in washington dc. it is one hour and 40 minutes. ♪ >> good afternoon, welcome to

the axios what's next summit. being here, thank you to the team. im might allen, cofounder and this is one of our favorite days. it is like a reunion than we have been having fun together. amazing program today discussing ai, how policy is changing. >> this gives us insights on

business, technology and allows us to go deeper into how we work, play and live our lives. our what's next featured amazing speakers such as hosea andre's producer tim balint -- timb aland, just to name a few. we will hear from another set of amazing leaders. not one, but two cabinet officials. ai thought leaders such as a laundry nelson. >> it is so fun to look around the room and see so many friends.

we call this our crystal ball event. we would like you to check out the hub downstairs. we have a demonstration of virtual reality of electric airplane. i tried in a irobot that sorts through trash. it is called of course, oscar. and i tried out the electric honda compact scooter and the suv. you cannot pack up the suv in your luggage, but the scooter. . and i was like you could put this in the overhead. and it becomes a battery in the overhead. i'm just going to respond, the

scooter has a seat. we are honored to have frank mccoury, such a great pioneer. we are very honored at sxsw last week in austin. they had some great ideas about how we can improve and he is here. he and project liberty are here along with their president. we appreciate you being here. they are going to be signing books in the upstairs lab, so we appreciate project liberty. thank you very much to you and your team for being here to tell us about reclaiming liberty, humanity and dignity in the digital age. it is a little tough to top, bruce springsteen calls this

essential reading for our times. host: just to give you a sense of how the day is going to go, a quick rundown of the afternoon, we will have a short break in the middle of programming, so make it back in time when that is over because we have a full slate of programming after the break. you are welcome to stretch her legs, take a call, get a coffee in the lounge upstairs and if you need to refer to the agenda, it is on the badge that you are wearing or the screen upstairs. take the short commute upstairs and connect with fellow attendees. thank you so much. host: we would love for you to use the #axios wns, what is next

summit. on with the show, chief tech correspondent. [applause] ♪ >> thank you, mike and sara. this is my third time at what's next summit and i am more excited for our first speaker. this is a critical time for society. the advent of technology will reshape things. how it reshapes is yet to be determined and i am excited to start with a laundry nelson, she co-authored the ai bill of rights during her tenure as director of technology policy. please thank me in -- please join me in welcoming dr. nelson.

i want to start off, and the discussion around ai, often when i hear it talked about, i hear it talked about as if it is going to be good or bad. correct me if i'm wrong, but my thinking is it is going to process one's in zeros and whether it is good or bad depends on what we tolerate, incentivize, regulate. some of that thinking is key to your work, but how do you think about these questions? how do we make sure we have good outcomes? dr. nelson: that is the profound question and it is very powerful technology.

it is complicated. there is enchantment about it. these are tools we create and they do not have agency even though people are building ai agents. what they become is up to us. we have to remain in the space of appreciating the work and regulation and education that will create the future we want. so when people say ai will cure cancer and mitigate climate change, that may be true. what is the case? none of it will just happen. we have the benefit of being early in a moment of a new technology that we can put in place hopefully infrastructure,

norms, regulations to have potential good outcomes. if we do this, they are potential. host: it is not like if we use ai, that prevents bad outcomes. i want to rewind to when you were in the white house passing the ai bill of rights. what was the key thing you wanted enshrined? it was not locked. it was the first step. what were you hoping to achieve? dr. nelson: we were taking up work of prior administrations. the obama administration had done work on ai. policy issues the nation should think about. the trump administration, there was ai legislation passed. there was a national ai act

passed. we are going to establish -- use ai and the government and it will be done with democratic values. it will be trustworthy. so the question for us into the biden harris administration was what is it mean to have ai that we tried to make trustworthy. so in the administration we spun out a blueprint. it is not law, not legislation. coming into office in the middle the pandemic, at a time when there was a lot of distrust about science, government, technology. how do we have a process to engage people in thinking about ai? we put the white house email address and said anyone can

write to us. what are the things the american public should ask for or how should we think about ai technology? we talked to school teachers and high school students and experts, local and state government, to get a sense of what they were worried about and get some good business partners and technological experts. what is the best we can do? the subtitle of the bill of rights is making principles into practices. we should not discriminate. there should be privacy. we were distilling commonsense things and trying to flag the initial things we know we can do, risk assessment, third-party

audits of algorithms to flag how we might move ahead. that is what we were trying to accomplish. moving from principles and how you operationalize and research the government. >> when you started on this project, looking at technology, that is something we need to look at. risks. we have these technologies, it is powerful and flawed. talk about what you see. [indiscernible] what have you found can happen today and people around the world? dr. nelson: we started with

something called the ai democracy project, studying the impact of algorithms on elections, democracy and back to the bill of rights, how is it impacting these things? the first study we did was working with election officials, a bipartisan effort. because so many language models give you information that looks right. unless you know specificity about a voting issue, it looks fine, it sounds great. we had an all day event that had people from society, the secretary of state from nevada. and we tested the chatbots on election information. i appreciate that 25% of

americans have used chatbots. to the extent that they are, can they get reliable information? we had experts wait. more than half of them are inaccurate. they were harmful or inaccurate. host: given where the technology is today, and my right to think -- can you really trust a chatbot with elections? dr. nelson: to me when it says

go to www. i can vote, it looks credible. communities were told -- african-american communities, there was no polling site because they could not be found. so we had challenges with the election and the discourse was about offensive content. deliberate disinformation, voice cloning, and that is a problem that we are seeing. host: the problems you outlined, any maligned actor was given that information, people trying

to mess things up, how powerful are the tools? how worried are you that social media posts are legitimate? people are deliberately trying to change them. dr. nelson: it is already happening. if you think about the democratic primary, the cloning of president biden's voice, it is a problem. it happened in the 2016 election. they did not have these tools. so it was easy, even if it was for the laughs, it is easier now. you compound that with more dissemination and other social

media and misinformation, the death by 1000 cuts. those do not even work to provide accurate information. we cannot anticipate all challenges. it is a kind of cybersecurity -- these things -- were going to have to try to mitigate to the extent that we can. it will be a constant back and forth. host: do you have a sense where tech companies are on this? after the 2020 election, there was focus on election security and integrity. a lot of companies have scaled-back the big ones.

that is one thing. then you have four people on the elections integrity team, right? are you worried that the people controlling technology are not devoting enough resources? dr. nelson: as we have seen, voluntary commitments from companies around ai and elections and well-meaning discourse about wanting to be responsible. we cannot afford to mess this up and juliet and her team recently went back to chatbots with the same questions. we went to all the companies and said is what we found. they said we fixed it and it is still a problem.

it is a problem for chatbots, but the hope for ai is that you can build whole worlds on these models. foundations are not a foundation on which to build an ecosystem. an election ecosystem. if you can't get basic accurate information. language models are being built into complex ai, ai systems are built into microsoft suite, office suite. it is a real challenge. if we want to use the foundation model as the foundation of the ecosystem, it is creaky, brittle and a real problem for democracy. host: chatbots generate

information. but social media is where it gets broadcast. we've heard a lot about tiktok. i'm curious, with ai, a bunch of concerns, information bias. and robots might kill us all. you gotta have two separate conversations. feels like we're having a conversation about tiktok and the chinese influence on us, but countries are using american social media. how important is it that we know facebook and what used to be twitter in addition to tiktok? dr. nelson: we are having a

challenge mitigating it because the challenge we face with tiktok potentially is who owns the data, where is it going. some of the data we are concerned about is american companies unregulated. the issue under all of it is really about data, we talk about general use. data flows and the ecosystem is the ultimate dual use. data is circulating and if we care about privacy and not capitalizing on data, even accounting for expert controls, and sell data to these countries, but not those countries, it is putting a

band-aid on the larger issue. data privacy regulation. that will not solve everything, but it will create a baseline of expectations making it more difficult for concerns that we have from maligned actors and people. host: so would you also been tiktok? is that not happening -- not helping. it matters who owns tiktok. i was -- i think we should regulate social media companies and platforms. and that can be done -- we have not done that. some issues are because we have not for decades done these basic things. so let's see. host: i could talk about stuff for hours. i hope you will continue to be a

voice and thank you so much for what you do. dr. nelson: thank you. [applause] ♪ host: introducing senior media reporter sarah fisher. >> hello, everyone. thank you for joining us. i'm so excited to have the chairman returned to our stage after we last had him on in 20. espn test. test. test. test. test. test. host: thank you for doing .

>> great to be here. for doing . host: there is no shortage of news when it comes to espn. there are reports around your latest deal. there are reports that the deal is done. is there any truth to that? >> college sports, incredibly important to espn and they have been for decades. that includes college football and the playoffs. i'm happy to announce here and now that we have come to an agreement with the college football playoffs and extending

our partnership for the next six years. there are two components to this. expansion from four to twelve teams, we have two seasons left on our deal. we got the amendment done, that gave us the ability to broadcast additional games. so you're going from three to 11 games. so that is closed. part two is expansion. we maintain rights to broadcast through the playoffs, we are announcing that now. host: a round of applause. to follow up, does this deal

address the expansion? james: it does expand to 14 teams. host: how close is the price tag to reality? james: we do not talk about fees, average value. i will say a good deal is when both sides are happy. we feel good about the deal and everyone involved feels really good. long process, they had to get issues resolved among conferences etc. and they did. when they did, we were ready because we had been working for so long, as soon as they came back and said we have alignments

we got our deal signed. host: where does espn stand with nba and wnba rights? james: the nba is incredibly important and we are in our exclusive negotiating window, that was part of the current deal. that is part of the deal. so we are engaged not just to espn, but when we broadcast the finals, we have nbc broadcasting games. we want to get this done. we see the league as ascending. a much younger audience, i saw a

stat that 56% -- i read that this morning, 56% of nba fans are under the age of 44. we talked about our priorities and we start with audience expansion. a big component is attracting a younger audience. host: how much do women sports play? caitlin clark is bringing a lot of momentum. should we expect them to go big? james: women sports has been a priority since before i got to espn and we've taken pride in how we have grown sports. the wnba will be a part of any

deal. we are seeing the same thing on the wnba side. the draft with caitlin clark declaring she was going to go pro. we have an original series around college basketball. it is called full-court press focused on collegiate basketball , on nbc and espn plus. it will be nice to have the wba -- w nba brooklyn. we could not be more excited

about renewing our deal with ncaa and women's collegiate sports championships. host: in the national women's soccer league. james: yes, we announced the nws l, we kicked it off this past saturday on abc with the kansas city game in the first-ever purpose built stadium for women's professional sports. that was exciting. host: let's pivot to other aspects of innovation. you announced a joint venture to create direct to consumer products.

rupert murdoch expects 5 million people will sign up. if you do the math, 40 or $50 does not seem like it will be incremental. what is the point when you are announcing a second effort. james: it is about giving the consumer more options. there are over 50 million households and we believe they are sports fans. the idea is to speak to them and get them off the sidelines. number two, this is simplicity.

what we hear about from sports fans is frustration in terms of fragmentation. if you are a sports fan you need several apps, usernames and passwords. you have several charges and we said this is our opportunity to work together with fox and warner bros. discovery to create a centralized experience. a good chunk of sports more than just espn has to offer. we just want to highlight that each of us -- it is a joint venture we are investing in equally. this is a digital -- so we are going to take out of it what we

typically get paid from another m.v.p.. host: all of your telecom cable relationships are ok with this? james: our team is in regular conversations. my understanding is they understand this is about the customer, identifying a gap. our mission is to serve sports fans anytime, anywhere. when we decided we were going to make espn available direct to consumer and the fall, we asked if there was another opportunity and we concluded yes, a joint venture.

we are going to remain cable, satellite bundle with youtube tv and hulu live. that will remain a priority. on the other end of this, we believe there is an ocean in between. host: what are you thinking in terms of the price? james: 40 to 50 had been reported, that range feels right to me. host: a lot of espn momentum is around football.

how do you prevent this from becoming a seasonal subscription, where someone comes in in august ahead of preseason and cuts after the super bowl? host: great question. it is about content. james: the joint venture will address part of that because it is more content for the sports fan then espn, fox, warner bros.. in the aggregate, it is compelling if you look at it through an mlb lens, and lens or college football. it is compelling. on top of that, studio programming is world-class. where i think no one would have been surprised years ago with our ratings were down.

studio ratings were up and to the right. that is amazing. when you have a 67% decline in the universe and you see ratings up and to the right month after month. 19 consecutive months, it may be 20 but i think it is 19. it is up in their ratings year-over-year. setting records, one of the best programs available today. we take a lot of pride in the fact that we have studio programming and digital film content. host: a quick thing before we move on, you are in washington. we've reported >> i want to follow the programming.

before we move on, we are here in washington, the doj is looking at this, do you have any regulatory concerns about it? >> i cannot comment on any regulatory concerns. what i will say, look, i will reiterate my earlier point. take a step back. this is a consumer friendly offer. this is about giving the sports fan another option and really simplifying the sports experience for them. >> 30-30 in the past, what is your commitment to originals? is it shifting? >> we are not shifting. we remain committed. if you look at our brand research, 30-30 is one of the best performing brands. what you will see is us

continuing to invest in stories that move the needle. you will hear people talking about bigger and bolder. we take a lot of pride in the last dance or the captain with tom brady. we have a documentary series coming out on serena williams. full-court press will cover caitlin clark. it is that spirit. stories that we really think will move the needle for us. you can expect more of that for most. >> in terms of the talent, you have pat mcafee coming in, you are playing to license this programming. one of the things we hear a lot from talent is that pat gets to say, whatever he wants, we have to adhere to strict standards. do you worry that people will not want to come through espn

as homegrown talent and they would rather go the other way, is that your plan? >> i do not worry about that. i do not hear that personally from our talent. if you look at the opportunities that we provide for our talent, we are a sprawling enterprise. there are so many paths to take when you join espn. if you look at some of the younger talent and how they have grown. it is incredible and they are thriving. we take a lot of pride in developing our talent and giving them opportunities and i do believe that our talent appreciates the opportunities that they have at espn. one more thing, in terms of licensing shows, just to take a step back, we are in a battle

for people's time. it's more competitive than it has ever been. we have to try new things and experiment. sometimes i might make some people uncomfortable. i get that. pat and i talked about this. we went into that knowing and understanding that. from my perspective, when we come full circle here, audience expansion and appealing to a younger generation, it is popular with younger people because of the authenticity. not because there are curse words on the show. the people on the show, starting with patch, they speak authentically. >> how does espn bet play into that? german indicators of how that

partnership is going? >> we are very pleased with it. we launched in mid-november. we recently launched our 18th state in north carolina. the tech is very solid. the product road map that i have seen is very compelling. we chose penn entertainment as our partner because we trust the leadership team. we spend a lot of time in the marketplace speaking with a bunch of different enterprises and wields really well with the folks that we feel like will deliver. >> if they could not make barstool fans and convert those, what do you think would make them convert for espn? >> in terms of the brand, it is

compelling. it is beyond the brand. what you are seeing, especially this week as we go into march madness, you are singing espn bet across the social team, a dedicated social media team, they have made this a priority and created dedicated handles. it is exceeding our expectations. that said, this is the first inning and that is an understatement. out of the gate in november, we are pleased with what we saw for the first few months. >> we just have a minute left, espn is looking for a strategic partner to help it usher into the digital age, where are you on that search? >> we are in active

conversations. we are looking at this through a couple of different lenses. first off, content. when we make it direct to consumer, is there a way to augment content offerings? our reason why we looked at the joint venture, lens number two is distribution. when we launch flagship direct, we want to maximize the distribution. >> would a big tack firm be better over a league? >> that would be a better statement with how we are thinking about things. >> we love to end things on one funding. ai is the buzzword for everything. what is espn's plans for implementing ai? >> let's start with captioning.

it's important to offer captioning for all of our programming. last year, we had 34,000 live events across espn platforms and so we want to be able to offer captioning for the hearing impaired for all of those events. that is one way, another way is text to audio. so many of us commute, i spent over two hours in the car, when i am driving to and from headquarters. we have a lot of longform journalism and for me be able to tap on the audio playback of one of the investigative stories, that is fantastic. the last thing i would say, highlights. that is so important to espn.

through ai, they can help us generate highlights at scale. >> wow, so much going on in this interview. you have renewed your six year deal, part of it does address the expansion in 2026 if that would happen. women sports are a priority for espn, you say that he brings in the younger audiences. 34,000 live events last year, that is outstanding. lastly, you're not giving up on original programming. we will see how the regulatory landscape looks. thank you so much for joining. >> thank you, sarah, i appreciate it. ♪ ♪'s >> please

♪ please welcome the view from the top moderator, nicholas johnson. >> good afternoon, everybody. i am nick johnson, it's great to see all of you here this afternoon. this is the third summit, it is exciting to showcase a lot of our journalism and to welcome our readers and subscribers here today. we are grateful for the partners that made it happen. nothing would be possible

without our partners. our kickoff partner today, the cofounder, larry diamond, welcome to axios. how are you? welcome. let's start, big picture, for lots of folks like you, you have a wall of credit cards that were invented in the 1930s. talk about the buy now pay later industry. >> that is funny. the george costanzo wallet. we see it as the next generation of financial innovation in the credit card space and financial service. in 1950, he took a couple of

clients are dining and it came time for the bill and he did not have his wallet. most people go about life incredibly frustrated and he invented a charge card that lets you pay off the next month. we have not seen much innovation in this space. we have gone backwards, if you look at what has happened in the credit card industry. of 15% since the bottom of covid. enter buy now pay later. it does two things. it allows them to have a direct relationship with customers. and on the consumer side, it allows you to pay back over multiple paychecks. it is for financial literacy.

>> we talked about this before, getting to a different universe of consumers. people who are underserved. talk about what your goals are. >> when you look at the customers, they save 50% of americans have interacted with by now pay later. these are people who might have emerging credit and it might have those who are credit averse. buy now pay later has an inclusive way to bring people into the industry. there are fantastic traits associated with it. growing up the time, with payback. it is a fundamentally different structure. the balance is close to $6000 and that can take you 25 years to pay back. allowing more people into the community.

helping to drive the next wave of consumers. >> what are your hopes and dreams and what are your focuses? >> we are 10 years old, we have been in the states for 10 years. for us, we are the trusted financial partner to this next generation. buy now pay later started in the gen z and millennial space. it has fanned out to be much more mainstream. that trusted partner, completely obsessed. we have a whole range of consumers around the country, we listen to them, we have the entire country done in and we want to be the most customer centric financial services.

>> is not a solution there? going back to the financially underserved, what is the role and obligation? that financial institutions like yours and others have in expanding access to credit? >> what is important for all of us is to never say no to a customer you don't need to say no to. we need to go the distance to show that we are trying what we can to understand the consumer. someone could've been divorced many years ago. they are in a strong financial position. let's look at the cash flow and provide the financial literacy that has been there since opening up bank accounts. the banks are sitting on so much data, they can provide wonderful processes and services for these customers.

>> a more technological startup that you are talking about, understanding and a nuanced way all of this data that exist. >> that is why we have seen a proliferation of this. it started online with e- commerce. on the product detail page, when you're buying a sweater for your dog, it disrupts only channel retail and financial services, banks recognize that this is the entry product for the customer tomorrow. in the distributed world of banking, you meet a customer where she is, now you have this rich array of data that you can look at and make a decision. >> it is better for both sides of the transaction.

when i actually first moved to the states, and i went to the office down in chelsea, my wife said to me, where is your physical card? i came from australia where everything is entirely digital. back to your point, the stories we like to tell, going to check out in december, she was looking at a bicycle for her son. she had three choices, the credit card, which will result in high interest, the debit card, which means that she is eating into savings or buy now pay later and pay as you go over the cycle, that flexibility allows her to be in control. >> at the next summit, it is appropriate to ask what is

next. >> we want to reach out to all customers. we are investing a lot in our understanding. not just credit scores, but bank transactional data where we can learn the data, and really understand where the customer is at and bring them onto the platform. we want to be that budgeting platform to our customers. not paying over one or two months, multiple months. the other piece is that as payments become invisible, the example we spoke about earlier today, as parents, as we buy gifts for our children, there is this endless amount of money sitting behind this invisible wallet, it is incumbent to go

the distance to put control back in the hands of customers. how do we build that into our products and services? it is becoming seamless and effortless, customers feel like they are empowered. education, control, game of finding the right behavior, helping them build the financial portfolio with us. >> i would like to end on one fun thing. tell me the wackiest thing that you have heard someone buying with zip? >> we have seen wwe belts and power ranger helmets . the data it shows the correlation between diapers and playstation. buying these things together.

when you look at it, it connects with the customer. a young family of young adults. it was a really interesting correlation. >> i sympathize for them. larry, thank you for being here, thank you to zip, for making the conversation possible. >> thank you so much. king. ♪ king. >> hey. ♪ welcome meeting axios senior business reporter, hope king. >> thank you for joining us, how many of you use slack? thank you for participating. i bring it up because our next

guest is the ceo of slack. we have a cofounder of slack here to talk about all of the changes that are happening in workplace culture, behavior, amid the pandemic and now there is another set of factors, generative ai is changing how we work. that will be part of the conversation but it will not be everything. there's so much we want to talk about in terms of workplace culture and how we build it online. join me in welcoming to the stage, the ceo of slack. welcome. >> thank you, good to be here. >> this is special for us, this is denise's first live appearance as ceo, were so happy you joined us. >> before we get started, some serious questions, what does your slack profile look like?

>> it is blank. you really take pride in it, mine is me, a pretty basic picture of me, i really do express myself with him oh geez, that is where it comes from. >> it is a professional photo. white suit, you know, i don't look much different. i am recovering from a cold, i will talk as loud as i can. >> mine is a still of the moment when michelle was handing the oscar over to emma stone. what is the most used reaction emoji ? >> first is let's go. let's go make it happen. another one which is kind of silly and will tell you about me, i really like when i see

someone's eyes on something that i sent. there is something psychological for me when i see someone's eyes when they are reading something. >> last question, i am the gray dotter. i keep it that way because i am always online. how do you feel about that? >> i think it is personal preference. it is about how you want to set your own boundaries. making sure that you give employees the freedom to disconnect as they need to. scheduling decided things later. if you're always on and that works for you, that is your preference, that is what i think about it. >> these questions sound trivial, this is the new way

that we show up to work. i used to work for a bank and i had a cubicle and decorated it. i know who to avoid at the water cooler. this is how we are building culture. how do you think about building products that help companies build culture in these digital formats? >> you mentioned stuart coming up two years ago. one slack was started, it was to make work simple, pleasant, and more productive and bring more joy and delight. that is still part of it today. work happens on slack. what i deeply think about, what is the consumer experience that we all want to have while we are doing the work. sometimes the work is not that exciting and we need to get it done. we think about it, the little moments, if you are in a campus

and the prompt is there and it says once upon a time. if someone is telling a story, give them the moment of whimsy to have culture and fun. we think about how to create fun, joy, delight, and on the idea of productivity, it is about making sure that you give everyone the tools to be effective in the platform and reduce the noise. is anyone using catch up? you have to check it out. it is exactly as it sounds, when you leave, you have some things. you can go to your phone and go right to catch up, simple, that is what it is, swipe right, move to your messages, things like that to create a culture of productivity and joy. >> what advice would you give

to employees for how to stand out in a digital only workplace? especially for workers? some are green light and white light. >> is everybody evolving in understanding the purpose of what they are doing. as i said before, it is work, it is messaging, it is collaboration. there was workflow and automation. it becomes a command center and operating system. people always know, message, channel, there is so much that happens. the right context for the right job, what are you doing? thinking about what the appropriate behavior is. using the platform as a way to express your own personality digitally, i like to record clips. sometimes i want someone to get

the essence of what i'm saying. these are short videos, they are right there, and i think about that, when i know i'm communicating to a certain person, tailor your conversation to the right audience, slack gives you plenty of ways to do that to think about how you show up. >> that is one tool we all use in our day today. according to one study published in the business review, they analyze the average worker and found that most of us are switching from app to app, 1200 times per day. this is the work of doing work. is the promise of generative ai that we will get rid of the back-and-forth commute because we are not commuting to the office? >> i would even backup from there. we are in a world where we have

never had more messages, more information coming at us at one time. that is also an opportunity. when i think about the way that our users use slack, i also think about applications. what users are able to do, they are using 50 or so applications. they are bringing salesforce and all of that work into a platform so that they can do the work right in the flow. it does reduce the cognitive load. there is approvals and automations. 35% time reduction. then as you said, generative ai is where we are all very excited as people who do work every day, the power to drive

productivity around simple things which we will share in a moment. summarization of threads and channels, searching, those are two areas that create opportunity to unlock generative ai. >> let's talk about that. we have a little video that we will show. walk us through what we are seeing right now. >> we created slack ai which is made in slack. turn it on immediately and i will show you. in the flow of work you are able to do things like search and summarization. you are not leaving and going out to a copilot or something else. you are doing in the flow of work. it is right in your profile. to show you what that is. when you are first looking at it, this is a chain summary project. we hit the little sparkle buy

in and it summarized the last seven days of text in search. this is searching. natural language search right in slack. ask a question, get the information right there. with reference to where the channel actually happened. i will go back and do that one more time. can we do it one more time? it is fast. it is very fast. what you saw, when you go into a channel or thread, click on the sparkle button and it summarizes the conversation, content, same thing for threads. it is intuitive, we have customers using it with tremendous benefit. beyond that, customers are building custom ai applications within slack. 13,000 applications built within the last year.

it represents obvious productivity in my mind. >> a lot of us are connected a lot. how much more should we be productive? i can't think of the additive benefit in context of how much we can actually get done. >> here's what i think about it. i started in the role four months ago, who's counting? there was a lot to get up to speed on. it was not about how much more, but how much better can i do it? i used it immediately. i was able to figure out a five- year product strategy. the decisions that we made and did not make and why. what is happening with the culture. what are we wrestling with? we are doing more in a smarter way, helping people have context. you mentioned culture.

employees that come to the organization for culture and understanding how the company works. doing less when i could've done more. maybe i did not need to. this is part of the ethos, storytelling. the best way to talk about what a product can or cannot do is telling the story of somebody else who has had that type of benefit. i'm embarrassed to tell you this, a true story about changing the paradigm. i was getting on a call with a customer. truth be told, i was running behind, i had a lot going on, i did not have any stories top of mind. how is it possible i'm showing up and i don't have any stories about other hospitality companies. i very weakly used slack ai to search other companies in that

industry. not only got that, got the story summarized. you can often times find information and you are brought to documents and then you have to read that document. i am proud and embarrassed to say, before he got on the call, we had the stories and information right there in front of me. what i'm thinking about is different ways in which we work and working better. i don't want to do that all the time, but you get the point. >> your schedule is full. you talked about customers. how do companies sign up for this? >> customers are able to license it and they can license it through the existing license that they added onto slack. so far, customers have been loving it. we have a lot of customers i want to try it as well. we have had trials of the topic. and we are seeing real benefits. that is our commitment.

that is why we started with summarization and search. those are the main point and we want customers to see the value. >> ai is expensive. one of the chips is $30,000 per unit. how much is that trickling down to the customer? >> i'm not an economist. i think the feedback for the product, the proof is in the value. when you actually think about slack being a platform for work. all of this knowledge, data, conversations, applications, everything you have done can now be taken to the next level with ai. that is the future. so far for us, the pricing and feedback has been really strong. we are just getting started. >> what are you doing to upscale yourself on ai? >> it is a constant effort from all of us making sure that we

are looking at the interesting stat. there is promise already and they want to get started. 80% of them feel that there is productivity. that comes from trying. trying and experimenting. and really having an open mind. there is so much happening, every single day, it's hard to keep up with. >> are their youtube channels you like to watch? newsletters, ai plus? >> use that for helping. i am very curious. >> when we talk about the future of slack, as you said, you are not counting the days, how big has a grown in terms of employees and customers? >> we don't talk about the number of employees now.

we have a significant amount of customers globally. and across all industries. most information as we are part of salesforce, we do not disclose. >> when it comes to scale, you have insights about how the global workforce is changing and the excitement and nervousness and anxiousness that employees have. one in four desk workers have tried ai. >> one and four has tried ai. how do you learn and get up to speed? that embodies it. the acceleration and adoption for generative ai is unprecedented. we are learning from our customers as we go. and we continue to evolve. it is incredible what it can do.

this is something in the first 120 days or so, nobody quote me there, what we heard from executives, this is not a fad, it is here. everyone is going this direction. what i like this time around, trust is at the center of it, how can we listen to trust in an organization to be thoughtful. we have citations. everything that you see coming up, it tells you where the data came from, you can go back and read that article. our mission is to make sure that we are not doing magic science, this is your data, it is secure, and you know where it comes from. it is to be trusted. that is what i heard from every executive. >> we have a couple of fun questions. people have mixed feelings

about the period when you're texting someone. is it an angry statement? >> i use periods with my kids to show good grammar. >> what is the craziest feature you've been asked to create? >> craziest feature, i heard a rumor that you want an avatar. it's not crazy, i think it is really fun and creative. users do not ask for crazy. we do have a fan base that is in love with slack. one customer had a gofundme when they were going to a new place. there is passion. >> i would like some walk-up

music, i want a song. >> have you seen the huddle music? huddle music, more and more coming, making it fun. >> thank you for joining us, thank you so much. ♪ >> welcoming back nicholas johnson.oming back nicholas ♪ welcoming back nicholas

johnson. >> you are still with me, it's great to be back here. a huge thanks to our partners who have made today possible. a big thanks to matt constellation who has sponsored this portion of our afternoon. it's very exciting to welcome to the stage, constellations chief strategy officer. welcome. how are you? this is a timely conversation. we are talking about these things. give us a sense from your vantage point, how to navigate the explosion in ai and devices. we need a strong grid that is reliable and safe and sustainable. >> when we think about what is next, this is what's next. the growth and demand.

we know we will see from he pumps and electric cars, and the electrification of the economy. add to that what we know is coming in terms of growth from the digital economy. we will see customer demand growth more than we have seen in the last 50 years. we have found ways to use electricity more efficiently. we have not had the increase in demand over the last 15 years. that is a big question as we tried to electrify the economy, how will we find new sources of electricity that can power this demand? i think that the good news that we have seen across the administration and the large corporate buyers, a strong desire to address this problem. we need sources of clean energy that can run when customers

need them. we heard jimmy say that in the sports business they want to be what sports fans want. he needs to be wherever people wanted. most of the world does not have the benefit we have over viability here. >> you mentioned the government realizing this as a stakeholder. tell me how that fits into this kind of discussion? >> the infrastructure law really jumpstarted the explosion in clean energy in the u.s. that is absolutely essential for the reasons that we just discussed. for those to come into their full potential, we need to look at the generational transmission.

how can we de-carbonized the industrial sector? it did not get as much funding in those pieces of legislation, there are omissions between aviation, all of those sorts of technologies that is available all the time. that is where clean hydrogen comes in. we are waiting for rules to see how much of the economy we can grow in the u.s. that is a really important part of decarbonization. >> every conversation i have about the i.r.a., it was great. then there was so much about permitting in these kind of rules. the implementation it still leaves a lot to be desired. can we talk about nuclear as a power source, how does that fit into this next mix?

>> we make 10% of the clean energy across the whole country. the big reason for that as we operate 25 nuclear reactors. maintaining the existing fleet of reactors is the thing that we can do without is most impactful for the economy given how much of the clean energy comes from the existing fleet. the new reactor designs being offered by companies from the smallest startup to the general election are very promising. they are okay. the gap there is between policies that are looking to bring on offshore wind and other types of renewable energy and not supporting new reactors to the same extent. that is a gap that needs to be

addressed. >> when it comes to these new startups and designs coming on, how do people view nuclear as this type of technology? >> the thing that is different in the last couple of years, nuclear has become the thing. it has always been the climate solution that people did not appreciate. people are starting to see the value of a megawatt in this economy. these plants run 95% of the time. this is what is driving people to become favorably inclined. >> a little bit about what you said being always there. if the lights flicker, people will not be happy. nuclear is something that is consistent up and down. what else needs to happen there. is that the investment

standpoint? >> choosing technologies to procure x amount, instead of carbon free generation, that is the information we do have with policies in place to provide incentive for people to purchase long-term contracts. the other thing is to make sure that the existing fleet seeks the life extension. the commission authorizes these plants with a finite license. they are capable of having a 20 year term. we are past putting new equipment into them every year, they are like new machines. there is a policy incentive for the license extension. >> you assemble people in the room that i know a lot about

it. they think they like the policy. the advice you give to them is that the policies have not been updated to keep up with the new technology. what would be the one take away? >> solves for the outcome and not the preferred technology or company. if you want to reduce carbon and set goals that incentivize carbon free generation. >> are people getting that message? >> it goes to the administration and the larger tech firms, they have started to put out procurements for carbon free energy. regardless of where it is, i wanted to be carbon free every hour matched up with the consumption. that will actually drive clean energy where we need it and keep reality where it needs to be. >> the goal of being zero

carbon, doing it in the least cost way. >> we will get to the hook here again. i want to end on one fun thing. i cannot resist asking when talking about nuclear energy, what is one interesting thing you have seen with nuclear fuel? >> after i explained to my colleagues what a social media influencer is, we had a social media influencer who has millions of subscribers on youtube say that he wants to visit one of the dry cast storage canisters. after a month, of working with the department of energy and coming to us, he came onto the site and taped a 20 minute segment on how safe the speed -- spent fuel is and he wanted to

kiss the canister while he looked at the camera. that was a new one for us, we have seen a lot of interest in nuclear power. you know, the world's are colliding here. >> for those of you with kids who are on tiktok, look for a new trend of kissing the canister. we will be right back. ♪ welcoming back to the stage -- >> all right, everyone.

even in today's digital era, it can be hard to access benefits from the government as many of you all know, when you try to access it as a consumer, some of you plan the system. our next guest wants to combat that issue. now the head of moms first which advocates for paid leave policies. the aim is to help new parents apply for paid leave using ai to simplify the process. joining us from new york. >> i'm glad to be here. >> i want to continue the conversation that we started today around the idea that we have this new ai technology.

if it makes our lives better or worse, harder or easier, that is up to us, i want to start with the specific project you are doing. in some ways, it is a natural extension, a plan for moms, there are structural problems, let's work on it. why is that what you started with? before you tell us why, how does it work? >> you go on the website and are introduced to it right here, it is simple, you get started and you can ask any question, we give you prompts. imagine you are pregnant and you cannot walk into the employers office to ask about your benefits because you are terrified that you will get fired. you're anxious. this gives you prompts of things that you might want to ask or consider. i live in new york city and we have a diverse community and

you walk away knowing a few things. am i eligible for paid leave? how much money am i going to get? and it gives you the action plan of what to do next. >> that is in every language. you do not have 1 million volunteers translating. that is one of the benefits of ai. >> absolutely. that makes it more inclusive and accessible to people whose first language is not english. >> in order to get benefits, you have to follow the rules pretty strictly. you cannot trust it for election information. this is where you use ai and where you don't. >> the reality is that ai is only as good as we are. it is a concentrated data set that goes with the new york state paid leave law, we do not

wanted to pull information from any source. it is limited. we have put in privacy protections there. you can feel secure when you are using it. going back to your question, why this? as you mentioned, i spent my life building an organization called girls who code. i sit at the center of technology and access and i'm on a mission to make sure that we pass paid leave and childcare. one in four women go back to work two weeks after having a baby. we are a country that has the most educated workforce of women with the least amount of labor market participation and that is because we don't have paid leave and childcare. as i sat in these conversations about ai on the university

board having been very involved in girls who code, the conversations were about risk, safety concerns, mitigating risk and safety. not thinking about how we use ai to solve big problems. as i sit there thinking about how we can pass paid leave in our country, number 13 on the list to number three, i think that this benefit matters. in the 10 states that offer paid leave, it is 2% of people who are eligible. if there is not an increase in the uptake of states that have paid leave, people in congress will say, do i need to put federal dollars into legislation when people are not using it anyway? >> i really thought that this is a great example of what generative ai can actually solve. let's be real. it's like you want to make it tougher for me to get benefits.

ai can actually change that. there are a ton of focus groups where customers asked to use the site, was it easier for you? absolutely. >> i want to dive into what we can learn from that in a second. this is a double edged sword. i suspect a lot of governments would not be ready to handle it if overnight it was really high. how has the conversation gone when you are dealing with agencies that may not be incentivized to see those numbers go up? >> we are in the process of scaling it with open ai. when i called them seven months ago, i have an idea, i love it. this is one of the things we have been talking about. what is the interaction with government and use cases of

generative ai, you are exactly right. if we do a really good job, it will have sizable impacts on their budgets. it goes up to 50, 60, 70%. that not only happens for paid leave, it happens for medicare and medicaid. it happens for every single benefit that is out there. that makes it really hard for poor people to put money in their pockets that the taxpayer dollars of already gone to. this will be interesting. essentially, how easy was it for me to get these meetings? the handful of states that we have picked to go deeper in to take on this and make generative ai doing a better job of giving citizens what they deserve? >> the customer service question is a decent question.

i want to talk about some of the lessons that have broader implications of who these uses are targeted at. ai can be used to cure cancer and work on drug discovery and deal with climate things. i also suspect without a lot of intervention it will be used by companies that can afford it to make more money. how do we actually make these good uses happen? what special considerations do we need? so many people accessing paid leave and a lot of people accessing snap and other things might not have the technical aspect. >> we have to learn from our past. we need aspirational ai and not just ethical ai. there are two examples of this about how technology and interaction with technology had

a huge impact on inequality. the first programmer was a woman. in the 1990s, you had gender equality. it became very lucrative to become a computer scientist. little girls looked at that image and said, i don't want to be him, i don't even want to be friends with him. we turned girls off. we barely have 18 or 19%. any lot of angry men. essentially, if we return back to the 1990s and instead of in the law school class we did not ban computers, remember that?

orban using google at our jobs, and instead we thought about how i actually get every single for person and every single immigrant and person of color, how can i get them access? how do i get them to learn how to code? where would we be today? you are about to make the same exact mistake with ai. introducing fear and we are turning girls and people of color off. we have a gendered disparity in who uses chat gpt and who hasn't. we are focusing the conversation on the wrong things. instead of inspiring a generation of people to come up with 20 different ideas and making sure that every single kid in america has a license so that they can create and build and innovate, that is the conversation we should be having right now.teno examp le , i p

people get paid leave, you p mentioned an these technologies can also be used to harm the same groups you are trying to serve. for example, you are mentioning an employee may not want to disclose to the employer they are pregnant until the right time. a.i. is also a powerful tool to predict user intent you can say what city in my most likely to lose workers for. that's a geographic one. that's not necessarily one me where the outcome is, it is biased but it's biased against everyone in columbus or dallas or whoever they figure out is the most likely to leave. but that same technology could also point out which groups are most likely to become pregnant, which workers are most likely to leave. if they are ultimately incorporated, seem to be quite problematic. >> there's different fears and h risks that are not going to