The biggest technology-driven trend to affect business in the coming years is synthetic media. Yet this phrase is rarely even uttered in boardrooms and on Zoom meetings.
It’s time to clarify what synthetic media is, and why it’s going to be so impactful.
Synthetic media is any kind of video, pictures, virtual objects, sound or words that is produced by, or with the help of, artificial intelligence (AI). This category includes deepfake content, text-prompted AI-generated “art,” virtual content in virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) environments, and other new content types.
Many synthetic media tools started as obscure academic research or limited-beta online playthings. But it’s now on the brink of making a colossal splash in business, marketing, media and, well, human culture.
How colossal? In the book “Deepfakes: The Coming Infocalypse,” author and synthetic media analyst Nina Schick estimates that some 90% of all online content may be synthetic media within four years.
Here's why media is going synthetic.