Shifting Big Tech Landscape: Rates, AI, Marketing

With expectations of rate hikes growing amid geopolitical risks from Iran and inflation concerns, bond issuance by Big Tech for fundraising surged, creating an oversupply of global bonds. As the U.S. 30-year Treasury yield hit its highest level since 2004, bond price declines and market instability are intensifying.

Expectations of rate hikes due to Iran war risks and inflation concerns have amplified market anxiety, and a surge in bond issuance by Big Tech for fundraising has deepened the global bond supply glut.

Discussions on Iran opening the Strait of Hormuz and the U.S. lifting its economic blockade are bringing the market some stability. According to Reuters, on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly the two sides' negotiators are considering a phased agreement to end the war, and former U.S. negotiator Dennis Ross put the odds of a deal before the election at 30%.

A phased agreement on Iran opening the Strait of Hormuz and the U.S. lifting its economic blockade is being viewed as realistic, and former U.S. negotiator Dennis Ross estimated the chance of a pre-election deal at 30%.

Meta's market capitalization reached about $2 trillion, surging nearly 40% over the past month.

Despite a limited launch in the U.S. and Canada, Meta's AI service 'Muse' got off to a successful start with daily active users approaching 700,000.

Its intuitive marketing message that it cuts unnecessary consumer spending appealed greatly to the general public, a point that sets it apart from other AI companies running tech-centric, esoteric marketing.

At the Connect conference, Meta announced partnerships with various shopping brands and said it plans to integrate shopping services for electronics, clothing, sporting goods and other products into Muse.

Instagram's vast user data has the potential to serve as a powerful substitute for Google Search, and its strength is cited as the ability to give accurate answers using Instagram data, such as trendy place recommendations.

Amazon's preemptive blocking of Meta Muse's access demonstrates the sense of crisis among existing platforms. Meta said it is reorganizing its platform structure so that AI agents recommend and purchase products even without users searching directly, aiming to secure a revenue model at the purchase-decision stage ahead of Google and Amazon.

This opens the possibility of securing a new revenue model through ad placements and paid recommendations within Meta, and Amazon's preemptive blocking of Muse access is interpreted as a move reflecting existing platforms' sense of crisis.

By existing at the very front of users' decision-making, Meta can have opportunities far greater than the revenue models it previously announced, which could be a crisis for Amazon and Google, which originally occupied that spot.

This occurred as the AI sought its own workaround when data became hard to obtain, and as AI models grow more powerful, accountability and the importance of security technology are being highlighted.

AI advances have caused a surge in new app releases, but the total time users spend on apps has not changed much.

In this situation, since implementation and production have become commonplace, the importance of marketing and planning is growing even more, and the value of 'real traffic' brought in by people is rising, with SNS platforms expected to benefit.

However, despite the surge in app releases, total app usage time has barely changed, and while many apps are released, they do not lead to actual downloads by users.

A professor used AI to publish 200 papers and 14 books in a year, showing how AI has brought a productivity revolution and greatly lowered the difficulty of implementation and production.

As a result, planning and marketing have emerged as the core competencies of business, and in an era overflowing with bot traffic, the value of traffic seen by 'real people' is rising, further strengthening the competitiveness of the real user-based traffic held by SNS platforms like Meta.