We’re constantly hearing about artificial intelligence (AI), whether it’s wishing that we had invested some money in NVIDIA stock a couple of years ago before it took off or wondering about Elon Musk’s assertion that the government will need to establish a basic income for everyone because there won’t be enough jobs when AI takes over. This may be true someday, but as you’ll see, the data says not yet.
Last summer, I took an Engineering Management class at Western Kentucky University called “Technology and Society”. The instructor assured me that the class was more social science than engineering because, to put it bluntly, I don’t know anything about engineering. Even though I audit classes at WKU — meaning I don’t receive a grade or credit (with three degrees, I don’t need another one) — I do the work.
The final presentation had to cover one of seven areas, six of which I didn’t know anything about and couldn’t get up to speed in a couple of weeks. Oh, did I mention this was a five-week class, condensed down from 15 weeks? The one choice left was artificial intelligence, so with the help of some friends, I learned enough about AI in broadcast radio to put a reasonable presentation together. Fortunately, the instructor knew very little about the radio business, so the final evaluation was decent.
As the radio business has atrophied over recent years, we hear about the potential for AI to take over, for better or worse. Our industry is not alone and the recent revelation about the new Deep Seek LLM (large language model) supposedly designed for a tiny fraction of what other companies are investing in the technology has shaken the artificial intelligence world.
But maybe we’re getting ahead of ourselves. The Census Bureau’s Business Trends and Outlook Survey (BTOS) has been asking about the use of AI in business for the last couple of years and the results are interesting.
BTOS (each time I see this acronym, I think of Bachman Turner Overdrive) says that as of the January 30, 2025 update, only 5% of businesses are using AI to produce goods or services. 84% are not using AI and 11% don’t know if they’re using AI or not! Looking ahead, only 6.5% plan to use AI in the next six months.
Because all sorts of businesses are included, let’s check the results for larger businesses (250+ employees), assuming bigger companies would be more likely to be first movers. The current use percentage goes up…all the way to 7.2% with future use at 11%.
How about the effect on employment? Won’t AI cause massive layoffs as the technology replaces humans? According to the Census, not yet. Of the companies using AI, 2.8% said they had increased employment while 2.6% said employment was reduced due to AI, in other words, a wash.
BTOS does not break out media but does have a category entitled “Arts and Entertainment”. In this sector, 5% of businesses are using AI now and 6.1% plan to in the next six months. However, there was a greater, albeit very small, effect on employment. Not a single business said they had hired more people due to the introduction of AI, but 2.2% said they cut headcount.
Suggesting that AI will be a bust in the future seems ludicrous, but if we are to believe the Census — one of the best survey operations in the world — it’s not a big deal yet. And while BTOS does not break out a “media” category and definitely not a “radio” category, we can surmise that adoption is happening, albeit slowly.
My presentation last summer cited uses of AI for radio such as spec spots and AI voices for emergencies when no local talent is available. Yes, I covered “AI Ashley” and the new services from Futuri and RadioContentPro. Anyone betting against AI in our business will probably be wrong in the long run.
Like any other technology, AI will get here but likely later rather than sooner. There is a lot of promise in artificial intelligence analyzing large data sets, doing drudge work (think reviewing legal documents that run on for thousands of pages) and more. A recent Fred Jacobs blog talked about “synthetic data” using AI and the problems that result from that (and thanks for the shout-out about The Bedroom Project and Goin’ Mobile…truly great research projects that I was a small part of along the way).
If you’d like to review the Census data, it’s here. Navigating the website is easy and besides, it’s your tax dollars at work!
Let’s meet again next week.
