SXSW 2026 Updates: Check out all the highlights from the final day of the festival

March 18, 2026 at 6:25 a.m. PT

I took an Uber across Austin to the Alamo Drafthouse, where I sat in a big comfy seat in one of the theaters. But I didn’t see a film. I played a game, on my phone, interacting with the screen and the people next to me. We shared our hopes and fears and also voted on who we would kill.

Escape The Internet (Part One) is a performance game made by Lucas Rizzotto, a provocative artist who has been working in VR and AR for years, and a team of designers and animators. Escape the Internet was a semi-hidden part of SXSW. Rizzotto didn’t even attach his name to it in the program to keep it secret. But even though he’s part of the XR program here, he doesn’t use a helmet. It’s about being real.

Our phones connected to a private Wi-Fi link, which “took control” of our devices (we used a browser link to play). We were asked to turn off our silent mode, turn up the volume and brightness: the opposite of any cinematic experience. We watched a game projected on the screen, a sort of weird brainrot-style story of cute smiling balls representing audience members, labeled and named. We were escaping the crappy internet created by the tech titans, heading to an island called Sanctuary, where we fell into a pit and had to travel together to a dark castle. We voted on the spot, then we had to play a game.

And we also answered surveys about our lives: have we suffered from heartbreak recently? Have we had trouble trusting others? Do we often feel alone? (Yes, for me, strangely.)

And then we ended up playing the cart game, voting on which of two things to kill. Pineapple pizza or regular? One person who shared our political opinions, or five who did not? Everyone in the room, or just you?

Different parts might take us to different floors, where we would play different games. What we discovered, recounted by Lucas Rizzotto as he stood outside the theater and spoke to us like a performance arts tour guide, revealed our tendencies and also highlighted how the Internet can polarize and alienate us. The game listed players who responded about being heartbroken, losing someone, and other things we said. These people’s phones were glowing. We saw them. We felt for them. The people next to me talked to me about my choices. I spoke to them. Did we become a community during this hour? In a way, yes.

Rizzotto wants to expand this to more games at future festivals and explore other ways to invite players. I loved its glitchy fantasy and its gentle yet dark provocations. And what it made me feel like I often do: I need to spend more time offline with people in real spaces, with or without phones.

I stripped naked, lay down on a rigid, transparent bed dotted with light emitters, put a plastic cannula under my nose to detect molecular hydrogen, then bathed myself in red light and electromagnetic fields for 25 minutes. Did it make me feel better? I don’t know. I think so.

A stop at a spa in the same hotel as the XR showcase at SXSW brought me to the Ammortal Chamber, a red light therapy experience you can book starting at $100 (yeah, the things that are all the rage). My social media producer, Allyza Umali, convinced me.

I made myself comfortable in a bathrobe and slippers in the spa, then entered the room through a curtain. It felt a bit like I was undergoing a futuristic scan (you also have to remove all metal objects and can’t have a pacemaker). You can choose relaxing or energizing sessions, or a mix of both (my choice).

I wore mini light-blocking glasses to help with the bright light, and my God, my God, I had no idea how bright that light was. Even with my eyes closed, I felt overwhelmed. It was like a calm boat ride in the sun.

I finally gave in, tried to relax and breathe to the soft music, smell the aromatherapy and feel the jets of air around me. I simmered in a warm experience there. And then, after adjustment, it was over. I sat down (slowly). And… felt tingling? Calm? A bit like I had been washed in the sun. Are you okay? Am I okay? I got dressed and yes, I felt calm. Well. Is this a placebo effect? I don’t know. But the rest of my day was positive and energetic. Perhaps I should thank the Chamber of the Red Sun. I don’t think I’d ever do it again, but I’m glad I got a taste of the experience and the absurdity.

Is the data center half full or half empty?

Many discussions at SXSW focused on this duality: techno-pessimism (or techno-apocalypse) versus techno-optimism. David Friedberg, CEO of Ohalo, an agricultural technology company, took the stage alongside Spotify co-CEO Gustav Söderström to discuss the future of AI and creativity.

Friedberg is one of the optimists.

“We spend all this time thinking about how we’re going to die, what’s going to kill us and what’s next, and we don’t talk enough about the excitement of tomorrow,” Friedberg said on stage as the panel concluded.

“Fear of tomorrow is what makes everyone turn against each other. Because as soon as you’re afraid of tomorrow, you have a reason to blame someone around you, and that’s why we’re all like that (Friedberg gestured with his two fists colliding) all the time,” he said. “And I think that’s very bad. It’s very unhealthy. It leads to a dark place. And so I want us all to be optimistic about tomorrow, and let’s be realistic, but let’s be optimistic about tomorrow, so that we’re not all at loggerheads all the time.”

I just spent four days on the ground in Austin, Texas, reporting on SXSW, and I keep coming back to the same phrase: It was good chaos.

It was the kind of chaos where my phone was at 3% while I was quickly walking to a panel I was already late for, while somehow conducting an interview with an arepa in one hand and the notes app open in the other (true story). The 14-20 hour work days blended together in the best possible way: exhausting, energizing, and exactly what I hoped for.

What made it worth it was not only the pace, but also the people.

I got to pick the brains of industry experts and sit in rooms with some truly fascinating voices — from Spotify executives and BuzzFeed co-founders to Mark Cuban and Hayley Williams, among others. There’s something about hearing these perspectives in real time, in this environment, that sharpens your own thinking. I came away not only inspired, but also more grounded in the type of reporting I want to do, particularly as it relates to AI.

I’m no longer in the middle of it all, moving from place to place in downtown Austin, but the story isn’t over. My brilliant colleague, Scott Stein, is still in the field, and I will complete the final part remotely, with longer, more thoughtful analyzes to come.

For now, I’m catching my breath, sorting through pages of notes and already missing chaos, the good kind.

I spent about 20 magical minutes in Fabula Rasa: Dead Man Talking, a VR experience at this year’s SXSW that wowed me Fancifully set in a fantasy medieval nightmare with strange animated characters. But these characters chatted with me thanks to generative AI.

The plot is simple: I am thrown into prison, for a crime that I propose as an improvisation sketch to my jailer. I also choose my identity (a magician accused of cheating people at a wedding). I’m then suspended in a cage over the pit of a cartoonish, loud-mouthed dragon monster. And then I have to try to beg for my life from anyone who comes near my cage in the town square.

I chat when I make eye contact, saying whatever I want. After a pause, the characters respond: precise, responsive and like an AI cat… but what impressed me was how it all worked. The characters were ridiculous and legitimately funny (like a goblin who kept visiting me and trying to “help” me by giving me terrible solutions to my problems, like drawing a wrench instead of a wrench). A dour man on a bench stares at me all the time, and when I continue to chat with him, he admits that he just likes watching people get tortured.

I convince the king to release me and try to trick others to sneak in. It was like an improvisation, with a time shift. The AI’s frantic response-crushing style worked for the character types, in part because the game was created with a real team of writers who scripted the experience to work alongside the AI ​​(using Claude).

This is one of the best examples I’ve ever seen of AI and actual writing that looks like something isn’t terrible. And the team used the AI’s scattershot response style to its advantage for character comedy. That was a good thing! And I forgot that in my booth, where I experienced the game, spectators were invited to listen to my performance with warmth. telephones. It really made me feel like I was living a VR improv life.

It’s the penultimate day of SXSW, but there are still two sessions left that you can tune into remotely. Check out the full schedule and live streams on YouTube. Times are in CT.

• 10 a.m.: The Three Laws of a Healthy Relationship with author Devi Brown, relationship expert Jillian Turecki and author Case Kenny.
• 1:00 p.m.: Keynote: Make Your Own Wave: Andreea Gleeson, CEO of TuneCore, will speak with multi-hyphenate artist, author and co-founder Russ about independence and building a career as a modern artist, in all its many forms.

For about a half hour at SXSW, I lived a lesbian life. In a VR headset.

A game and experience called Lesbian Simulator was one of several XR installations at this year’s SXSW, and I won’t forget it. A Dutch VR project by Iris van der Meule, made for Meta Quest 3/3S, the self-described “artistic ode to love and sexual preference” has a hand-drawn look that resembles large brushstrokes, with characters that have simple, happy (and sometimes sad) line-drawn faces. Me too.

Dancing at a club, I handed drinks to shy, hand-drawn, animated women who looked shyly into my eyes. I opened the doors of small stages where I had to come out to my grandmother, to a friend, to the world. I went on a date where everyone was looking at us and I learned to accept it. This game, modeled along the lines of the classic Job Simulator game, is hand-designed with large hand-drawn designs in a silly, whimsical style. Inside my self-created lesbian body, I perform mini-games to collect carabiners. At the end, at the end of a Pride parade, I celebrate.

Lesbian Simulator is a gentle game and a heartwarming ride through self-expression, and could perhaps one day be the first way for someone to discover their own sexual identity in a VR headset. His welcoming, absurd and sincere style felt like a warm embrace. And yet, a challenge. I was happy to take a few steps in different virtual shoes. The best quality of virtual reality is its ability to transport us to other realms of embodiment, making us feel like we are living another life. Lesbian Simulator, even with its name, makes this idea both a fanciful fantasy and a very real thing. And yes, I felt loved. It was great.

But a moment in coming out rooms will stay with me for a while. The narrator reminded my character that often, coming out doesn’t happen just once. This happens again and again.

At the top of a long hill, 20 minutes from downtown Austin, I took a trip to a hilltop site where a large tent withstood the strong morning winds. Inside was a huge holodeck. I will soon be walking around the future Four Seasons villas planned for construction on this same site.

Built by a company called Agile Lens, this holodeck uses tracking sensors built into the ceiling and Meta Quest Pro headsets with additional tracking equipment on top. The experience was absolutely breathtaking: a room full of computers managed to render extremely high-resolution 3D constructions of the future property, from villas to a sports and fitness area, a sports bar and a private theater, to a lobby so detailed that I could lean in and read the text on the cocktail menus next to glasses that bend the light as they would in real life.

It wasn’t all real: it was a 3D rendering. But the experience can handle multiple people at once, all walking in a space so big I forgot there were even walls. Sometimes the experience was mapped onto actual sofas and chairs that we sat on as if we were in the lobby or theater. The purpose of this construction is to sell real estate for future very expensive villas. The experience was good enough that I felt a strong desire to live in these spaces that don’t yet exist.

Agile Lens also has a large scale holodeck space in Brooklyn that I haven’t visited yet, but now I’ll make sure to do so soon.

CNET’s Scott Stein spoke during the Meow Wolf and Niantic Spatial panel he hosted on Sunday about what the future of XR could look like: smart glasses, AI and more.

An anti-Elon Musk vending machine has arrived on the streets of Austin for SXSW 2026. Although the team behind the machine is unknown, the installation appears to be a protest from the leader of Tesla, SpaceX, X and xAI, as suffered by its AI chatbot, Grok. global surveys to generate nude images of children and millions of sexualized images.

Good Dye Young co-founders Hayley Williams and Brian O’Connor joined a panel at Inc.’s Founders House. to talk about entrepreneurship and the creative economy. Williams, also known as the lead singer of Paramore, and O’Connor spoke on the “Going Platinum: Lessons in Turning Cool Into Capital” panel, where the conversation focused on how creators can translate their personal passions into sustainable businesses. Williams spoke about the origins of Good Dye Young and how her lifelong love of hair color and self-expression naturally evolved into a brand.

During the discussion, Williams emphasized that she never intended for Good Dye Young to function as a typical celebrity brand tied primarily to her music career. Instead, she said the goal was always to build a standalone business, with the product and creative community at the center rather than her role within Paramore.

The themes continued during her appearance at the Create & Cultivate Future Summit, where she discussed creative independence, her journey from music to business, and the importance of mentorship for founders and emerging artists.

During a panel led by David Rogier, CEO of MasterClass, the conversation about AI and storytelling challenged the usual narrative around productivity and cost reduction. The real change, he said on stage, is personalization, or using AI to “codify” what really makes a story work and deliver it to “a unique audience.”

Rogier said personalization doesn’t actually require creating thousands of rigid audience archetypes; it simply means getting closer to individual experience.

The rules for creators are different now, and it’s essential to accept that. What once seemed strange or experimental is quickly becoming normal, especially as people become more comfortable interacting with AI. Rogier said his leading question is simple. He asks: would this have been impossible to do yesterday? If the answer is yes, you are probably exploring the true creative frontier of AI.

Interested in the future of information and media? Monday is your day at SXSW. Day 5 features plenty of live streams for media enthusiasts. The full live stream schedule is here and you can also watch it on YouTube. Times here are in CT.

• 10:00 a.m.: Shit You Should Care About: Live, with an overview of the online media brand from CEO Lucy Blakiston. She will explain how the brand was born from a simple group discussion.
• 11:30 a.m.: The future of news, with editors and executives from the Guardian, New York Times and Newsweek discussing why news coverage is essential, with a focus on why marketers and advertisers should support journalism.
• 1 p.m.: Nature speaks. Can AI help us listen? : Aza Raskin, co-founder of the Earth Species Project, will explore how AI can decode the language of other creatures, showing how complex communication is.
• 2:30 p.m.: Trust, Value, Essential: Why PBS is here to stay, with or without federal funding, with PBS President and CEO Paula Kerger in a fireside chat about the future of the venerable public television institution – and why it’s worth saving.
• 4:00 p.m.: Actionable Ikigai: Career Planning in the Age of AI, with University of Notre Dame futurist Mike Bechtel exploring how you can use AI to discover a career path that could actually make you happy.

Vince Gilligan – creator and showrunner of the hit TV shows Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul and most recently Pluribus – took the stage at SXSW on Saturday to discuss his return to Albuquerque with the new show. Gilligan was joined by Rhea Seehorn (Carol from Pluribus and Kim from Better Call Saul), composer Dave Porter, costume designer Jennifer Bryan and producer Trina Siopy to discuss the collaborative process of creating another hit series in the same city.

Although the series are all set in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and many of the people involved in the series have worked together for over a decade, there is one clear difference with Pluribus: Gilligan was willing to write a hero.

“I don’t want to have a beer with Walter White. Walter White is an asshole,” Gilligan said on stage. “Saul Goodman, I’d probably want to have a beer with him, but he’s not a great guy. He has an arc where he redeems himself a little bit in this last episode of Better Call Saul, but they’re not people to root for, for the most part.”

He went on to say that after 20 years of writing “bad guys,” he was ready for something else, deciding that Pluribus’ main character, Carol Sturka, was written to experience a hero’s journey.

“I think we need more good players in the world,” Gilligan said. “I think we in real life need more. And maybe I’m part of the problem, if fiction somehow helped motivate or excuse bad behavior in the real world — in some small, infinitesimal way.

“If the anti-hero era helped make real-life anti-heroes easier to come by, I’m all for writing good guys from here on out.”

Oscar winner Jamie Lee Curtis, best known for being a “scream queen” in horror classics like the Halloween franchise, took the stage at SXSW Saturday afternoon. Known for her dynamic energy and humor, Curtis joined the panel to discuss all things production, filmmaking, protesting, and the new Prime Video series Scarpetta, in which she stars alongside Nicole Kidman.

Towards the end of the hour-long panel, Curtis highlighted the need for human connection amid rapid adoption of AI.

“We need each other,” she said. “And we’re in a society that tells us we don’t need each other. We’re in a society that tells us we can rely on technology.

“Raise your little finger if you’ve had an interaction with an AI that feels real to you and you’ve established a relationship with an AI. They’re not real. They don’t care about you. They don’t care. They will never care about you, ever. They won’t cry when you die.”

I wore a pair of Oakley Meta glasses in a room filled with familiar objects on shelves, like one of many smart glasses demos I’ve done to test AI capabilities with companies like Google and Meta. But this time, a mischievous voice guided me to take a dollar bill out of a drawer and shred it. Did I respect it? Oh, maybe I was a good match for Body Proxy.

Body Proxy, created by game and XR developer Tender Claws, is an experimental location-based experience for glasses that plays with the idea of ​​agency and the trust we place in AI over glasses. Here, it’s an artistic experience running on a phone that leverages Meta’s camera and speakers to make you do things and become a body proxy for the AI. In other words, my actions respond to the AI’s fantasies.

I found myself ordered into a small room, then forced to take an IPO test to see if my body was capable of being used in the market as physical labor for AI. It was absurd and fun, much like Tender Claws’ other XR experiences, like Virtual Virtual Reality. I received a long receipt at the end with a QR code that shows me my performance stats and captured video clips.

I want more. Art needs to shake up smart glasses, and Body Proxy is a great choice for an otherwise VR-focused showcase at SXSW.

Amy Webb – futurist and founder of the Future Today Strategy Group, known for its annual report on technology trends – announced on stage at SXSW the death of the report.

“We are gathered here today to celebrate and remember the life of the Trends Report,” Webb said. She was dressed in black as somber music played over the speakers, forcing the more than 1,000 attendees to take part in a mock funeral.

Webb said the annual report is too static a format for the technology landscape that is rapidly evolving at breakneck speed. Rather than focusing on changing trends, she said, companies should instead pay attention to the moments where trends collide, such as the “convergences” of AI, robotics, geopolitics and more. These are structural changes worth noting.

“Trends tell you what’s changing,” Webb said. “A convergence tells you what will become inevitable.”

On Saturday, Matthew Prince, CEO of Cloudflare, hosted a panel on how the web is evolving in the age of AI and the growing popularity of AI agents. Prince said that in the near future, we will not focus on who uses the Internet, but on “what” uses the Internet.

“With the rise of generative AI and its insatiable need for data, we are seeing such an increase that we believe that by 2027 the amount of bot traffic online will exceed the amount of human traffic online,” Prince said. “If a human were to perform a task, say buying a digital camera, you might visit five websites. Your agent or the robot using it [shopping for you]will often visit a thousand times more sites than a real human would visit. And that’s a real traffic and a real burden, which everyone has to deal with. »

In addition to its JBL Live series headphones, JBL is also launching the EasySing Mic Mini ($180) with AI capabilities.

CNET got an exclusive first look at the device during the JBL LIVEbrary at SXSW 2026. The portable mic will be available in May 2026.

At SXSW 2026, JBL launched new headphones: the JBL Live 780NC Over-Ear Headphones ($249.95) and JBL Live 680NC Over-Ear Headphones ($159.95). These headphones can be ordered now on JBL.com, and product shipping will begin on March 15.

Both headphones can be purchased in blue, green, champagne, black and white.

After watching the All-American Rejects play an electric set to a packed crowd Thursday night, the pace and energy was completely different the following afternoon, sitting in a conference room at the JW Marriott as the band answered questions during a panel discussion.

The band went viral over the past year for weathering the LiveNation queue nightmare of the stadium tour charging fans $400 a ticket that became a concert in the 2020s. Instead, they played bowling alleys, fields and, yes, houses — all spaces made available by homeowners for use as a concert venue.

“Throw me a house party any day of the week,” frontman Tyson Ritter said.

The group has worked outside the industry, releasing its fifth studio album in May as independent artists, and demonstrating that the trend of charging hundreds of dollars for tickets has made live shows inaccessible. They fo nt turn heads. When panel moderator Nathan Lankford, founder of music label ATH Records, asked them if they felt they were the target of industry backlash, the group members were pretty clear.

“Who cares,” lead guitarist Nick Wheeler quickly responded.

“I hope so!” » Ritter joked. “I love hearing pigs scream.”

No wonder they are one of my favorite bands.

At the SXSW panel hosted by Spotify co-CEO Gustav Söderström on Friday afternoon, he revealed a feature soon to be rolling out to Spotify listeners: Song DNA. It would be a feature that, in his words, would “meticulously” track each person involved in creating a song, even listing the samples used.

Also read: Music recommended by AI? Spotify gives you the power to personalize

“One of my theses for this whole series is that there’s no ‘I don’t know why I like this.’ There’s always a deeper emotional connection to food,” said chef and Last Meals host Josh Scherer.

Scherer directed a live episode of his show Last Meals featuring creators Tefi Pessoa, Keith Lee and Elyse Myers. The episode followed Sherer’s signature style, interspersing thoughtful interview questions with heated culinary debates. The group talked about everything from mental health issues to the proper way to drink a smoothie.

You can watch the full episode on YouTube. This is what Pessoa, Lee and Myers would choose as their last meal.

Téfi Pessoa: Start with an extra-dirty martini with blue cheese olives and a glass of very dry white wine. Starters are pretzel rolls (no sauce) and shrimp cocktail. The main entrée is a ribeye (“Medium rare, of course, because I’m not an animal. I only eat one”), mashed potatoes, side salad. Junior New York cheesecake for dessert.

Keith Lee: Simple is best with water and lemonade (not too sour, not too sweet), with rosemary truffle fries and Nigiri (specifically bluefin tuna from Portland, Oregon) for appetizers. The entrée should be a 10-ounce medium-rare ribeye with truffle butter and asparagus (“I don’t trust a lot of people’s mashed potatoes…I don’t like things you can eat without teeth”). Dessert is fresh homemade chocolate chip cookies with Blue Bell vanilla ice cream.

Elyse Myers: To start, a Ketel One vodka soda, with hamachi yellow tail and crispy tuna rice as a starter. The entrée is once again a rib-eye (“If I’m having a steak, don’t waste my time on anything else”), and for dessert, split-banana Dippin’ Dots ice cream.

AI is doing more than influencing how creators create their art. This makes it easier to impersonate famous artists. Country music artist Lainey Wilson, during a panel hosted by Spotify co-CEO Gustav Söderström, said she has partnered with a company called Loti that identifies social media accounts and posts that impersonate her and has them removed.

“I think technology has done a lot for the music business. I think it’s always driven creativity,” Wilson said. “But it’s a scary world we live in. You never know how [scammers] go use your face or voice. And the truth is… [it’s] It’s important to me to feel like every time my fans see something, it’s really Lainey Wilson telling them. I want them to feel like they can trust me.”

“I just want to keep this relationship with my fans the way I want it to be: genuine, pure and genuine,” she said.

Director Steven Spielberg talks about his creative process and promotes his upcoming UFO film, Disclosure Day, due out June 12. (You can stream the event here.) But between talking about alien abductions and making films, he explained why he’s not on social media.

“By the way, I’m not involved in any of these things,” Spielberg told podcast host Sean Fennessey. “It’s not that I have anything personal, it’s just that it takes time. I had Instagram on my phone for two weeks and I ran out of time like I was abducted by aliens.”

I’d suggest checking out Brick, which I use to stop Instagram from stealing my time. But it might be best not to download the apps to begin with.

“I never initially wanted to win 23 Grand Slams. I wanted to win the US Open, and then I made that scalable,” Serena Williams, managing partner of investment firm Serena Ventures, joked at SXSW.

Typically, panels made up of venture capitalists focus on profits and returns on investment. But with tennis legend Serena Williams serving as Reckitt Catalyst’s Entrepreneur in Residence, the conversation focused on how funding tech startups could have a tangible impact on the community.

Another panelist included Mika Eddy, co-founder of Malama Health, a community telehealth company that connects pregnant women with local doulas and remote monitoring technologies to support them during their pregnancy and postpartum. Malama, meaning “care” in Hawaiian, aims to improve maternal health outcomes.

Eddy said she was inspired to start the company after watching her obstetrician-gynecologist grandmother treating patients in rural Japan while growing up.

“The United States really wasn’t built for healthy outcomes for women, and especially if you don’t have privilege or a platform, those outcomes are often left to chance,” Eddy said. “We built Malama to help fill the gaps.”

Also on the panel was Kwamane Liddell, an emergency department nurse who founded Thrivelink to help patients across the country find housing, medications and other vital social service resources. The company focuses on accessibility: you don’t need the internet, smartphones, or reading skills to use it. For example, Thrivelink uses AI voice technology rather than relying on text, which can be more difficult to use for some patients. Liddell’s uncle, who had a stroke and was one of the inspirations for Thrivelink.

“People may not be able to text or type into the app, but they can give their address,” Liddell said. “So we built a telephone AI agent that lets people talk. Since then, we’ve helped thousands of families access healthy food.”

Health technology, venture capital, and politics have a long and complicated history in the United States. Health technologies are often designed to fill gaps or solve major problems left by the healthcare and insurance industries. The big companies in the AI ​​revolution, like OpenAI, Amazon and Microsoftare also building health AI tools with startups like Malama and Thrivelink.

On stage at SXSW, Spotify co-CEO Gustav Söderström announced a new feature which lets you shape and personalize your taste profile within the app, seemingly signaling a step away from relying solely on AI-generated playlists.

“Taste is not a fact,” Söderström said. “It’s an opinion.”

Currently, Taste Profile uses AI algorithms to understand your listening history and recommend songs, albums, artists and genres. Now you can set your preferences and fine-tune what you see in playlists, such as the Discover Weekly, Daily Mixes, and Wrapped playlists. So if you want more The All-American Rejects (who doesn’t?), you can type the name into the app to get more details about the band and similar artists. The idea is that over time you will be able to organize your music preferences and recommendations.

All-American Rejects lead singer Tyson Ritter told us to “step into his time machine” as he took us back to the early 2000s by playing hits from their 2005 album Move Along during the SXSW opening night musical Thursday night.

This was a special type of time travel. The opening notes of an old song begin, and suddenly everyone in the room becomes old versions of ourselves, and we are taken back to when we first heard this song and to the moments in our lives that were recorded by this band’s music. A man in front of me was telling his partner about playing It Ends Tonight at his school’s talent show, while I talked to Allyza Umali, CNET’s senior social media producer, about the posters of the band I had in my bedroom growing up. Anyway, it was the early 2000s.

Next, the group turned to new songs to promote their fifth studio album, which Ritter said they finished two days ago. The moment has changed: the past still resonated, but it breathes new air. Every comeback song was the band telling us fans we were hereand each new song tells us we become again. Between nostalgia and novelty, I was able to experience the endurance of a group over 20 years of history. inuit. Not just the band and their music, but also our own lives evolving alongside them.

Ritter and the rest of the band will take the stage again at SXSW Friday to talk about their House Party Tour — when they took their show to new venues, like skateparks and backyards. It will be on YouTube at 2:30 p.m. CT.

This is my first trip to Austin, or SXSW: my only previous one was a virtual fireside chat with Meta’s Mark Rabkin during the pandemic in 2021. While my colleagues, including Macy Meyer, are already there, I’m flying out Saturday and staying until next Wednesday.

I expect to have more than my fill of AI talks and good barbecues, but I also have other missions there. For one, I’m on a panel with Meow Wolf and Niantic Spatial called Reality Hacked: Tech, Story, and the Future of Experience. Meow Wolf founder Vince Kladubek and Niantic’s Dennis Hwang will discuss AR experiments and tech infusions explored in current and future Meow Wolf installations, with Kati Murphy and me.

I’ve been fascinated by Meow Wolf’s immersive work for years, and its future locations in Los Angeles and New York are still in development. But right now, experiencing technology, AI, and AR in contained art installations seems like the best way to explore and challenge the ideas that smart glasses, AI wearables, and even robots aspire to. Physical AI attempts to blend the real world and AI, and augmented reality is another facet of this puzzle. I just visited another immersive experience in Philadelphia, The Ministry of Awe, which incorporates aspects of AI interfaces into its exhibits. Everyone is trying to figure out what the possibilities are and how to do it safely.

I’ll also be diving into some VR and AR experiences there, and looking at all the emerging technologies I can find. I’m also researching neurotechnology, an area I plan to continue to develop as sensors like EMG and EEG, as well as eye tracking cameras, evolve into wearable devices.

The biggest question I have about AI right now is how its interfaces should evolve for new devices and applications, wearable or otherwise. Besides the slop it produces, the AI ​​seems difficult to access. No glasses or wearable device I’ve seen has had the idea of ​​an “AI interface”. Are the ideas ready to emerge, or is it still too early?

I will come back with more thoughts and things I see as I find them. Also looking for immersive activations at SXSW.

CNET senior social media producer Allyza Umali (left) and writer Macy Meyer (right) before getting into the new Rivian R2 for a ride. Keep scrolling to read how it happened and what Rivian’s chief engineer had to say about the electric SUV.

One thing about me, I like to go fast. Really fast. Quick concern. And thanks to Rivian’s new R2 range, we can go from 0 to 60 mph in 3.6 seconds.

I piled into one of Rivian’s sleek new R2 midsize electric SUVs with a CNET social producer and the R2’s chief engineer, Max Koff. (I wasn’t driving.) We went as fast as we could while taking a joyride through the middle of downtown Austin, Texas.

Rivian assembled massive piles of dirt in the middle of N. Congress Avenue to create an off-road experience that showcases the R2’s dexterity and ability to drive on all types of terrain. Whether navigating the busy streets of Austin, taking a 30-degree angle downhill, or diving straight into a massive roller coaster (yes, my stomach dropped), Rivian’s new model was smooth and, well, really fun to ride.

Before climbing into the backseat for a demonstration of the dynamic and precise driving experience, I met with Wassym Bensaid, Rivian’s chief software officer, for an in-person demonstration of the new software updates and features.

Bensaid told me about Rivian’s new in-cabin AI assistant. But I was also impressed by the new Haptic Halo Wheels – dials integrated into the steering wheel capable of scrolling, pushing, pulling and tilting – and the large, sleek central screen, designed to be easy to use for both driver and passenger. I think my favorite new feature, though, was a camera that lets you monitor your pet in the backseat. Yeah, it’s great.

Movie fans have a lot to look forward to this week at SXSW. Documentaries, romance films, comedies, horror films and dramas are all set to debut at the festival. Our friends at CNET’s sister site Mashable present 17 films attendees shouldn’t miss.

If you’re not attending SXSW this year, you’ll have to wait a bit before you can see many of these films, as it may take a while for films to make the jump from the festival circuit to theaters. However, some will be available soon. Ready or Not 2: Here I Am, The AI ​​Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist, Pretty Lethal and They Will Kill You will all receive theatrical releases later this month.

It’s the first day of SXSW in Austin, but you don’t have to be in Texas to enjoy it. You can watch several conference sessions live on YouTube. Here’s what’s on the agenda today (all times are CT):

• 9:30 a.m.: Welcome to SXSW with event programming manager Greg Rosenbaum.
• 10:00 a.m.: Moonshots that Move the Needle: A roundtable discussion on supporting the development of technological innovations and programs for teaching and learning.
• 11:30 a.m.: Strategy in times of chaos: imagining the future of education. Experts will discuss ways to “build a fairer and more equitable future.”
• 1:00 p.m.: Keynote: Jennifer B. Wallace: The bestselling author will speak about the importance of our need as humans to “feel valued and add value” as the key to well-being.
• 2:30 p.m.: How to support resilient youth in an AI world: AI experts, including Miriam Schneider from Google DeepMind, will discuss how AI is changing the way young people learn and develop.
• 4:00 p.m.: Social health trends and forecasts: connection is the new frontier. Author Kasley Killam will explore the future of our social relationships.

It’s hard for me to imagine what my world was like before the advent of computers in our pockets, the constant routine of switching between apps and scrolling through endless notifications. We live our lives in the attention economy – and never truly escape from it.

It’s this tension that confronts the new documentary Your Attention Please, premiering this week at SXSW.

I had the opportunity to talk about the film with director Sara Robin, alongside Trisha Prabhu, documentary participant and inventor of the anti-cyberbullying technology ReThink. We discussed the process of making the documentary, how social media has reimagined what we value as humans, and how AI is exacerbating anxieties already caused by the digital age. You can read my full story on Your Attention Please here.

SXSW begins Thursday and runs through March 18. It takes place across Austin at dozens of venues, from large downtown hotels to small concert halls.

SXSW is actually several events in one. There is a music festival, a film and television festival, a comedy festival and an educational conference. SXSW 2025 attracted more than 300,000 people across all events.

Want to see what’s happening at SXSW for yourself? The full schedule is available on the website, but much of the programming is limited to on-site attendees who have paid for a pass.

However, it’s not all exclusive to Austinites. You can watch live streams of multiple events every day, including keynotes and featured sessions with some of the biggest names. This schedule is here and the streams will be available on YouTube and other platforms.

I won’t be making the trip to Austin this year, but I was there last year, where I heard a lot of talk about AI. So much AI. I spoke with experts grappling with the future of this technology and listened to panel discussions on the risks posed by superintelligence and synthetic data.

I asked myself: can AI and human creativity work together? While some use technology to explore new artistic avenues, others see it as competition – technology that steals their work for training data.

Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, asked AI developers a crucial question when it comes to creating systems that users can trust: “Who does it work for?” »

While many conversations around AI focused on how it would affect the workplace, Nickle LaMoreaux, chief human resources officer at IBM, said the result would likely be that workers would be judged more on things only a human can do.

Sometimes what makes the news isn’t what a person says. Jay Graber, then CEO of Bluesky, left p laughed at Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg without saying his name – just a carefully and cleverly designed T-shirt. Mashable’s Chance Townsend had the story.

Austin is known for its barbecue, live music, and vibrant, lively atmosphere. He is also known for his ideas, which tempt me as much as the brisket I hope to devour.

I’m going to SXSW this week for the first time. I imagine there will be a distinct pulse to the city, a palpable electricity that everyone who visits will be able to feel, especially when a large-scale global event is underway. And between the premieres and the panels, the concerts and the crowds, I hope to stumble upon the next big innovation that will shape our world.

AI will likely be a focal point, but I also expect to see a real intersection of human connection, art and technology. SXSW has always been a melting pot: directors and actors sharing sidewalks with tech founders, musicians carrying guitars in front of venture capitalists and comedians, and journalists like me trying to keep up with it all. (And trust me, I’ll do my best to keep up.)

This collision is the real magic of SXSW.

I’m especially ready to hear about the journey of creative storytelling and emerging technologies in 2026. How are artists and innovators fine-tuning the evolution of AI? How are they trying to reshape the way these tools will be used, rather than letting the tools reshape them?

I’m also nervous to find out. Which documentary will spark a viral discussion? Which celebrity guest will generate the most buzz? What offhand comment in a panel is going to make headlines in the coming days?

SXSW has more to see and do than I can reasonably hope to cover in just a few days. I’m told it’s chaotic, overwhelming, exhausting, exhilarating and energizing. And that’s exactly where I need to be. I can’t wait.