Austin's AI Wild West

I just got back from Austin, where I attended the New Media Summit, a conference for newsletter creators and media operators. It was my first conference since pre-pandemic times.

I’ll admit it can feel a little intimidating walking up to strangers and introducing yourself, but I’m really glad I went. I learned a lot! Not just from the speakers, but from the people in the room who love newsletters as much as I do.

One phrase kept coming up throughout the event: IRL > URL. It was coined by Sam Parr, founder of The Hustle and now The Hampton who believes relationships built in real life are more valuable than anything happening online. He’s built his entire company around that idea, and you could feel that energy at the summit.

The biggest takeaway for me was simple: newsletter businesses are here to stay.

Everywhere you looked were founders who had built real media companies from email. Not funnels. Not lead magnets. Actual media assets with audiences, revenue, and influence.

Another theme running through nearly every conversation was AI. Some newsletter creators are going all in. Some are deeply skeptical. Most are somewhere in the middle, trying to figure out how to use these tools without flattening the very thing that made their work valuable in the first place.

We unpacked more of that in this week’s HyperFix Breakdown on YouTube.

🧠 This Week’s Fix: The New Media Summit Rundown

One of the most interesting things about the conference was how different the opinions about AI were.

On one end you had Anik Singal of Ugentic AI who has effectively created an AI clone of himself to generate content across platforms. His pitch is that founders can become “famous in their niche” on social media with about fifteen minutes of work a week while AI handles research, scripting, and distribution. It’s the full automation vision, AI doing the bulk of the work while the human mostly steps back. His talk met mixed responses though when he instructed us not to use a lot of hand movements or expressions when filming yourself for the clone to replicate. Also it raises questions about if creators should disclose the use of a clone to protect trust.

On the opposite end was Isaac Saul, founder of Tangle who openly identifies as an AI skeptic. His talk got some of the loudest applause in the room. His view is that people still want real voices, real reporting, and real thinking. He even suggested AI might already be as good as it’s going to get and that chasing artificial general intelligence could create more problems than it solves.

Then there was Ryan Deiss of DigitalMarketer whose story was probably the most honest about what’s actually happening in business right now. DigitalMarketer built one of the biggest course platforms in digital marketing. But last year Deiss announced they were retiring most of their courses. Sales had dropped to about 20 percent of what they were before AI. Instead of fighting it, they pivoted. Their new product, DigitalMarketer Lab, turns their existing knowledge into GPT-powered frameworks and AI tools. Same expertise, new delivery model.

Finally, Tim Huelskamp from 1440 Media talked about something that felt closer to where most people are landing. His philosophy was simple: human + AI is better than AI alone. 1440 uses AI heavily for research and synthesis, but humans still curate and shape the final product. As he put it, AI is coming for everyone and how we use it matters.

🤖 Hot Takes: Are we ready for driverless cars?

Austin felt like the AI Wild West. I kept seeing Waymo robotaxis cruising around downtown with an empty driver’s seat. Apparently they now make up around 20 percent of Uber rides in the city, which is wild considering they have limited routes and don’t go to the airport yet.

Still, I never quite felt called to get in one.

That hesitation was reinforced early Sunday morning when a Waymo reportedly blocked emergency responders during the mass shooting downtown. Waymo said the issue was resolved quickly, but moments like that raise real questions about how autonomous systems behave in chaotic situations. There have also been reports of Waymo vehicles failing to yield to emergency responders and even passing school buses illegally.

Austin has become one of the main testing grounds for autonomous vehicles, with Waymo expanding robotaxi services through Uber and rolling out to Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, and Orlando.

Logically it makes sense. Driving is dangerous. Human drivers get distracted, exhausted, drunk, careless. In theory autonomous vehicles should eventually reduce accidents. But watching all of this in real life made one thing clear: we’re still in the awkward middle. These systems are operating in the real world, around human beings. And the real world is messy.

✨ AI Kool-Aid: Steal this idea

One of my favorite moments from the conference came from an attendee named Nathan Kochera

He used Claude to synthesize survey responses from attendees about their takeaways after day one and quickly published a newsletter recap for the summit.

I loved that idea. It kept people informed and helped attendees feel connected. And it turned a pile of raw input into something useful while the event was still happening.

That’s one of the strongest use cases for AI right now: real-time synthesis to help capture the moment in real time.

That was probably my biggest takeaway from Austin. The future of newsletters isn’t less human. If anything, AI makes human perspective even more valuable. People are hungry for real discernment, real curation, and real voice and most importantly community.

📨 P.S. If you are building a newsletter and want to eliminate the weekly scramble, that is exactly what we help our customers do.

 👉 Book a consult with our team

And if this sparked something, forward it to an AI-curious friend.