The south by southwest festival begins thursday in austin, texas, bringing together innovators in technology, film, music and more for a week of panels and performances. Highlights include appearances by steven spielberg and executives from openai and google deepmind, with artificial intelligence as a central theme. The event runs through march 18 across dozens of venues.
The internationally recognized south by southwest (sxsw) festival officially starts thursday in austin, texas, and continues through march 18. It encompasses a music festival, film and tv festival, comedy festival, and education conference, drawing participants to various venues from large downtown hotels to small music spots.
This year's lineup features legendary filmmaker steven spielberg, actor jamie lee curtis, fitness guru robin arzón, and chef josé andrés, among others. Executives from companies including spotify, nothing, google deepmind, openai, signal, and cloudflare are also attending. The festival emphasizes the intersection of technology and culture, with panels exploring how artificial intelligence influences daily work, play, and life, including its impact on the internet, virtual and augmented reality, immersive experiences, and physical intelligence.
A notable premiere is the documentary 'your attention please,' directed by sara robin and featuring trisha prabhu, inventor of the anti-cyberbullying technology rethink. The film addresses the attention economy, social media's effects on human values, and ai's role in digital anxieties.
Sxsw 2025 attracted more than 300,000 people. While much programming requires on-site passes, live streams of keynotes and featured sessions are available on youtube and other platforms. Looking back, last year's discussions included ai's compatibility with human creativity, with tim berners-lee, inventor of the world wide web, asking ai developers: "who does it work for?" Ibm's chief human resources officer nickle lamoreaux noted that workers would be evaluated more on uniquely human tasks.
