Emergency Pod: Instant Reactions to MetaAI Vibes

Ninety minutes after they wrapped a conversation about YouTube, Google and the future of AI video, Ben and Andrew reconvene to make Ben eat his words about Meta's inability to ship and react to Vibes — a new feed in the Meta AI app for short-form, AI-generated videos.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:08Andrew Sharp?

  Hello and welcome to an emergency episode of Sharp Tech, complete with fake tornado sirens. I'm Andrew Sharp.

• 0:17Ben Thompson?

  I'm honored is what I am. The fake siren from Goat has made it to Sharp Tech?

• 0:23Andrew Sharp?

  That's right. That's how you know it's an emergency. I'm Andrew Sharp. Ben, we finished recording about an hour and a half ago. You ordered me back into the studio so that we could reconvene. Tell me why we're here. What's the emergency as we record today?

• 0:40Ben Thompson?

  Well, number one, before I get to that, Meta, stop watching stuff on Thursdays. You do it all the time. It drives me bonkers. We could wait-

• 0:50Andrew Sharp?

  Two weeks in a row, throwing a wrench into our schedule.

• 0:54Ben Thompson?

  We could wait till next week, except that what I want to talk about is directly applicable to the podcast we just recorded, and I might have to eat some of my words. And so you know what? If you have to eat your words, do it sooner rather than later. That's sort of some life advice right there.

• 1:14Andrew Sharp?

  A good maxim for life. Yes. Freddie B, who hasn't listened to the full episode Ben and I just recorded, there was a period in there where we talked about Meta's languishing AI efforts and the sort of rudderless ship over there with respect to AI, and particularly the delay in shipping, but it does appear that they just shipped a new AI product that is directly relevant to what we were discussing.

• 1:39Ben Thompson?

  So at the same time that I had that weird interview with Mark Zuckerberg, they released like the Meta AI app. And I used it for about 90 seconds. It wasn't very, like, the big thing was they went to voice first instead of chat or whatever.

• 1:53Andrew Sharp?

  I downloaded it.

• 1:54Ben Thompson?

  Yeah.

• 1:54Andrew Sharp?

  I used it very much.

• 1:55Ben Thompson?

  That's right. The Meta AI app has been relaunched. You open it up and you are immediately in a Reels/TikTok-style video feed. That video feed, turn on the sound. If you don't have it, re-update your app or delete it, reinstall it. I think that will get it to work. And it is all AI-generated video with-

• 2:22Ben Thompson?

  Banger tunes. I think what's in there now is probably all meta put in there. There is a user generated content component. So I'm, I'm speaking as it's literally what like what they watched and put out there.

• 2:35Andrew Sharp?

  Yeah.

• 2:36Ben Thompson?

  It's awesome. It's so good. I had a hard time tearing myself away from it in a way that I like reels in Tik Tok are insanely addictive. They're insanely addictive in a lot of the like the Twitter sense that we were talking about earlier. Or I was talking about you like there's just stuff in there that's compelling and you're flipping through like a bunch of crap.

• 3:00Andrew Sharp?

  Yeah, like passively addictive, not necessarily engrossing, but you just find yourself scrolling and scrolling.

• 3:06Ben Thompson?

  This was so again, it's launching with what was there to start. The UGC is going to be ramping up. Probably the time you heard this, it's going to be mostly UGC stuff. All AI video and all it was, it was gripping. And number one, this is a good product. I'm, I'm, I'm making the ruling right now. So number one, they shipped a good product and it's better and more compelling video AI product than anything I saw from YouTube.

• 3:37Andrew Sharp?

  Wow.

• 3:38Ben Thompson?

  Number two, I think right off the bat, it seems obvious this is the right route in that there's not real content in there. You know exactly what you're getting. It's not mixing stuff together. It is, this is an AI product. First and foremost, it's right up there. And I actually, I like that. Like I'm not in there. Oh, is that an AI product or is that real? You, it takes away an uncertainty in my mind. I didn't realize existed when going through content and some's AI and some's real. I know I'm going in to get AI content and that actually lets me enjoy it much more.

• 4:14Andrew Sharp?

  Interesting distinction.

• 4:15Ben Thompson?

  Yeah, I'm not getting tricked, right? Like, or not worried about that. That was a cognitive load I didn't realize I had until I experienced this app. Number three, and this is the big thing. My immediate feeling and response here is this is the first VR product.

• 4:36Andrew Sharp?

  Wow, okay.

• 4:37Ben Thompson?

  It is virtual reality. It's all made up and it's engrossing and you're in this little world and going different places. And again, the, the tuning is what they wanted upfront.

• 4:48Andrew Sharp?

  What do you mean by the tuning? What does that mean?

• 4:50Ben Thompson?

  Well, just the sort of images that are in there. It's like futuristic. It's very beautiful. It, it has a strong point of view, uh, like, and the, and you could definitely, there's that mid journey partnership that was announced a little bit ago. You get a mid journey aesthetic. Mid journey is similar. It's a, it's a product with a strong point of view. We'd mentioned it sort of in the podcast we just recorded. They kind of just stuck on Discord. They didn't want to be a big company. And you feel like this is Meta's like, if you don't want to take this to the world, we will do it.

• 5:19Andrew Sharp?

  Yeah. And the images I saw or the videos I saw, they are, they're highly stylized. It does feel like AI, but it's very cool and braiding and the music.

• 5:31Ben Thompson?

  It's leaning into AI. That's right. It's leaning into being AI. And the reason to re-record here is number one, like I was insulting Meta a lot and barely, they just turned around and dropped this amazing product. Uh, so sorry Meta. Number two, it is a total affirmation, I think, of the whole thesis around AI and video. Now, again, we already talked about in the last podcast, I'm the weirdo. I'm the Twitter obsessive. I like texts, all that sort of thing. I found this so much more engrossing than I ever have TikTok or reels, like, just like, it was hard to tear my, tear myself away. And again, that, this is the danger, whistler checker I've learned.

• 6:12Ben Thompson?

  I usually get myself in trouble when I do emergency writing and like respond to something right away. I should stop and think about it. So take all what I've said with that caveat and that grain of salt.

• 6:24Andrew Sharp?

  That's what makes the, the emergency pots fun, just for the record. This is like a 24 hour reaction that we're hearing here. But I think the distinction between AI content merged with.

• 6:36Andrew Sharp?

  Regular user-generated content, human content, let's call it, because there will be, when you say user-generated content in Meta's AI app.

• 6:46Ben Thompson?

  Oh, sorry. You're right. So there's user-generated content where they're filming them. It's real-world filming from a camera versus what I'm talking about is users typing in prompts.

• 6:56Andrew Sharp?

  User-generated prompt. Yeah, exactly.

• 6:58Ben Thompson?

  User-promoted content, maybe it should be UPC.

• 7:02Andrew Sharp?

  Yep, yeah, but that is the distinction that I think is gonna be resonant, because that makes more sense than asking people to go to one app and then sit there trying to figure out whether they're watching humans or AI the entire time.

• 7:18Ben Thompson?

  A great product is one where it comes out and it seems so obvious. And in this case, the obviousness is, yes, I don't want it mixed. That was a cognitive load that was actually diminishing the quality of the experience with a Reels or a TikTok, because like every few seconds or minutes, you're driving, wait, is that real or not? And then like it takes you out of the entire sort of, you know, like Instagram at its best, I comped it to Twitter in the past, where Twitter is a lean-forward experience. You're at war, you're on there, you're engaging. Instagram is a lean-back experience, and that's why it's great for advertising. You're just more ready to sort of absorb new information. And in retrospect, mixing these two meant you kept having to lean forward.

• 8:03Ben Thompson?

  Wait, is that real or not? Or is it whatever? This is a, I can lean back knowing it's all fake and just enjoy the amazingness of it. And what's in there is so good. Again, it's the seeded content, so we'll see what happens with the, what do we call it? User-promoted content, UPC.

• 8:18Andrew Sharp?

  Yeah.

• 8:19Ben Thompson?

  But this is the worst it's gonna be. Like this, by definition, all of this is gonna get better and better.

• 8:26Andrew Sharp?

  Can I ask a question as a user, as a Meta user? I can't say I'm a Facebook user, but I'm a daily Instagram user. Is it possible that there's a future where this is a tab in Instagram as opposed to me having to go to a completely separate app to access this TikTok-adjacent product?

• 8:47Ben Thompson?

  Oh, definitely possible. Meta will do anything that's necessary to make sure that it succeeds. That's one of their strengths, is they will just go for it. So, yeah, the, yeah, but I mean, this bit about VR too. Like I mentioned it, I was so puzzled why. Mark Zuckerberg didn't bring this up in our interview and then like, I think, because I prompted him, he brought up the earnings, he's talked about it again, about AI being the key to VR. This, this is VR. This is, this is what I'm talking about. You can, you can fast forward from this to having a headset on and being in fantastical worlds and exploring them. And it just happening. And right now, it's great for this product because you, to have the computer horsepower and the capabilities to do virtual worlds is not there.

• 9:30Ben Thompson?

  But what is there is five, 10 second clips.

• 9:34Andrew Sharp?

  Yeah.

• 9:35Ben Thompson?

  Which are really good. And the path is illuminated. You can see where it's going.

• 9:41Andrew Sharp?

  It's pretty unbelievable. And I mean, was there any indication that this was coming? Because that's part of what's unbelievable to me.

• 9:48Ben Thompson?

  No, well, it was, so it was the mid journey deal.

• 9:51Andrew Sharp?

  I hadn't thought about the Meta AI app in like months, probably nine months since they first announced it. That's why I asked about maybe putting this in Instagram. I don't think most people even like know the app exists. So it's sort of an interesting hurdle here.

• 10:07Ben Thompson?

  That's probably a good thing because I, I can't imagine the computational load this takes. Like, uh, well, I don't know. It's interesting because it's not like it's generating it on demand all the time. Like people are generating it once and then it's in the feed and they're like, they can use the content. So what regardless, I'm sure they're gonna, you know, scaling slowly will be a good thing, not, not a bad thing. I would guess Meta's preference would be this is so good. It actually establishes Meta AI as a standalone app. That's possible. And if that didn't happen, then yeah, this could be a tab in Instagram in the future. But, um, but I, I think the play right now is to establish Meta AI app. Everyone listening should go download it just to experience it. It's.

• 10:46Andrew Sharp?

  Exactly. Because most people listening probably haven't been in the Meta AI app for nine months. But get in there and check it out.

• 10:53Ben Thompson?

  To be clear, if you open the app and it's immediately in video, then it's the right version or you've been updated. Uh, if you don't, you can try deleting and reinstalling it, see how it works. But, um, I saw like a Meta show here, but like this, it's.

• 11:06Andrew Sharp?

  No, it's really funny because you texted me and we're like, download the Meta app and. I downloaded the Meta app or re-downloaded it. I deleted it and then downloaded it to try to get this update. And then Ben, it has not updated on my phone yet. And so then Ben put it on the screen share of a Zoom call so that I could experience the new Meta AI app. Because that's how enthused you are by this development for Meta. And we'll see where it leads, I suppose.

• 11:36Ben Thompson?

  Yeah, basically, immediately, one, this is real VR for the first time ever. And two, this cognitive load bit about what this makes it so much more enjoyable. And it feels like if you watch a product and you immediately just have total clarity on a couple of points, like there's something real there.

• 11:55Andrew Sharp?

  Yes. Well, one other question. We talked a lot about the monetization for YouTube.

• 12:03Andrew Sharp?

  This is essentially just an attention machine for Meta. Is that right? And they splice in AI ads theoretically in the future.

• 12:12Ben Thompson?

  I mean, the AI sort of, sort of Meta playbook, which I think I've talked about this. I think I wrote this out ages ago, but it's like now the Dr. Trump's talking point like every earnings call. First, you build the app, you get product market fit, you grow the user base, you get large, then there's a multi-step process. Only at the end do you monetize it. This is all definitely monetizable, right? You can have products with that are AI-generated videos and the product's in there and it's clickable. Like, like, there's, we're already in the world of user-generated app, not user-generated ads, but like AI-generated ads. So, yeah, there's a path here, but that's a path they, I'm sure, wouldn't tread for, you know, years.

• 12:54Andrew Sharp?

  Yeah. The only reason I ask is because we were talking about YouTube and Google, and you were just opposing where they are today with the Meta article you'd written about nine months ago, saying Meta has the opportunity to become the most valuable company on earth if they take advantage of X, Y, and Z opportunities in AI.

• 13:15Ben Thompson?

  I think this is why, this is, oh, hey, this is the, the app just launched. Okay, I don't want to like, usually, you know, part of the reason why I should wait.

• 13:26Andrew Sharp?

  It's all part of the fun here. Yeah.

• 13:29Ben Thompson?

  One of the big concerns about Meta is in why the AI bits about ads is so important is you need growing inventory. That's because you have more inventory. It decreases the price per ad, which makes it more accessible and gives you huge runway for growing in the future. We've talked about the context of stories in the context of reels. Both times investors didn't understand this. They bailed and actually it led to massive amounts of growth going forward. The reason why they will try to make this its own app is, well, actually, even if it's a tab on Instagram, it's a new feed. New feed means new inventory. So that's been like, where's their new inventory going to come from? And yes, if an AI video feed is totally separate

• 14:13Ben Thompson?

  from the regular feed, not only is that actually a better user experience, it's dramatically better for monetization.

• 14:19Andrew Sharp?

  It makes both feeds much better. As for me as a user, I'm more likely to click into reels, knowing it's all going to be humans. And then with the AI videos, we'll see where it leads over the next couple of years here. But where they starting, where they're starting out is already very impressive, based on what I saw on the Zoom call where you insisted.

• 14:40Ben Thompson?

  Wow, even you are endorsing it. Amazing.

• 14:43Andrew Sharp?

  Yes, it is pretty, pretty interesting that it's already as far along as it is.

• 14:47Ben Thompson?

  If there's a new product that both Ben and Andrew are enthused about, we're gonna find out, does that mean, is that a bearish sign or a bullish sign?

• 14:55Andrew Sharp?

  It could be a bad omen for Meta.

• 14:59Andrew Sharp?

  Do you have any final thoughts before we sign off on what I think might be our first ever emergency episode of Sharp Tech?

• 15:07Ben Thompson?

  Well, I said we're gonna do some experiments with video, maybe be able to generate a new one at the drop of a hat. I just gotta say one more thing. I am gonna, I think UPC, user prompted content. It's gonna be a term.

• 15:20Andrew Sharp?

  There you go.

• 15:20Ben Thompson?

  Call my shot.

• 15:21Andrew Sharp?

  On this emergency episode. All right. Well, on that note.

• 15:25Ben Thompson?

  I would pretend that alarm was actually set to end this emergency podcast.

• 15:29Andrew Sharp?

  Perfect. Great synergy. On that note, people can listen to the full episode of Sharp Tech that Ben and I finished recording earlier today. Ben, we will be back next week. If people have takes after they experienced the new Meta AI app, please email us, email at sharp tech.fm and we'll keep the fun going next week. I can't wait to hear what people have to say about the app that clearly blew your mind this afternoon. It's very exciting stuff.

• 16:00Ben Thompson?

  Meta, stop shipping on Thursdays, please. Yeah, I do. I love it. All right. Sounds good, Andrew. I'll talk to you later.