AI is “almost antithetical” to the human, anything-can-happen experience of a live Broadway performance, according to Playbill CTO Jon Goldman, who has been with the more than a century-old company for 14 years.

While AI wouldn’t help onstage (it’s hard to imagine an announcer saying, “And the Tony Award goes to…ChatGPT!”), it might aid some of the companies that contribute to the overall Broadway experience. To that end, Goldman is trying out chatbot capabilities to support Playbill’s editorial staff, who write articles for the well-known booklets handed out before Broadway plays as well as the 20 or so daily articles that appear on Playbill.com.

“It’s a steep curve to bring AI into this space,” Goldman said.

The CTO spoke with IT Brew about his experience testing a chatbot trained on Playbill’s specific dataset of cast and show histories.

Chat’s entertainment!—BH

AI’s increasing ubiquity requires a measured approach to adoption, tech industry leaders told us at this year’s CES.

For companies like Lenovo—positioning itself as a major player in the space by partnering with AI giants like Nvidia and AMD—an AI future could be bright. CIO Arthur Hu told IT Brew that he sees the company’s investments in AI engineering paying off with “meaningful, double-digit increases in end-to-end productivity.”

Reaching that goal will take work and commitment that requires thinking of AI as one tool in a very large toolbox.

“We’ve invested heavily in onboarding AI engineering, and, naturally, we have a lot of software engineers who are working on everything from firmware to software to appliances to integration,” Hu said.

That could lead to a lot more “physical AI.”—EH

When it comes to cybersecurity, it’s not just about countering threats—you have to know how to convey the seriousness of those threats, too.

For CISOs tasked with explaining their company’s security posture to CEOs and other executives and staff, it’s important to communicate at a “101” level, Sameer Ansari, global CISO solutions leader at global consulting firm Protiviti, told IT Brew.

“We can’t assume that our audience understands and has the same level of expertise that we do,” Ansari said.

Protiviti, in its global annual survey of over 1,500 executives and board members, found that “cyber threats” ranked as both a top risk and investment priority, beating out the need to upskill for emerging technologies, legacy IT, and more.

Learn a “101” approach for explaining agents.—BH