Maybe 'Experience' Is The New 'Plastics'?

Get together with people – maybe you’ll discuss the rising case for breaks from all the bot conversations and disposable packaging around us‍

At a party last weekend I asked a venture capitalist about which markets and industries present the best opportunities these days, given recent tendencies of seemingly promising sectors quickly facing turbulence (e.g. metaverse, blockchain, much yet to be determined about AI). The response about what sorts of prospects are worth backing was just a single word: “experiences”. There’s rising enthusiasm about success from getting people together for live activities, especially valuable as alternative to engagement with AI, and with scrolling feeds, and with webcams... Enhancing real-world experiences, whether for business or for enjoyment, is the core purpose of There.App so we’re well situated for such trends. 

That single-word response of “experiences” over the din of the room, in a conversation about the future, between party attendees holding drinks and appetizers – it’s reminiscent (for people of certain ages) of the iconic “just one word . . . plastics” career advice provided to Ben Braddock played by Dustin Hoffman in 1967’s The Graduate. As funny as that scene is, it's also right! Consider our lives today compared to 1967. I don’t want to make this a depressing post so I won’t recount the absurd degree of plastics integration in contemporary daily life. I’m trusting the reader to reflect and probably agree.

Actually, maybe it’s synthetic and derivative AI that’s the 21st century parallel to plastics. They both transform primary resources for fast, easy and malleable ways of getting things done, generally biasing expediency over optimization or durability, and usually not as principal determinant of whether objectives are substantially achieved. In contrast, experiences are based on the essence of where people find themselves, the present in-person company, and their live activities together. These circumstances set up the best outcomes, prompt growth by participants, and seed lasting memories amid all the plasticity and artificiality that's around us these days. 

So far this post may not seem abundantly kind towards AI, but let’s close strong. Of course AI can be employed in service of great experiences, and There.App Co is implementing that. We’re automating suggestions of project contents based on whatever details may be in-hand at the moment: like parsing out a schedule from a document to organize appointments for team reference, presenting web pages of local recreation options, or pinning to the map the closest place to the venue for prescription filling or for a good cup of coffee. We are further enhancing There.App with agentic automation of certain tasks and conversational engagement that speeds attention getting directed to what's being sought. A common theme is employing AI to streamline in-screen use of There.App so that users maximize their real-world engagement in live experiences.

There.App Co is certainly leveraging AI, within our product as highlighted above, and also to speed and sharpen multiple aspects of our business and technical operations. Like my Pinot-sipping correspondent from last weekend, we view experience maximization as an especially great opportunity right now, and to best fulfill that mission we put to work whatever tools and resources we can access.