Disney Plans To Cut Costs And Jobs, Google Is Now Rolling Out AI Chatbot
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Disney plans to reduce costs and lay off employees. And at the same time, Google and Microsoft implement artificial intelligence into their products.
Disney
Since 2019, when Disney+ launched, the segment has lost nearly $10 billion as the company has spent a lot on content to attract subscribers. Disney+ is part of Disney's direct-to-consumer business, which includes all video streaming platforms. The direct consumer business lost $1.05 billion in the December quarter.
Iger is under pressure to make its streaming business profitable and revive the company's share price, which is down more than 40% from early 2021 highs.
Disney plans to reduce the number of TV shows and movies it produces and aggressively manage its general entertainment content, which has become more expensive to produce in recent years due to competition.
Moreover, it plans to cut 7,000 jobs and cut costs by $5.5 billion as part of a major corporate reorganization that gives more power to the content company's management and puts more emphasis on sports media at the company.
Disney's share price has been rising since the new year. After a weak last two months of 2022 below 100.00, the stock is again above this level. Currently, the stock is close to 120.00, at 118.85.
At an event in the French capital on Wednesday, Alphabet Inc unveiled a number of AI improvements to its search engine, including plans to start generating long text answers to complex queries with no single correct answer - for example, what constellations are best to look for when stargazing. This came after Google on Monday offered to look at a homegrown rival to the popular ChatGPT chatbot it calls Bard - and inadvertently demonstrated the artificiality of such tools when a screenshot of Bard's answer contained an obvious factual error.
Google has unveiled new search and map features powered by artificial intelligence.
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Google gave an additional look on Wednesday to its experimental conversational AI chatbot, Bard, which it rolled out to a group of third-party testers earlier this week. The company showed a brief demonstration of how a user can use Bard to suggest criteria to consider when trying to buy a new car or places to visit for a scenic trip.
The company also said it is now rolling out a feature that allows Google Maps users to explore 3D representations of destinations - such as inside a restaurant - extrapolated by AI from ordinary 2D photos. And it said it is expanding the availability of a feature that allows users to search for maps for local businesses by pointing the phone to a nearby area.
Alphabet shares closed up 7.7% on Wednesday.
Microsoft
In the midst of Google's announcements, on Tuesday Microsoft unveiled its plans to incorporate the generative AI technology behind ChatGPT into its Bing search engine. It demonstrated how it can process natural language queries to generate answers and suggestions using information such as news, train schedules and product prices.
British antitrust authorities announced that Microsoft Corp. proposed to take over gaming giant Activision Blizzard Inc. for $75 billion, which puts Microsoft in a strong position in cloud gaming, and said the merger would hurt UK gamers - creating another major regulatory hurdle for a deal in a large global gaming market.
The National Competition and Markets Authority said it would approach both companies to propose ways to alleviate its concerns and made a final decision on whether to allow the deal to go ahead at the end of April.
The regulator has offered a list of potential countermeasures that may be hard for Microsoft to swallow.
Other major regulators are also investigating the deal. In November, the Federal Trade Commission sued Microsoft to block the deal.
Microsoft said the deal would be basically good for gamers, developers and competition. The company also stated that it is not a top console manufacturer or software developer in the video game industry.
Microsoft shares fell 0.3%.
Source: wsj.com, finance.yahoo.com
