So yeh. I returned to SXSW 2025 in Austin, Texas—the annual festival where film, interactive media, and music converge with technology and culture.
I chose to focus on bigger stage events with mixed results. Some talks felt high-level and corporate, but others were exceptional. This post covers the key trends I observed, detailed notes from standout sessions, and reflections on where technology and society are heading.
Key Trends
AI: The Dominant Theme
AI was by far the most dominant trend. Some talks helped me go deeper than the usual surface-level discussions, providing new frameworks and mental models:
"The Beyond" – We’ve entered a liminal space of "living intelligence"—an ecosystem of agents and systems enabled by AI, sensors, and biotech. This concept (from Amy Webb’s trend report) captures the current moment well.
Imagineering – The paradoxical and increasing importance of both predicting an unpredictable future AND translating that into reality at fearsome pace.
Future of Work – Individuals as composers and managers of their own agent swarms. The idea of people as "tiger teams" able to dynamically recombine with others. The value of creative generalism. A "symphony of people and machines."
Memorable moment: Sitting next to someone live-transcribing a talk from English to Cantonese on their laptop. Incredible how this tech is opening up whole cultures and knowledge silos globally.
Mindset Shift: Just as the industrial revolution’s mindset was about efficiency and scale, the AI revolution will have its own mindset—approximately about possibility, abundance, capability, and capacity. Right now most of us are still in the old mindset. Companies that embrace the new mindset will outperform those reducing headcount because "engineers can ship code with fewer people."
Physical AI: Vertical applications (robotics, materials science) will be orders of magnitude bigger than horizontal digital AI (LLMs, chatbots).
Human Performance: How sharing knowledge allows us to be our better selves more consistently by understanding our state, how to change it on demand, and how to stay balanced during times of change and uncertainty.
Society:
- Social health as a third pillar alongside physical and mental health
- The loneliness epidemic: More incremental deaths in young males since 2001 than all WW2 deaths
- How we’ve shaped digital tools and how they now shape us—particularly around privacy, democracy, and surveillance
Brand Authenticity: The best talks felt cohesive—speakers driven by purposes they cared deeply about, acting as solid foundations for everything else they did.
Politics: A palpable feeling of shock from many presenters and audience members about recent political developments.
Top Sessions
Here are my standouts:
- Meredith Whittaker (Signal) – Powerful brand stack connecting mission through every aspect of product
- Jay Graber (Bluesky) – Similar to Meredith but from open social perspective
- Amy Webb – Excellent orientation into emerging tech trends
- Ian Beacraft – AI transformation’s effect on work (begrudgingly good)
- Colossal – Jurassic Park sci-fi vibes
Session Notes
Hugh Forrest: Welcoming Remarks
SXSW is tearing down the Austin Convention Centre—it won’t be available for the next 3 years. This massive project struck me as emblematic of American ambition and scale.
Why SXSW matters in 2025:
- Celebrates the power of human creativity
- Celebrates gathering IRL
- Celebrates sharing ideas and building bridges
- Celebrates community and mixing communities together
- Celebrates finding common ground
The mission: "To help creative people achieve their goals"—contextual
ized beautifully to the current zeitgeist.
Kasley Killam: The Missing Key to Living Longer, Healthier, and Happier
Key Takeaways:
- Social health should be a third pillar alongside physical and mental health
- Relationships are literally a matter of life and death (Atul Gawande’s Being Mortal makes this case powerfully)
- Applications for both personal wellbeing and product design
Notes:
- Scientifically, hugs are immunity-boosting
- Loneliness epidemic: 1 in 4 people feel lonely
- Social health searches and mentions are trending up
Predictions:
- Social health will become as embedded as mental health
- People, teams, and companies prioritizing it will outperform
- Every sector will be disrupted:
- Healthcare: UK now screens for loneliness
- Technology: Do our tools help us connect meaningfully or mindlessly?
- Education: Teaching kids to make friends, resolve conflicts
Practical Tools:
- "To love" list: People you want to stay close to
- "5-3-1" rule: Five connections, nurture 3 relationships, spend 1 hour per day connecting
- "Go for connection first": Send a text instead of scrolling. Make a call instead of listening to a podcast.
- Connection styles:
- Butterfly: Lots of casual connection
- Wallflower: A bit of casual
- Firefly: A bit of deep connection
- Evergreen: Lots of deep connection
- 5 minutes of gratitude reflection weekly
- Think of social interaction as calories—scrolling is junk food
- 4 strategies for social health: Test, rest, stretch, or tone
Key insight: Practicing your own social health boosts everyone else’s too.
Meredith Whittaker (Signal): Online Security and Confidentiality
Incredibly powerful talk. Meredith connected Signal’s mission through every aspect of what they do and why it matters for people today.
Key Points:
- Risks of centralized data collection by companies like Meta and Google
- Signal vs other messaging apps: Signal does not collect metadata, unlike WhatsApp and Telegram
- Potential dangers of agentic AI accessing extensive personal data
- Signal’s nonprofit status and reliance on donations
- Challenges of maintaining privacy in decentralized infrastructure
- Importance of open-source code and community validation for security
Dave Asprey: Beyond Limits—Harnessing Altered States for Peak Performance
Dave Asprey discussed altered states for high performance, emphasizing that any state beyond "normal" is an altered state—flow, ecstatic, peaceful, healing.
Key Frameworks:
- The F words that ruin your life: Fear, Food, Fucking, Friendship, Forgiveness
- Transcendence as the true top of Maslow’s hierarchy
- Four pathways: Chemistry, Structure, Connections, Brainwaves
Techniques:
- Meditation & Breathwork:
- Basic: Ocean breath for sleep
- Deeper states: NAD or Yoga Nidra
- Advanced: Wim Hof, Holotropic
- Light & Sound:
- Binaural beats (YouTube!)
- Brainwave entrainment
- Holosync
- Chanting & mantra
- Solfeggio frequencies
- Shamanic drumming
- Neuroregulatory:
- 8-second hugging
- Vagus nerve stimulation
- Light therapy (True Dark glasses)
- Advanced:
- Focused ultrasound
- TMS (Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation)
- Neurofeedback
Resources: 40 Years of Zen
Rohit Bhargava: 7 Non-Obvious Secrets of Understanding People to Predict the Future
Rohit discussed imagining the future, drawing from a 1999 meeting organized by Steven Spielberg that led to "Minority Report" and over 100 patents. Emphasized SXSW as a place where people envision the future.
The Seven Secrets:
- Being uniquely human is the advantage
- Identity always shapes beliefs
- Winners aren’t the same as champions
- Easy, obvious answers are a distraction
- People & experiences should surprise you
- Meaning comes from intersections
- Undiscovery can be better than discovery
Key concept: "The people who understand people always win."
Resources: nonobvious.com/sxsw
Amy Webb: Launches 2025 Emerging Tech Trend Report
Key Takeaways:
- We have entered "The Beyond"—a liminal space of living intelligence; an ecosystem of agents and systems enabled by AI, sensors, and biotech
- AI is intersecting with sensors, biotech, and robotics in profound ways
- Multi-agent Systems (MAS) and Model Context Protocols (MCPs) as key AI-specific trends
- This year’s trend report is 1,000 pages: bit.ly/AmyWebbSXSW25
AI & Sensors:
- Multi-agent Systems (MAS) don’t need human language—they use more precise mathematical communication (DroidSpeak from Microsoft is 100x faster)
- MAS needs access to sensors, not language
- Embodied AI requires physical form to work better—real-world feedback
- Model Context Protocol enables AI to interact with physical world
- Sensor networks evolve AI from observer to controller
Questions raised:
- What happens if a MAS agent goes rogue?
- What if employers demand you get chipped?
AI & Biology:
- AlphaFold 3 is like "no-code for biology"
- Will impact any company making physical products
- Metamaterials—properties not found in nature:
- Bend light or sound
- Impossible shapes
- Programmable matter
- Examples: Brick lungs, elastic bricks
- Organoid intelligence: Biological materials for information processing (brain computers)
Insight: Can make matter programmable and life reprogrammable
AI & Robotics:
- Skin masks
- Chimeric micromotors—parts of different flagellar motors
- Wearables for your cells (spermbots)
- Internal wearables for neurons (Parkinson’s treatment)
Insight: Micromachines will give us control over nature
The Beyond:
Living intelligence will shape decisions of all leaders. It will accelerate breakthroughs—we’ll see actual humanoid robots this decade. Need robots for AGI because of real-world feedback.
Scenarios:
- Built environment/Sonic Sanctuary: Eliminate background noise; can be used for biohacking (forest bathing) or weaponized
- Climate change: Business alliances investing in metamaterials to transform built environments
- Tragedy of the Commons: Decisions this decade will determine humanity’s long-range fate
Disney: The Future of World-Building
Disney discussed innovative storytelling and technology integration across platforms.
Key Points:
- "Imagineering": Turning stories into real experiences
- "I resent the limitations of my own imagination" – Walt Disney
- Disney’s priority is always to build an emotional experience
- Casual deployment of actual robots wandering on-stage with Pedro Pascal; Robert Downey Jr. appearance
Celebrated 100th anniversary and 70th anniversary of Disneyland. New attractions include suspended coaster inspired by "Monsters, Inc." and new "Cars" attraction.
If you haven’t seen it, Mufasa showcases jaw-dropping Unreal Engine usage.
Ian Beacraft: How Not to Screw Up an AI Transformation
Despite my instinctive recoil at his slick style, this was a genuinely good talk with actionable takeaways.
Key Concepts:
Skill Flux: Skills now have distinct shelf lives that are getting shorter. What’s essential today might be irrelevant in a year—and that’s okay.
General Purpose Technology → General Purpose People: Shift from "What I know" to "How I adapt"
AI Adaptation: AI can adapt to us instead of us adapting to it—so what do we want it to adapt to?
Corporate Knowledge Gap: LLMs are a forcing function towards average. They make you average. Focus on divergent value—proprietary knowledge and experience get more valuable.
"If HP knew what HP knew, we’d be twice the size"
99% of public data has been codified, but only 1% of corporate knowledge.
Codifying Internal Knowledge:
- Brand & tone overview
- Key value propositions
- Usage & best practices
- Unique selling points (USPs)
- Compliance & disclaimers
- Do/Don’t guidelines
- FAQs & sample Q&A
- Content templates & examples
- Lexicon & terminology
- One-page summary
Mindset Shift: We’re focused on efficiency and scale (Industrial Revolution metrics), but need new priorities:
- Number of new ideas or prototypes
- Breakthrough rate / novel insight score
- Employee learning velocity
- Knowledge integration index
- AI collaboration effectiveness
- Insight quality index (IQI)
- Decision accuracy & confidence
- Experimentation rate
- Time to pivot / agility measure
- Ethical and responsible AI compliance
"Show me the incentive, I’ll show you the result" – Munger
Creative Generalist: Mapping augmented teams to identify potential for AI augmentation, consolidate responsibilities, quantify impact.
Inclusion: This is new for everyone. To make it work for everyone, integrate all viewpoints—especially skeptics.
Jay Graber (Bluesky): The Future of Social
Jay was impressive—clear, passionate, principled.
Key Insight: Bluesky’s mission shaped its corporate entity, design, and engineering choices, showing up as freedom-preserving benefits:
- Custom feeds
- Composable moderation
- Self-hosting
- Alternative clients
Open protocol > open source: Data matters, not just code.
"People shape tools and then the tools shape them" – Churchill (ish)
How Freedom Shows Up:
- Custom feeds: Pick or create (quiet posters for high-signal but infrequent posters, gift links, etc.)
- Composable moderation: Choose your moderation services
- Self-hosting: Own your data
- Alternative clients: Use different apps on the same protocol (e.g., Flashes)
- Starter packs: Curated communities (marine biologists, commodities traders, etc.)
Comparison with Gravatar: Bluesky app was to dogfood the Bluesky protocol—build the best implementation to prove the protocol works.
Anyone can build on AT Protocol, but it’s up to experiences to connect to various instances. Incentives are aligned because it’s not just open source but an open protocol for public conversations.
Rishad Tobaccowala: The Great Rethinking—How to Navigate the Future of Work
Insightful and gentle talk. Clearly a principled person.
Future Leadership: In the future, people will need three leaders:
- Project leader
- Self (self-leadership)
- Mentors
Company Self-Defeat: Lack of openness, agility, and flexibility
Success Formula: Disproportionately high-quality talent passionately aligned on a common goal with great leadership.
Fractional Work:
- Allows talent retention
- Go with the flow / use the force
- Helps people work into retirement
"If you believe your business model as it is today will work three years from now, you’re in the typewriter business."
What’s Defensible Against AI? The 6 Cs:
- Cognition
- Curiosity
- Creativity
- Cooperation
- Convincing
- Communication
Everyone cares about: Story, freedom, growth
Human Qualities Defensible Against AI: Intuition, Insight, Imagination, Invention
Combating AI Job Loss Anxiety:
- Keep learning
- Multiple income streams
Power Shift: Power is moving from capital to talent. World-class people want to work with world-class people.
Qualities of Top Talent:
- Integrity
- Principles
- Trust & truth
- Kindness
Other Notable Sessions
Colossal: Technology Turning Science Fiction to Science Fact
Watch on YouTube
Probably the most SXSW talk I attended. Proper sci-fi, big dream stuff. Reinforced the whole vibe of "The Beyond" and imagineering—that if there’s something you can imagine, as of right now you can achieve it no matter how wild.
Physical AI: From Cages to the Real World
Watch on YouTube
Key concept: "Symphony of people and machines"
Technology rollout phases:
- Build infrastructure
- Apply to existing problems (agents, then robotics)
- Apply to new opportunities (biggest phase: synthetic bio, smart materials)
Physical AI (vertical applications) will be orders of magnitude bigger than current AI (horizontal technology).
Holographic Technology: Projecting Tomorrow
Watch on YouTube
Clever holographic tech funded by Bill Gates. "Age of mass virtualization"—true holography means actual representation of light as if the object were there (e.g., for surgery—everyone sees exactly the same thing).
Quantum Computing: The What, Why, and When
Watch on YouTube
Finally, a really good session on quantum computing. The tech is starting to accelerate but we’re still orders of magnitude away from real utility (materials science, protein structures). Once achieved, we’re still 1-2 orders of magnitude away from beating strong encryption (Satoshi’s Bitcoin is safe for a while!).
Remaining challenges: Error rates and scale (number of qubits).
Reflections
The Scale of American Ambition
SXSW embodies the sheer scale of American ambition and productivity. The Convention Centre demolition and rebuild struck me forcefully—perhaps because I’ve become accustomed to a more parochial existence in Portugal’s Algarve.
The Loneliness Crisis
One of the most sobering statistics: suicide—particularly among young males—has caused more incremental deaths since 2001 than all WW2 deaths. The loneliness epidemic is real and requires societal response.
Privacy and Surveillance
Meredith Whittaker and Jay Graber both articulated powerful visions for how technology can preserve freedom. Their talks demonstrated how mission and values can shape every aspect of product and corporate strategy.
The AI Transformation
The transition to AI-centric work will be as significant as digital transformation. Companies need to:
- Codify internal knowledge
- Shift metrics from efficiency/scale to capability/capacity
- Embrace creative generalism
- Focus on proprietary knowledge as competitive advantage
The Beyond
Amy Webb’s framework of "The Beyond" captures this moment well. We’re in a liminal space where AI, sensors, biology, and robotics converge. The decisions we make this decade will determine humanity’s long-range trajectory.
Brand Authenticity
The best talks—Meredith Whittaker, Jay Graber—felt cohesive. These folks were driven by purposes they cared deeply about. That coherence acts as a foundation for everything else they do.
Key Resources
- Amy Webb’s 2025 Tech Trend Report (1,000 pages)
- 40 Years of Zen – Dave Asprey
- Rohit Bhargava – Non-Obvious
- Signal
- Bluesky / AT Protocol
Closing Thoughts
SXSW remains one of the best places to ground-truth mental models and understand what’s happening and what’s coming. The value isn’t just in the sessions—it’s in the hallway conversations, the expo hall discoveries, and the broader cultural vibe check.
This year reinforced several beliefs:
- AI transformation is happening faster than most organizations are adapting
- Privacy and open protocols matter more, not less, as AI becomes more capable
- Social health deserves as much attention as physical and mental health
- The companies that will win are those embracing possibility and capacity, not just efficiency and scale
The key question isn’t whether AI will transform work—it’s whether we’ll shape that transformation to serve human flourishing or let it happen to us.
Event: SXSW 2025
Location: Austin, Texas
Dates: March 7-15, 2025
Format: Film, Interactive, Music festival + Conference
Related Content:
- SXSW 2024 Notes (if processed)
- Algarve Tech Summit 2025