TechCrunch can be on the bottom at SXSW 2025 — the annual tech, music, comedy, and movie convention that kicked off Friday in Austin — in quest of the zeitgeist of this AI-centric period.
Yup, we’re one sentence in and AI has already made its entrance. And why not? A fast scan of the large SXSW schedule illustrates that AI is on middle stage in Austin — and globally. It’s value noting that this 12 months there appears to be an emphasis on how AI is being utilized to the actual world, not simply hypothesis on what it could possibly be.
SXSW tends to mirror what the tech ecosystem of founders and backers are engaged on. And it usually coincides with the hype cycle. Autonomous autos, scooter mania, crypto, psychedelics — they’ve all had their second at SXSW.
The tech portion of the annual occasion kicked off Friday and can run via March 13. The convention begins with a number of tracks that fall squarely in TechCrunch’s space of curiosity, together with the creator economic system, tradition, startups, well being and medtech, and vitality. The AI observe formally begins Sunday, however it’s already making cameos. As an illustration, Sign President Meredith Whittaker, who was interviewed onstage Friday, referred to as out agentic AI as a safety and privateness menace, and a well being professional warned that it may be harmful for individuals to be too reliant on AI for companionship.
Deep tech like area and quantum computing may also make its mark on the present, as will local weather, sustainability — look out for Rivian founder and CEO RJ Scaringe’s keynote March 11 — and transportation.
Autonomous autos are again, however this time they’re on the street — not simply the subject of dialog in a panel. Earlier this week, Uber and Waymo launched a robotaxi service in Austin. The so-called “Waymo on Uber” robotaxi service is obtainable to any member of the general public who has an Uber account. And also you higher consider TechCrunch can be hailing these robots and speaking to human Uber drivers about what they assume.
TechCrunch may also be speaking to the VCs, founders, and business specialists at SXSW to get the heartbeat of how the tech world is adjusting to the Trump administration and, after all, to search out the following new new factor. We’ll even be listening to the quite a few keynotes and interviews with tech and enterprise luminaries, notably Alan Baratz of D-Wave Quantum, Qualcomm President and CEO Cristiano Amon, Colossal Biosciences founder Ben Lamm, and Arm CEO Rene Haas.
Don’t fear, we’ll have a little bit of enjoyable, too.
