How Technology Can Help Build a Living World
>> Hi everyone. Thank you so much for coming. I know it is so early, so we appreciate you coming in to kind of hear our talk and our vision for the future. We are here today to really talk about the next era of interactivity. And I am so excited to introduce my boss, but also my mentor and friend, Maddy Beckerman, who is the CEO and founder of Air Code.
I am our Chief Marketing Officer, Brittany Hershkowitz. So nice to meet everybody and air code. If you have not heard about us or seen us around, we are right over there. We'll be doing demos later, but we're not really going to talk a lot about the technology. We really want to talk about the world the technology is creating.
But air code is an image recognition technology. Think of us as the next level advancement of a QR code and invisible tech that actually can code an image directly itself, working across every channel and platform. But as I said, we are here to talk about the world in which that we think that this technology will change and bring in the next era of interactivity. So, Matty, my first question to you is, you know, you and I have talked a lot about this idea of a living world and what that means. Talk to us a little bit about how what your perception of that is, why you created air code and what you imagine the world will be like in a couple of years.
>> Yeah, absolutely. Hi. Matty Beckerman. Um, man. The living world, uh, versus the digital world. I am, I envision that, uh, anything and everything will have information behind it.
You can take your camera out, and rather than just taking a picture of something, you get information about whatever it is you may be looking at. But in a, um, in a calculated and an exact way with the person who created that object or that image giving you the information directly so you can speak to it. Um, as an artist myself, as a photographer and a filmmaker. I really created air code in order for the creative people in the world to be able to, you know, finally get provenance on their their work, on their art, on what they've created, so that anywhere you see that piece of art or that film or that commercial or whatever it may be, that the correct information is translated and sent to you.
It was always, you know, kind of the dream to, to, you know, make sure that, you know, if you scanned anything that you can then interact with it. It's and it's that's really exciting to me. And that's why we created air code. You know, one of the I mean, we're showing demos of being able to watch television, shop the screen and all those things, but it goes so much further than that, because what I envision with Air Code is everyone open source, using our technology to capture everything in the world around us? We haven't really talked about that on a grand scale yet, but I really see this being like the future of how if you're a creator, if you're doing something, then you can now make a digital twin of what you've created and have everyone then interact with that digital version of your creation. And we do it in a practical, simple way that allows anyone to access our technology without barriers. And that's that's where I envision, you know, the, the, the entire scope of what we're doing, going towards everyone.
You could walk anywhere and if it hasn't already been er coded or put in, then you could do it yourself. Like the Wikipedia PDF file of of images in the world. And so that's that's the grand vision of it. Um, and and that's like the most exciting thing I think it's, you know, rather than Google curating your existence, you can curate your own. Yeah. I mean, when we first started talking and I was coming on board, I think one of my favorite conversations was just talking to you about the idea of what if everything around us was alive, right? And everything that you saw and that understanding that the visual perception of what we do and what we intake every day can be another level of interactivity, whether it's discovery or it's commerce or it's learning or understanding and the potential of that and having that technology, which we do right now, but being able to see the future of where that technology could take us is kind of amazing.
And we were in a meeting very early on and Manny throws out and he goes, We're the Shazam for images. And I was like, that's kind of genius. So when we think about that, you know, it made me think about why technology like a Shazam or like what we think at Air Code is actually so impactful, and what you need to be able to really make that true.
And Shazam, if you think about it, in 22,002, Chris Barton decided that he wanted to be able to know the song when it was playing around him. Right? What he didn't what he tapped into, though, was actually the science behind what music does for your brain, right? When you think about music and the emotional connection of what it is, it's actually a physiological and a neurological response. So you have a science behind that, that makes that association with music really important to our human behavior. Now, to tap into that, to make that accessible in real time, as that trigger is happening, is where Shazam became the ability to do the business that they did and change that type of behavior and we're doing the same thing.
The power of visuals is that same exact neurological response. It actually incites curiosity. Your brain processes visuals first before it ever processes text. You're 90% of people actually make their decisions to purchase a product based off of the visual within the first 90s they see something.
So that's where that power of visuals really has the opportunity to change future behavior of how we interact with everything around us, but also economies. And I think that we've talked a lot about that of the scale of this. So I'd love to hear from you. Your perception of that and also the ability for this to scale for business and new channels for opportunity. Yeah. I mean, you've definitely put like so much thought into that side of it.
And, you know, of course, as a filmmaker and a photographer and you capture these moments in life and you're trying to relay that message of what you're doing, and people perceive the the visual that you've created differently. And it's, it's cool that now that as a photographer, if I take an image and I'm trying to portray something, I can now curate that and tell people exactly what it is, no matter where that image exists. So if it's on the side of a building or if it's, you know, just in my home now, if someone comes to visit me and they're like, I really love that that photograph you took. Um, tell, you know, tell me about it.
I'd be like, well, I can do more than that. I've talked about this so many times, but if you just scan this, you can get the entire history of this dive deep into the culture of why I created this and like what I did with this. And, you know, we started with air code in the museum world and the, the art space to allow artists to really do exactly that. And it protects IP at the same time, because you can imagine as an artist, you know, you get your artwork stolen repeatedly, put up on random websites, never get credited for it. Same thing with your photos that you've taken. Now if you register with your artwork with ur code, now you know exactly who took that.
The provenance behind it, all the information behind it. So you know, so from a storytelling perspective, you can now tell your own story through your visuals, through what you're creating. And I think that's the you know, what you're kind of tapping into there is that.
Yeah. And I think that you just nailed it, right. You're talking about to be able to really shift behavior.
When we think about technology that empowers people for more accessibility or anything for those, you have to understand the relevance that you're bringing to that. Right. And I think that that's what you've really kind of built through. And we're going to talk about Maddie's career in a little bit, because it is rather impressive, and it will give you a lot of insight into how we're kind of building our company.
But, you know, I think that that's where you've been really successful in bringing that perspective to the table and making sure we're designing product with purpose. Um, in that sense, if you want to talk about that. Yeah. I mean, designing a product that everyone can use is something we go through constantly. And what we're doing right now is allowing creators to use air code in a very early stage, and then share with us how they're using it.
It's a tool for creators. It's a tool for filmmakers. It's a tool for producers of TV and film to be able to then, you know, connect with everybody. You know, we all now watch TV with our phones in our hands.
We all go to a gallery with our phones in our hands and are taking pictures of things. But now it gives you that that real second screen ability to connect with everything. And I mean, I think that's that's it's pervasive. It's already with us. We already do it. And that was the funny thing is that when people, um, use this for the first time and see it for the first time, they feel like they could already do it.
They feel like, oh, we could already do this. But the funny thing is, you can't. Um, but that's what I think is the great thing about the timing of what we're doing. So if you downloaded er, code now, you could literally take er codes of the entire room around us. And then if anybody else walks up to that part and scans it, you can curate that. Um, and I think that's, you know, that's the exciting thing, you know, and figuring out different use cases.
I mean, people come up with different use cases all the time, things that we never thought of. And that's the really exciting part is like, you know, we had a creator the other day post on her TikTok and Instagram as she was walking around a city. And she's a travel blogger and she walked past this amazing bridge, took a picture of the air code of the outside of that bridge, and now anyone that walks by that bridge will be able to go to her travel blog and find out information about it and when she visited it. And that is like another level. I mean, imagine being able to do that with the Eiffel Tower or the Pyramids of Giza or, you know, any major landmark, and suddenly it's a curated experience. And the things that you could do with that are things we didn't even think of.
So people are using our tech in the most interesting ways. Yeah, yeah. And I think that that's, you know, that leads really well into one of the next topics that I kind of wanted to talk about, which is the state of technology now. You know, we're here at South By. We are seeing all of this technology coming into play in different aspects. There's AI tracks, there's meta tracks, everything across the board.
IT tech is overwhelming. There is an oversaturation that exists that is very hard for general consumers to really kind of understand, but also us in the industry. Right? I mean, just alone in 2024, there were 70,000 new AI companies.
That is a lot of people competing in the same space, but also bringing new ways and new formats. And it's great because it propels us forward. But it also asks the question of the role technology should be playing. And we talk about escapism a lot in the tech space, right? Creation of digital worlds or environments that take you out of real life, right? The metaverse, thinking about the gaming industry and space. And there's a lot of concern on technology's role as that's kind of bringing in. We think of technology as empowerment.
So when we talk about a living world, we talk about making everything around you come alive in a way that's authentic and natural and actually, um, enhances your experience versus takes you out of that. So I'd love for you to talk about why you designed it that way, because I think that that's where we're very different than a lot of the other companies we're seeing today. Yeah, I think that there's, you know, AI is one of the most exciting things that's ever happened.
And, you know, for those of us kind of in the in the tech world, we've been talking about this forever. And you know, when, you know, ChatGPT finally came out and like changed it, then it just opened up everybody else's minds of what we could do with this. Um, computer vision is a form of AI, and that's what we use. And we use a neural network to do our matching structure on our back end, and we use, you know, um, a, a vector databasing structure. Anyway, I can get into the geekdom of that, and I love talking about it, but I won't go down the rabbit hole right now.
But I think that, um, you know, AI needs a human element to kind of start it. And the, the, you know, using AI as a tool rather than something to replace our brains is a great way of doing it. And I think a lot of what we're seeing with that many companies with AI 70,000 new. Well, it doesn't surprise me, I guess, but, uh, you know, the and you get you get kind of AI fatigue, right? I mean, there's a lot of companies out there that, um, are like, I'm the AI of dog walking. Like, I don't know what you.
Saw that at CES. We did. We did, like, that's literally a thing. Um, I don't know if I would use AI to walk my dog. Um, I don't have a dog, but if I did.
Um, But, you know, we use it in a way where it's more of our back end system powering things and looking at things in the world, but we want human beings to curate everything around us and then using AI to enhance that ability. And that's what our our chief technology officer, Philip Holtschneider, who's, you know, off the charts like genius to even be able to fathom doing these things. He and I talked about this.
So when that's kind of an interesting segue, right. Can I talk about Philip and. Yeah, absolutely. Go ahead. Yeah. So when Philip and I first started working together on this, he had patented this tech back in 2015.
And when we started doing this about a year and a half ago, and I took over the patents and started rebuilding the brand on this, he sat with me and he said, if we're going to do this, you need a full education of every single technical piece of what we're doing. And he flew in. He's from Germany and he flew in and came and met with me at my office in Houston and got the whiteboard out and sat there for a week and had a curriculum very German like, like like of of like a week of of learning, of teaching and of explaining how the technology works, how we can change the world. And that foundation of, of he and I sitting there and like just going through it on a whiteboard. He's doing the mathematics of how this works.
Like he's showing me the deep inside technical underbelly of this and where he envisioned his tech going. And then he and I brainstorming on what was actually possible versus what was like a little bit of a bigger dream down the line. And we're going to get there. And the, the base of understanding there And understanding, like all the nuance of the technology, is, I think, incredibly important because once we realize what technology can do, then we can use it in practical ways in our lives. That isn't so, you know, mathematics on a on a whiteboard. It's taking that math and putting it into actual practical use.
And that's what we're trying to do with, you know, the graphical user interface and the UI, UX and the and the way people actually interact with our product. And we're learning every day. We do a bunch of focus groups with people and practical. It's fun because once we got the technology working really fast and in a robust way, then people like the technology kind of blends in the background.
And now our experience is, well, now, like, what do people want to get out of the experience? And so that's where we're at right now is like figuring out the living world and how people actually use it, and then adjusting our technology to fit that and to match it and to enhance it. And an AI becomes a big part of that process, too. Anyway, I can I can talk about this for a long time. But, you know, it's a great segue, though, because I think that this you I love when you geek out on this.
Right. Because it's fun to watch. And I think that you've inspired all of us to kind of geek out on it as well.
And we we do things together as teams, which allows us to understand the tech that we're really building and the real value that it can bring. Right. And I think that that's important when you're trying to make a huge consumer shift the same way that we are. But I think it's your background that and I really want to dive into that a little bit more and tell everyone a little bit more about your entrepreneurial journey, because I think it's those influences that it's gives you that unique perspective of how you're building tech. So tell us about your how you got started, all of your journeys and really how that inspired you to kind of build what you're building today? Yeah. Thank you.
Um, I'm a photographer. My father gave me my first, like, Nikon camera with, you know, film that you put in. I had a dark room and I would sit there and process my own photography and, you know, seeing the world visually and doing that. And that was like when I was like 12 or 13. And then in high school, I did every photography course we could do and every, you know, film style course I could do.
And then I got into the music world. I started playing guitar in a band with my best friends growing up. And, you know, we started touring kind of like all over the East Coast. And, um, I got into Tulane in New Orleans and it was either like, you know, live in the back of a van or go to college.
Um, and I chose college. But it was it was like a fear of missing out in the biggest way because my friends were becoming rock stars. And, you know, I was, you know, going to business school. So I, I started a record label in my dorm room of Tulane, and we started, you know, we were selling records, you know, vinyl at the time. And CDs had just become something out of the back of vans at concerts, um, all over the all over the country. We were really like this punk rock, like hard rock world.
And, you know, you could go to those concerts and in the back you would sell, sell records. And so that's how I built my record label was, you know, a street team level, no money. I mean, I hate to say this, but we would we would onto tour. We were so broke and we were kids, we would have to siphon gas out of the back of people's cars and get in a van and like, that's how we would afford to even get to the next gig.
Harder time. Yeah, it was a hard time. But, you know, growing up there was was the best experience ever. And then, you know, eventually people really caught on.
We were selling tens of thousands of records out of the back of our vans. And then I got a distribution deal with a big independent distributor, and suddenly our records were getting into every major big box store and outlet, and this hobby and this passion suddenly turned into my life, and it turned into a real company. And by the time I graduated from school, we had signed, I think, 15 more bands and had this then Warner Brothers Independent. This Ada division ended up giving us a distribution deal, and we were all over the world, and my bands were then touring all over the world and it became this just massive thing. So my experience with South by Southwest actually started then, and that's why this is such a cool place. It's a good segue to write South by Southwest of it all.
Forever. For like a decade, we would have our our label showcase here to show all the new bands that we would bring out and all the new music that we were presenting to the world. So it's really it's really cool for me to come back in this way to show a technology and really launch our company again this way, because we would do it in the music business there.
Yeah, I think, you know what? We've had such a great time. I think this trip for us has been we've met such great collaborators and creatives in this space, and I think that's the best part about being at a community like this, with different perspectives of you having both experiences is we've even had, I mean, over the last 24 hours, I think new iterations of what we can do with our technology and people coming to us with ideas, and that's that's the creative tech space where we really believe that technology is meant to go. And it's great to kind of be here, to be able to do that together. And so one of the big things that we have as a struggle is we're talking about full consumer adoption. Who here hates QR codes? Yeah, pretty much everyone.
Right. Okay. So we are you know, if please come by after this, we'll be doing a live demo. But we can replace QR codes. Everything around you can be coded without ever having to have anything on it, right? Protecting creative integrity, but also just having a more seamless journey for everything around you. That's the future of where we see it going.
And that's the easiest way to explain the biggest change that we can make immediately. But to do that and to drive that behavior, adoption is really where we spend a lot of our time discussing is how you kind of get there. And I think digital transformation, I think it's about $30 trillion by 2026, will be dedicated to digital transformation by businesses.
This is something that we've been talking about. I remember when it was a buzzword that came out almost ten years ago, and you had brands kind of going through this, and we see that as really understanding the pieces of the puzzle that make really great digital transformation. So think digital wallet, right? You now use it every day, probably to purchase something at a store, take out your phone and swipe it. You probably don't remember when you literally had to just use cards or cash.
So what we're really thinking about is technology in a way that it goes far beyond just a tool, but it's actually a behavior change, and it's actually changing the way that you see the world. So talk a little bit about that vision, because that's really the scale of where you're going in and where do you feel like are the biggest challenges today and the biggest challenges, say, in a year from now? Yeah, I think we all remember that QR codes started appearing. I don't know, 15 years ago or so or ten years ago, I don't remember.
30 years ago. And then 15 really started to kind of play out. Yeah. Okay.
But you had to have a QR code scanner in order to, you know, scan it. That's sort of equates to our app right now. You do have to have our app or a web app, or we could build it into other people's tech. But eventually I see us being completely embedded within the camera of the phone and going that direction. You no longer have to have an app the same way QR codes then integrated directly into the camera. And that's that's sort of our our inflection point where we just go like through the roof and getting people involved there.
But why don't we talk a little bit about your history? Because you made me give mine. So, so what should give us a little bit of your background? My background? Oh, so he's going to put me on the spot? He wasn't going to. He wasn't supposed to ask me that question. So I have spent most of my career on the agency side, working with different types of brands in the communications and marketing space, mostly in starting really in hospitality and spirits, and then really kind of led into bigger brands with sports and emerging technology and consumer tech. I have been very fortunate to be on the front lines of some of the biggest things that have impacted the consumer technology space.
And so far, like launching TikTok from Musical.ly back in the day, which was quite an adventure. Um, you know, really kind of focusing on Tumblr and being one of the first movers there and so on. My perspective on all of this is, is I'm fascinated by the puzzle pieces, and I'm fascinated by how we can make real change and how we're making a benefit to someone's life.
And that's really what kind of drives me with this. And I love the idea of technology that really kind of changes the way we do things. And I find that to be the most interesting of all time. Yeah, well, it's a credit to, I guess, us for, you know, someone with your history and background believing in this when you've been on the front lines of those bigger companies and then saying, man, I think this could do that. So, I mean, I believe it and I have believed it for, you know, years. But it's cool when, you know, I give this technology to people like yourself or a major league, like Sports League or a, a TV network or an artist, and they see the value in that and they, they also equate that's like, that's the coolest thing when you've worked on something for so long and you give it to someone who you're like, you should get this.
And then they do. That's like the coolest thing. Like, like once you've created something and put it out there, it's terrifying because you're putting yourself out there like, like I'm a filmmaker, too. I went from, you know, making music to then running an independent film company. And, you know, when you make a movie and you put it out there, you're working so hard, like for years, you're writing it, you're, you know, shooting it.
You're getting all the, you know, casting, you're putting all the pieces together. And then you put this piece of artwork which has a piece of you in it out there in the world, and you're hoping people get it. You're hoping people understand it, but really you do it for yourself. So it's the same exact thing with building this tech company with air code, with any company that I've built. Um, it's it's I've created this originally, you know, so I could use it. But when it translates to people and they see it and they get it, man, that is that is the best feeling in the world for me.
So with your history and background, are you getting this and saying, I want to do this with you? It's such an exciting moment. I think, like all of my team members, like everybody kind of feels that way. And I'm just like putting this incredible team together who each one of us have our own unique set of skills. And it's, you know, we're creating something and we're all now putting our heart and soul into putting the air code out there in the same way. And it's cool when people walk up to our booth and they experience it and they try it and it's it's like, uh, like affirmation that what we're doing is, is correct and other people get it. Yeah.
And I think it's big and small, right. You know, we've been hosting a couple of different talks with different leaders. We'll have another whole day session over here. so come stop by later today. But it's been so interesting to hear about every different vertical, the applications or the potential or the way that they're thinking about technology and the way that they're thinking about it changing their business. And I think in ways we didn't even expect, which is kind of great.
But I also think that that does raise a little bit of a harder question here is, you know, talking about the responsibility of that. Yeah. You know, we talk a lot about it. And I there is a obviously with AI and technology, there's a lot of responsibility on us to be doing this right and to be making it impactful.
And we're thinking about every little piece of the puzzle that comes up. And I know we call each other first thing in the morning most days and say, we didn't think about this. We got to think about it and kind of go over it. But personally, and we haven't talked about this as much, but personally, do you feel a personal responsibility right now with how big this is to do it right and and tell me what that's been like a little bit, man.
Yes. Every minute I feel personal responsibility. You know, when you're building a company and a startup and you're putting your own capital in at times, and now I have other investors with me, but it's a it's a I try not to let my employees know this all the time, but it's always a constant, like anxiety and fear and like things that like creep up in your head. And I, you know, my foundation for being able to do all this is like my family and my wife and my little kid. And knowing that, you know, if if we did fail, if things did not go correctly, if things didn't go the way we expect them to go, that I have a foundation and base that will, if we if we lost everything and were in a one bedroom apartment, we could rebuild it together. And, you know, I think like I'm honest with everybody around us, like we're going for some big goal and big dream and we're going to do it.
I mean, we definitely are. But being able to risk and being able to put yourself out there and being able to, you know, have that foundation to step out and say, man, we're going to try something impossible is the key to everything. And like I try to allow each one of my team members to explore, figure out what they're really passionate about, get the creativity out there. And also with a risk free way.
Right. Like a like you're you're not going to lose your job if you come to me with a crazy idea that doesn't work. Because if we believe in that together, we will build it together and try it. Like I'm totally down to try things and fail at it and try another thing and fail at that until something like resonates and works. So like Brittany will call me and be like, actually, you did it to me right before we got on stage. She said, I have an idea.
And my wife jokes with me when I say that to her. She's like, I don't know what's going to come out of your mouth either. My idea could be, let's go get pizza, or it could be let's move to Saudi Arabia and build like a film fund or a, you know, so we've literally done those things. So it's fun when like my team come up and tell me, man, I have this idea.
But I want to empower that and give everyone the ability around me to be able to have, you know, impossible concepts and ideas and, and be able to then execute those on a grand scale. Yeah. And I think that that goes back to how you create a living world. Right. Which is really kind of all about what this is, is it's the only way to bring that interactivity and really kind of create that next era Error of that interaction in making the world around you completely interactive and and merging that physical digital is to come up with new ideas of where that product goes. And we've even gone through that of very quickly pivoting because we were like, oh, we figured this out and this is really great, and no one else can do it.
And so we would love to encourage everyone here to come tell us their ideas and kind of come build it with us. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Opening this up, we're just a tool for everyone else to use and come back and then tell us how you used it.
And then we can figure out how to pivot. Pivot is a great word. Um, my team sometimes gets scared of the pivot because we do pivot often. But as a startup you have to, right? You you might have a technology. You just don't know how exactly it's going to be used in the world.
And you have to be able to adapt and move and change and recreate and then rethink it and not get stuck on what you might have done previously. Getting stuck on an idea is, I think, the death of a lot of early stage startups because they don't, you know, see the full vision of what could possibly be. And I think that's, you know, something that we do well. It might not be easy because, you know, just before the Super Bowl, like three weeks before the Super Bowl, we came up with the ability to live sports scan, which no one can do. So we figured that out just a few weeks before the Super Bowl. And then we pivoted the entire team to say, all right, we're going to do this.
We're going to do this at the Super Bowl. We're going to make the the Super Bowl completely scannable as a live demonstration that we can do it. And we had our entire team work towards that. So if you watched the Super Bowl and used air code during it, you could scan the entire Super Bowl from the from the opening national anthem with Jon Batiste to all the gameplay throughout it, every commercial, every piece of that was then you were able to interact with it. And so that's a big thing to be able to do. And we pivoted in weeks like it was just like moving this, the moving the ship and steering it in a different direction.
Yeah. I got a nice little phone call on Sunday morning that said, hey, so Rob figured out how to do this, and I was like, does this mean what I think it means? Um, so yeah, so that is a lot of what we do, which I think is and I think that's how you create. Right. And that that's how you kind of really bring this to life and you find out how technology can really serve. So that's kind of what we're creating and we're very excited about it. We'd love to invite you guys all to come do a live demo right after this.
We'll be doing some stuff there. Um, and yeah. We have some amazing speakers joining us too on our our little area over there. Er, code booth right there.
And Scott Stornetta is going to join us in a moment. I'm going to talk with him. Uh, he was, you know, the pioneer of blockchain. And we're going to talk to him about his venture, Qarmaq, which is also protecting content.
And that's why we've partnered with them, which is going to be a fascinating conversation. And, you know, you can come over, you can see live demos of what we've done. You can actually scan the screens around us and see how to interact.
And we love talking to people and hearing your ideas. And any one of our team members will, you know, engage with you and talk to you about how you envision using our technology and being a part of what we're building. Well, thank you, Matti, and thank you everyone for coming and listening to us today.
2025-04-07 12:56
