Broadcasters Trading Ad Airtime for Advertisers’ Shares; Google Reduces Scope of AI Overviews; Nvidia Unveils New AI Processor

by Aimee Newell Tarín on 4th Jun 2024 in News

On today’s news digest: Broadcasters Trading Airtime for Advertisers’ Shares; Google Reduces Scope of AI Overviews; Nvidia Unveils New AI Processor

UK broadcasters including ITV and Channel 4 have been trading ad airtime for shares. In order to deal with advertisers reducing their ad spend, broadcasters are increasingly providing advertisers with airtime in exchange for equity in digital companies. This marks a growing shift in broadcasters taking stakes in early stage businesses. ITV, whose Adventures Invest Division was set up in 2021, recently took a stake in Strike, an online estate agency; this was the broadcaster’s first investment this year. Meanwhile, Channel 4 has completed over 50 deals since its investment division Channel 4 Ventures was set up in 2015.

Due to some trouble with the AI-generated responses produced by its new Search AI Overviews, Google has set further constraints for the feature. In a blog post, Google explains that they “added triggering restrictions for queries where AI Overviews were not proving to be as helpful”. This follows results produced by the feature which brought up unserious content from discussion forums, for example. Consequently, Google has improved its detection mechanisms for nonsensical queries which should not produce an AI Overview. It has introduced updates to limit the use of user-generated content which appears in the overview responses, as well as limiting the inclusion of satirical and humorous content. Additional triggering refinements have also been added for health queries.

In the AI landscape, Nvidia – maker of the chips which power world leading AI models such as ChatGPT – has unveiled the next generation of its AI processor. This comes only three months after its most recent launch. Successor to the Blackwell chip, the new Rubin processor promises improved power efficiency in response to the tech industry’s concerns over the expansion of AI data centres putting strain on the energy grid in certain regions. Rubin will be available in 2026, Nvidia says.