards, photos and camera controls. According to the company, working directly with professionals shaped the workflow and controls to ensure the technology would fit seamlessly into existing creative processes. The company likens the effect of this technology to the shift from silent film to talkies, the introduction of Technicolor or the advent of CGI in the ways it is "opening doors to a new creative renaissance where a broader range of voices and stories can be shared." "When CGI first came out, there were these fears that a lot of jobs just aren't going to be there anymore," Talukdar said. "And it's true: there are things that obviously you didn't need to do anymore post-CGI that you did before. However, studios have only increased in size since CGI came out, because now you have a whole new cascade of roles that have opened up in VFX and different things that you have to do." He said the proliferation of AI in filmmaking will allow independent filmmakers to make more films "What's going to happen is that you're talking about a 30 to 50 percent savings, and that alone is enough to cause this massive flourishing of creativity," Talukdar said. "I really think that you're going to see a golden age of cinema emerge from these independent studios now suddenly being able to punch above their weight and create AAA content, whereas otherwise, they would have just been making indie movies." There is plenty of pushback against the use of AI in the filmmaking process, but, he said, many of the fears are not the reality. "I'm not going to spend two hours watching a ChatGPT-generated movie," he said. "There's no quick fixes to it, like the industry is angry, and they're going to be hostile to the technology, as is completely natural." The solution, he said, is to ease in a "show, not tell" strategy to demonstrate that creatives can do the same things in a way that is more feasible than before. "With a generative videography model, these are just power tools," Talukdar said. "Expecting them to replace filmmakers is asinine. What they need to be is something that filmmakers can now use to realize their visions in a way that they couldn't before. It's not that you can make $50 million movies for $10 million, it's that the studio with a $10 million budget can now make that money go a lot further."
Daily Mail
14-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE Inside JoJo Siwa's 'calculated' relationship with Love Island's Chris Hughes
JoJo Siwa and Chris Hughes 's relationship rollout has been branded 'calculated' by a celebrity publicist, as speculation continues to grow over whether the pair are in a genuine romance. The couple developed feelings for each other during a stint in the Celebrity Big Brother UK house in April but played coy over their relationship status in the weeks that followed – despite numerous cosy public outings. After igniting much suspicion, JoJo, 22, finally confirmed last week that she and Chris, also 22, are officially an item and that she's started calling him her boyfriend. But while JoJo and Chris seem every inch the doting couple, there are many who are unconvinced by their relationship. Sarah Schmidt is a celebrity publicist and president of PR firm, Interdependence and she believes that doubt over their partnership is due to the 'breadcrumbs' that JoJo and Chris's fans have been fed over the course of their journey together. Speaking exclusively to Daily Mail, she said: 'JoJo's relationship with Chris is either a brilliant PR strategy, or a real relationship being handled with PR care. 'Either way, it's a timely reset for her brand. JoJo has been publicly evolving, shedding the bows, embracing her queerness and redefining her artistry. 'Even if it started as genuine chemistry, the way it's been rolled out with breadcrumbs on social, teased in interviews, and confirmed only when the speculation peaked, it feels calculated. 'That's not a bad thing. It's smart. Because JoJo's not just selling a relationship, she's selling her reinvention.' has reached out to reps for comment. JoJo and Chris finally confirmed that they were dating last week following weeks of frenzied speculation. In an interview with Capital Radio, JoJo said: 'I'm sure it's no secret to people, I am in a lovely relationship with a sweet boy named Christopher Hughes.' She also gushed about her blossoming romance with Chris in an interview with The Guardian when asked whether things between them were still platonic. 'It's not platonic anymore, and it's been a beautiful development, a beautiful connection, and I'm absolutely head over heels for him and he's the same way,' she told them. For many, JoJo and Chris's partnership is unexpected, which again has aroused suspicion. When JoJo entered the ITV reality show, she was in a relationship with her now ex-partner Kath Ebb. She later dumped them at the wrap party just hours after the finale episode aired. JoJo's ex Kath was one of the first to accuse JoJo of a publicity stunt. Speaking to Betches about their breakup, Kath mused: 'I feel a bit like I've been this pawn that's been moved around in this story by Big Brother, by JoJo, by her PR team, by the tabloids. 'And I feel really beaten around by that because it's just not something I asked for. And I think at the end of the day, the boring headline is: I'm just heartbroken, and I've just gone through a really messy breakup that I didn't see coming, and I'm in shock, and I'm picking up the pieces of my love life and of my life in that.' Since then, JoJo has been spending time with 'soulmate' Chris in both the US and UK, having recently met his family. 'In today's celebrity ecosystem, visibility is survival, and few things hijack a narrative faster than an unexpected love interest — especially one that crosses markets, continents, and fan bases,' celebrity publicist Sarah added. She also said that both parties stand to gain from the romance. 'Chris gains international relevance, and JoJo reclaims control of her story,' she added. Earlier this week, it was reported that JoJo has been dropped by her record label, Columbia Records. JoJo had been signed to the record company in 2024, and she released her single Karma and EP Guilty Pleasure with the label. But less than a year later, the US reality star is no longer working with Columbia Records and released her latest song Bulletproof independently. The timing of the JoJo's contract with the label coming to an end mixed in with her already dubious relationship with Chris has added to the uncertainty. 'The public's suspicion isn't about homophobia or age gaps. It's about the timing,' Sarah noted. 'In entertainment, timing is everything. If you're dropped by your label and suddenly fall in love with a handsome British reality star, people are going to talk.
Business Insider
09-06-2025
- Business
- Business Insider
Small companies are swapping performance-based reviews with a less formal approach
Small businesses are replacing annual performance reviews with continuous feedback. Continuous feedback can improve workflow efficiency and foster an innovative workplace culture. This article is part of " Culture of Innovation," a series on how businesses can prompt better ideas. Targeted feedback, such as annual or quarterly reviews, is essential for employees' growth. However, if it's too infrequent or inconsistent, it could hinder employee performance. With that in mind, some small businesses are replacing performance-based reviews with continuous open feedback, or sharing feedback regularly so employees can consistently learn and improve. Leaders at small businesses told BI that this type of consistent evaluation system can alleviate employees' daily challenges, speed up their workflows, and create innovative environments where employees feel comfortable sharing new ideas. Continuous feedback can take different forms Continuous open feedback methods can vary across companies. Scott Goldberg, the managing director of Carve Communications, a Miami-based PR company, told Business Insider that his company uses individual and personalized check-ins for its nearly 20 employees. This approach focuses on positive reinforcement, preventing employees from feeling like they're "constantly being evaluated or scrutinized," Goldberg said. "Most of our staff are junior and midlevel employees hungry to learn, grow, and evolve," Goldberg said. "They're very receptive to feedback, and we've heard from nearly all that they prefer real-time, ongoing feedback rather than formal review meetings." Goldberg said they started with monthly check-ins based on custom goals and expectations from senior leadership documented for each staff member. The frequency evolved into quarterly or twice-a-year check-ins, depending on each employee's needs. Goldberg said that creating a direct line of communication to the senior leadership team has helped employees "forge mentor relationships to learn and grow in a positive, constructive format." Sarah Schmidt, the president of Interdependence, a Chicago-based PR and strategic communications firm, told BI she uses real-time feedback with her workers. "Annual reviews felt absurd. Why wait six months to fix something you could solve in six minutes?" she said. Schmidt formalized the review process at Interdependence when she joined the firm about four years ago. The process involves twice-a-month coaching check-ins, which are guided by relevant projects and key performance indicators. Schmidt, who has managed teams for over 12 years, said that employees might be skeptical of a continuous feedback style, especially if they're used to annual reviews. But if it's done right, everyone wins, she said. "Continuous input requires discipline," Schmidt said. "We trained our leaders to deliver bite-sized, actionable notes instead of saving up. Today, the most common praise we hear is, 'Leadership feels like a partner in my growth,' which is music to my ears." Ongoing feedback can pay off Tim Duba, the cofounder of wellness company Protekt Products, said that ongoing feedback can help reduce the fear of being wrong, which can impact employee collaboration. "When feedback is constant and normalized, people stop being precious about their ideas," Duba told BI. "We don't care where a good idea comes from. We care if it works. Mistakes aren't failures here — they're data points." He said that using this approach at Protekt Products led the company to bring manufacturing and fulfillment in-house, which one of his employees had suggested. This type of change can be costly and risky, he said, but open communication allowed employees across the company to adjust to the change collaboratively. He said the business move has set the company up to triple its growth in 2025. Duba said continuous feedback also gave employees clarity and eliminated guesswork, creating a "more organized, decisive, and focused" work culture. "Trust builds quickly when you know your strengths and weaknesses, and your teammates do too," Duba said. "We move faster because people know their lane and how to win in it." At Interdependence, the idea for an AI training and certificate program came about from a junior staff member's suggestion in a coaching chat. "Leadership greenlit a two-week training sprint; now it's a firm-wide curriculum that upskills every team member and helps us work smarter, faster, and deliver for our clients more efficiently," Schmidt said. Building better work habits Schmidt said that if overhauling a feedback system seems daunting, start small and focus on quick exchanges. She suggested starting with a simple cadence — like 15-minute check-ins every other week — and identifying one or two "wins," followed by actionable next steps. She also recommended recording important meeting notes in a shared document to make the employee's progress visible. "The system sells itself once your team sees results in real time," Schmidt said. Duba said other small businesses should consider adopting an open feedback style sooner rather than later. "If your leadership team isn't willing to be challenged, you're not ready — but if you are, you can't afford to wait," Duba said. "There are a hundred reasons your business might fail. Don't let culture be one of them."
