More updates from Google Cloud, TikTok no longer the most downloaded app and Spotify boosting its non-English audiobook catalogue - here’s a roundup of some of the most interesting stories in the news this week.
Google held its annual Google Cloud Next conference last week, aimed at showcasing the transformative power of AI and introducing new AI agents and the networking needed to run them, and a new protocol for AI interoperability. There was also a demonstration of how AI can transform a classic film - The Wizard of Oz is coming to the Las Vegas Sphere later this year.
Product managers have a key role to play in training AI agents, so said Microsoft CTO Kevin Scott in an episode of the Twenty Minute VC podcast earlier this month. Scott pointed to the crucial role of product managers in setting up feedback loops to make AI agents better. AI agents - which are intended to be digital co-workers to human workers - for now “are conspicuously missing memory, which makes them awfully transactional," Scott said.
ChatGPT dethroned TikTok and Instagram as the world’s most downloaded app last month. According to estimates from Appfigures, in March ChatGPT saw 46 million downloads - just slightly higher than Instagram, while TikTok was downloaded 45 million times, Facebook 36 million times and WhatsApp 35 million times.
European travel platform Trainline has boosted its executive leadership team with a couple of appointments aimed at accelerating its AI-powered tech and product innovation. Nina de Souza joins Trainline as Chief Product Officer. She joins Trainline from TBAuctions and her past experience includes roles at Deliveroo and Expedia. The company’s Chief Data Officer Mike Hyde expands his role to become Chief Technology Officer and oversee the technology and data teams.
Spotify is boosting its production of non-English audiobooks, investing €1 million in the project. The company is starting in France and the Netherlands because audiobook adoption has been slower in these countries than elsewhere.
According to Spotify less than 3% of French-language books are currently available in audio format, with only about 20,000 audiobooks in French while in the Netherlands, there are about 15,000 audiobooks in Dutch from a total catalogue of 209,000. Spotify attributes this - at least in part - to the high production costs associated with audiobooks. Note that while it has affirmed its commitment to working with human narrators, earlier this year Spotify started a partnership with AI audio platform ElevenLabs to help independent authors get an audio version of their work published on major platforms.
A statement from Jeremy Amsellem, Spotify’s Audiobooks Partnerships and Licensing Manager for Europe, said: “Our aim is to help create long-term value for the publishing industry and build new revenue streams for partners. To do that we must attract new audiences whilst also retaining existing book lovers, and audiobooks can play a key role in that. But at the heart of that must be great books. With less than 3% of French-language books available in audio format today, this is a great opportunity to help publishers and authors find new readers.”
Spotify entered the expanding audiobook market a couple of years ago, starting in the US and quickly expanding to the UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. There are now over a quarter of a million titles in Spotify’s audiobook catalogue. It’s a growing market - at a presentation at the London Book Fair last month, Spotify’s Director of Partnerships and Licensing for audiobooks Duncan Bruce said that listening hours for audiobooks on Spotify in the US, UK and Australia had increased by 35% year‑over‑year, and the number of unique audiobook listeners on the platform rose by 30% in the same period. More broadly in the UK, overall audiobook downloads rose 17% between 2022 and 2023—a surge driven in part by Spotify’s entry into the market, according to the Guardian. Amazon-owned Audible is still the leading platform for audiobooks, with a market share of 63%.
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