VML returned to SXSW in Austin, where the conference center once was – a vast hole in the ground. This year’s Festival looked and felt a little different, a little more distributed. Instead of the usual anchor, each of the key tracks (music, film, innovation) got its own clubhouse, which brought a campus air to proceedings.
Despite the changes, some things felt familiar – like the sense of overwhelm over a schedule packed to burst. Risk the line for the Spielberg talk? Join the crowds for a ride in the Vibrating Hammocks? Or check out the AI Rodeo?
A clear segue to the theme that stalked the halls this year was that the pondering over AI’s potential is over. SXSW 2026 was all about its practical and pervasive impact. The technology is rapidly moving from a theoretical novelty to the fundamental force reconfiguring culture, creativity and commerce.
From breaking the code for interspecies communication to unlocking new ways to identify health outbreaks, this year’s festival was less a showcase of what AI can do, and more a reckoning with what it is doing: disrupting our shared reality, redefining the nature of work, and sparking a powerful, human-centric counter-movement toward intentionality and purpose.
The six themes that follow map this new landscape, from the challenges of the machine-mediated world to the creative and commercial opportunities emerging in response.
Welcome to the era of applied AI.
Welcome to the era of applied AI.
This year's SXSW festival was less a showcase of what AI can do, and more a reckoning with what it is doing.
Key trends that emerged during SXSW 2026:
Algoreality Hijack
Reality is becoming increasingly machine-mediated, with AI accelerating the shift from a shared understanding of the world to something more filtered, synthetic and contested.
Social platforms already offer a highly edited version of reality, privileging the dramatic, emotional and easily legible over the quiet, complex or mundane. As linguist and content creator Adam Aleksic argued, everything presented as reality online has passed through multiple layers of filtration: it must comply with platform rules, be easily categorised, monetizable and align with the platform’s model of the user. The result, he said, is a profound cultural shift: machines don’t just distribute culture, they co-author it – selecting, distorting and amplifying certain ideas, identities and desires while suppressing others.
Imran Ahmed, CEO and Founder of the Center for Countering Digital Hate, and journalist Tara Palmeri said the internet is now “in a constant state of promotion,” with algorithms deciding which stories get seen, shared and believed. In this environment, anything “too complex, too nuanced or too weird” struggles to surface, while provocative and emotionally charged content is rewarded with reach. What emerges is less a reflection of reality than a warped digital mirror.
Technologist and author Kevin Ashton (who coined the term ‘internet of things’) pushed this argument further, suggesting that the human instinct for stories is being hijacked by AI platforms and systems which have powerfully reshaped reality by changing which ones spread and whose voices get amplified. With reinforcement learning-based systems (such as the ranking engineer used by Facebook) the only goal is to “maximize clicks, not focus on what’s true or beneficial.” The end result? “We now live in a world where we don’t know what or who is real,” said Ashton.
Yet some formats still offer an antidote. Journalist Leon Neyfakh, host of several Audible Originals podcasts, highlighted the unique power of long-form audio to command sustained attention in a distracted world. He noted that while print journalism struggles to get readers past a few minutes, "Longform audio... can capture people's attention for hours and hours, which means you can tell more complex, nuanced stories. When done right, even a very long series can keep audiences engrossed and entertained until the very end.”
In a world co-authored by algorithms, trust will be the ultimate differentiator. As our shared reality becomes more filtered, the brands that win will be the antidote, delivering truth and authenticity and championing the nuanced, complex and deeply human stories that machines cannot. (For more on brand trust see our Truth Literacy #3 and Brand Bastions #40 trends in The Future 100: 2026).
Calibrating Connection
After zealously removing friction from our physical and digital lives, effort and resistance are being reappraised. In some cases, SXSW speakers said, they foster intentionality, meaning and deeper connection.
Author, CEO and Founder of McPherson Strategies, Susan McPherson, noted at her session “The Lost Art of Connecting" that easeful technology has delivered "infinite ways for us to avoid each other.” Face-to-face communication, handwritten notes or typed messages may have required more effort, but they gave people the time to be considered and intentional when reaching out to others.
McPherson elaborated that “we have become addicted to frictionless connection in a way that avoids real human complexity." In short, we have been seduced by what she calls “algorithmic comfort,” and avoid engaging with different or challenging viewpoints. Social media algorithms that design for engagement and chatbots that flatter and please exacerbate the problem, leaving us in an increasingly atomized, self-reinforcing environment. The downsides are societal, not just personal. “What happens to democracy when we can’t engage with opposing viewpoints?” she asked.
More broadly, the growing unease with “algorithmic comfort” is evidenced by a growing shift to analog habits and pastimes (see Analog Movement in our Future 100: 2025 report) particularly among Gen Z who are adopting analog hobbies and pursuits at a faster rate than any other generation (35% globally say they are doing more this past year). Back in Austin, one street performer was ‘keeping it analog’, producing custom poetry in real-time, on a vintage clacky typewriter.
Other voices at SXSW spoke to the value of taking the hard path as a route to self-development. B. Joseph Pine, a professor and author who co-created the notion of the Experience Economy, shared learnings from his new book “The Transformation Economy” which charts the growing desire for experiences that change us (see Transformative experiences, trend #32 in The Future 100: 2026). “Change is hard,” Pine said, "but the value comes in overcoming challenges to achieve your aspirations."
We have reached peak frictionless and the backlash against "algorithmic comfort" reveals a craving for meaning derived from effort. The opportunity for brands is no longer to remove friction, but to calibrate it.
Re:purpose
Brand purpose has been in the wilderness, following an era of largely passive commitment centering predominantly on pledges or carefully crafted mission statements. But in an era of heightened political tension and consumer scrutiny, brands are facing a critical choice: stay silent or take a stand.
Ben & Jerry's cofounder, Ben Cohen, made a compelling case for the latter, outlining his playbook for "creative activism" that feels increasingly relevant. In conversation with Doug Cameron, author of “Cultural Strategy”, the duo’s talk suggested that as trust in traditional institutions wanes, a new era for brand activism is emerging, one that requires strategic and courageous action.
Cohen looked back at the Ben & Jerry's model, the foundation of which was the creation of the company's revolutionary mission statement. "We have a social mission, a product mission and financial mission... the three are equal and mutually interdependent," said Cohen. This innovative ideology, which placed social good on par with financial success, was the engine for everything that followed, he said.
Cameron helpfully summarized Cohen's approach as a four-part model: "Advance an innovative ideology, respond to a cultural tension, stage a symbolic challenge, and innovate in narrative form." The latter saw Ben & Jerry’s famously turn a simple pint of ice-cream into a vehicle for social commentary on everything from the Cold War to rainforest preservation.
The SXSW session “Beyond Advertising: Advertising as Infrastructure for Change” showed how big ideas can be found in the “fine print of what companies do,” highlighting AXA’s Three Little Words campaign, last year’s Dan Wieden Titanium Grand Prix winner at Cannes Lions. By adding the words “or domestic violence” to the existing emergency relocation clause in customer contracts, purpose was encoded into the way the company does business. The approach aligns with advice from Reddit's Matt Klein, who advocated "foresight as activism" — instead of chasing cultural fads, build the future you want to see, he said.
Purpose is also critical to the coming Transformation Economy, according to B. Joseph Pine II. This is the latest evolution of the experience economy where brands guide transformations, and value is centered in outcomes. For brands keen to participate, his advice is: “uncover what your meaningful purpose [is] — why do you exist in the world other [than] to make a buck? If all you care about is profit, you’re a racket. What you need to do is foster human flourishing, and profits are the measure of how well you do that.”
As trust in traditional institutions erodes, brands are being called to fulfill a new social contract. A new model is emerging that considers purpose as core business infrastructure.
01. Ben Cohen's Up in Arms campaign at SXSW 2026 02. Doug Cameron and Ben Cohen at SXSW 2026 03. Spoon of Ben and Jerry's. Courtesy of the Magnum Ice Cream Company.
Ben Cohen
Co-Founder, Ben & Jerry's
Living Storyworlds
Brands and creators are building lore-filled storyworlds that audiences can enter, explore and influence, creating platforms for ongoing engagement. The narrative is not something to experience rather than watch – now the world itself is the medium.
SXSW speakers charted the consumer desire for participation over consumption and the consequent rise of immersive, multi-faceted universes. Immersive arts studio Meow Wolf and augmented reality software company Niantic were in Austin to talk about their joint ambition to extend Meow Wolf’s physical immersive universes into the wider real world using Niantic’s advanced spatial mapping and AR technology. Vince Kadlubek, cofounder and Chief Vision Officer for Meow Wolf, outlined three pillars of what he calls “Next Generation Storytelling” as the blueprint for a storyworld: being spatialized, existing as a hybrid of physical and digital, and being narratively and mechanically connected (where the universe recognizes and reacts to a participant's history within it). Technology that can seamlessly blend digital content with the physical world is making “magic” possible. Dennis Hwang of Niantic Spatial detailed the platform's ability to create a "living model of the world" with centimeter-level precision, allowing digital content to be anchored to physical locations at a "planet scale canvas."
Despite the tech allure, Kadlubek is bullish on the future for physical experiences: “I'm way more interested in what AI can't do, because that's where there's going to be value in the future of storytelling, because that's where novelty is,” he said.
This participatory shift was powerfully demonstrated in the festival's XR lineup, where experiences offered direct portals into new realities. “Insider Outsider” by Philippe Cohen Solal invited participants to journey through the fantastical 'realms of the unreal' imagined by artist Henry Darger, moving from his physical room into a vibrant storyworld. “The Great Orator” by Daniel Ernst presented an AI-generated consciousness, a world with a seemingly infinite number of narrative paths that the user directs, making it a place to be "visited and revisited" rather than simply watched. Similarly, in the narrative VR thriller game “Winterover” ( by Ido Mizrahy and Nir Sa’ar) players step into the role of an astronaut on an expedition to Mars in the year 2049, in which her mission and family come into conflict. These projects are not linear, but destinations in which viewers have agency.
The move for brands is to craft worlds that people can inhabit and influence, while the new measure of success will be presence, not attention.
01 & 02. Winterover, Courtesy of Blimey, a_Bahn, Restless Pictures.
The Orchestration Economy
The future of work is a race against "clock drift," an existential threat companies face now that "AI can execute faster than you and your company can make decisions," as near futurist Neil Redding put it. To survive, Redding argued, we must reframe AI from tool to "participant," a reasoning partner in a new, dynamic system.
The shift will demand a reimagination of work itself. According to Ian Beacraft, CEO of Signal and Cipher, AI’s primary disruption is structural: it collapses the cost of execution, leaving coordination as the new bottleneck. Yet, many companies still treat AI like an efficient intern, he said, using it to speed up the old ways of working and achieving only incremental gains as a result. This misses the true revolution. “The paradigm shift,” said Beacraft, “is moving from doing the work to designing the work."
In this new reality, AI agents will handle routine tasks, elevating the human role to system architect. Leadership will evolve into what Redding calls the “orchestration of participant dynamics,” where leaders continually tune the system. As Beacraft put it, while AI tools will constantly change, the real source of competitive advantage will come from the things that don’t: “your values, your policies, your governance, your taste.” This demands the shift away from execution and toward orchestration, delegation, and systems thinking.
The satirical SXSW XR experience “Body Proxy” by arts studio Tender Claws, which had humans audition to be the physical ‘hands’ for an AI 'brain,’ offered a sharp glimpse into a future where this is ignored; if we fail to architect the systems, we risk becoming components within them.
The mandate for leaders is clear: center unique human attributes like values, governance and taste at the heart of the new work paradigm.
Neil Redding
Author & Near Futurist
Autonomous Realities
Downtown Austin offered a vivid glimpse of near-future mobility this year, turning the city into a live showroom for what transport could soon look like. As one speaker put it: “It’s Futurama out there.”
Self-driving Waymo Ubers were already part of the everyday streetscape around SXSW, signaling how autonomous ride-hailing is shifting from novelty to normality in some cities. Tesla added to the momentum over the weekend, drawing the crowds with the arrival of its flashy Cybercab robotaxi concept, even if the experience stopped short of public test drives. Amazon’s Zoox also used Austin as a proving ground, offering free rides in its autonomous vehicle ahead of a planned launch later this year. Together, the presence of Waymo, Tesla and Zoox underscored the shift: autonomous urban transport is no longer being framed as a distant vision, but as an imminent consumer reality.
Electrification was another major theme. Rivian, this year’s headline sponsor, leaned into the experiential side of the trend with “Electric Joyride”: a high-energy off-road test track for its R2 adventure vehicle. The brand also hosted the “Rivian Roadhouse”, where festival-goers could get up close with the R2 while taking in panels, music and snacks. The approach reflected how EV brands are increasingly selling not just vehicles, but lifestyle, community and adventure.
Beyond the road, SXSW also pointed to growing interest in more personal forms of aviation for high-net worth travelers. Cirrus Aircraft showcased its personal aircraft concept the SR Series, which shipped 690 units last year. The team was in town to showcase the “Safe Return Auto Land” feature, which can autonomously land the plane at the touch of a button in an emergency, offering reassurance to less confident pilots.
While the company’s core market remains business and leisure flyers, they are banking on its simple features like touchscreen controls coupled with services like pilot hire to help it go further. “We want to expand our reach into the general consumer market and show them that it’s easy to learn how to fly,” Cirrus PR manager Nadia Haidar told VML Intelligence.
The signal from Austin was clear: the future of mobility is becoming more autonomous, electrified and experiential — and increasingly within reach.
01. & 02 Rivian's Electric Joyride Activation 03. Cirrus SR Series, Courtesy of Cirrus.
What It Means for Brands
So there you have it, SXSW 2026 distilled.
The trends at SXSW point to a world grappling with the profound and pervasive impact of AI. From the hijack of reality to the total disruption of work, AI is no longer a theoretical concept but a fundamental force reshaping culture, commerce and human experience. What once lived on the edges of speculation is becoming embedded in everyday life, raising urgent questions about trust, identity, and agency.
The mandate is to intentionally design futures where people can flourish, amplifying truth, centering connection and humanity.
Answers to your SXSW questions:
SXSW 2026 highlighted that reality is becoming increasingly "machine-mediated" by AI. Social platforms and algorithms select, distort and amplify certain ideas, leading to a "warped digital mirror" where complex or nuanced content struggles to surface and provocative content is rewarded, making it harder to discern what is real or true.
In "The Orchestration Economy" AI is viewed as a "participant" rather than just a tool, collapsing the cost of execution. This shift demands humans move from "doing the work to designing the work," elevating roles to system architects and "orchestrators of participant dynamics," where competitive advantage comes from unique human attributes like values, governance and taste.
As trust in traditional institutions erodes, brands are being called to fulfill a new social contract. "Re:purpose" signifies a shift from passive pledges to strategic, courageous action, integrating purpose as "core business infrastructure" to foster human flourishing beyond just profit, aligning with the coming Transformation Economy.
"Living Storyworlds" represent a shift from consumption to participation, where audiences can enter, explore and influence immersive, multi-faceted universes. These are spatialized, hybrid (physical and digital), and narratively connected worlds, utilizing advanced spatial mapping and AR technology to make the "world itself the medium," offering agency to viewers.
"Algorithmic comfort" describes our addiction to frictionless technology, which avoids real human complexity and engaging with different or challenging viewpoints. SXSW speakers noted a growing unease with this, as it leads to increasingly atomized environments, fostering a "human-centric counter-movement toward intentionality and purpose," and a backlash revealed by a craving for meaning derived from effort.
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