Brands from Amazon to Honda to Stanley are gearing up for SXSW, where the agenda promises a trippy blend of AI, extended reality and a whole track devoted to psychedelics.

“It’s a return to anything and everything [at SXSW],” said Albert Thompson, managing director of digital innovation at agency Walton Isaacson.

SXSW typically has a few conference themes within tech, film and music, but this year there seems to be a more eclectic mix, including extended reality, which is best represented by the adoption of VR headsets Meta Quest and Apple Vision Pro. There also will be the usual panels around brands and advertising, including one with Stanley, the insulated goods maker that made tumblers a trendy accessory through TikTok. Generative AI also has a starring role at SXSW. But even amid the high tech there are still the tactile activations that define the Austin, Texas festival as brands erect large installations, such as one from Porsche this year.

“Experiential is still strong,” Thompson said. “It’s the one thing AI can’t destroy.”

Here is what’s in store at SXSW, which kicks off today. 

AI effects

A series of AI-related talks start on Monday, including a session with Peter Deng, OpenAI’s VP of consumer product and head of ChatGPT. The talk centers on how AI and humanity can “co-evolve,” a pressing subject for some of the creatives in the SXSW crowd.

“It’s obvious that gen AI is going to stick around,” said Kate Rush Sheehy, senior VP of strategy and insights at Austin-based ad agency GSD&M, adding that she will be looking for “practical applications, ways to use it that aren’t the same as how everyone else is doing it.”

There are concerns among advertisers that while generative AI can help speed up some of the creative work, it also could deaden the work, making all advertising seem the same, Sheehy said. “I’m looking for ways to really push it to make it a useful tool for us to continue doing first and only brand building,” Sheehy said.

Read more: How brands can avoid AI mistakes

As for brands, IBM is hosting an AI Track Lounge at the Hilton Austin Downtown, from Monday to Friday, showcasing its data and AI platform. 

Brands are building

Brands are an integral part of the SXSW landscape with pop-up events, such as Porsche hosting its Full Service station at Brazos Hall. Meanwhile, Amazon’s Audible is putting on a carnival outside the Austin Convention Center, where there is a large fairground. (This week, people in Austin saw a Ferris wheel being erected in the area.) On Friday, the Audible Sound Experience is turning into a nightclub to kick off SXSW.

Netflix is putting on a larger-than-life promotion for its upcoming show “3 Body Problem,” the series it also promoted at CES in Las Vegas in January.

Marie Stafford, global director of intelligence at agency VML, said she was looking forward to seeing how Netflix pulls that off, because it promises to be a “3D spectacle” cast above the Austin skyline, and a character from the show will address festival goers on the ground, Stafford said.

Other streaming giants Prime Video and Paramount+ also have installations based on shows. Prime Video will promote “Fallout,” based on the video game, with a shantytown designed like the one in the upcoming show. And Paramount+ is taking over Clive Bar and turning it into a speakeasy called The Lodge for its show “Lawmen: Bass Reeves.”

VML is working with Dell and Intel on activations. Intel is showing off a new typeface, Intel Mono One, which promises “a user-centered font design that ramps up reading speed, with special benefit for vision-impaired developers,” according to Stafford. Dell created a QR code sculpture that will lead people to learn about how to combat e-waste.

The U.S. Army also is a presenting sponsor with SXSW this year, and the Department of Defense is hosting a space called This Is Our House, which is an official SXSW House. There could be some high-tech, military-grade gear on display, and military representatives are hosting workout and yoga sessions in Austin.

There has been some anti-military backlash, though. This week, a group of artists planned to protest the music portion of the festival by doing shows unaffiliated with SXSW, according to the Austin American-Statesman.

SXSW goers are accustomed to the event coinciding with significant cultural, social and political issues. In 2021, Texas became one of the first states to implement an abortion ban, which led attendees at SXSW 2022 to raise women’s health priorities into the discussion. There have also been important talks around representation and diversity. In 2020, SXSW was derailed by the COVID pandemic. This year, the war in Gaza sparked the local protest against the military, according to the Austin American-Statesman; it remains to be seen how big of a movement that will become on the festival grounds.

Stanley and TikTok

TikTok is sending executives to SXSW, but it does not have a public destination, according to a representative for the company. “We aren’t making any formal announcements this year and instead are just focusing on one-on-one meetings with our partners to help them drive success on TikTok,” the rep said by email.

However, brands will be bringing their TikTok stories to SXSW, most notably Stanley, which had a breakout moment with marketing on the app last year. On Saturday, Jenn Reeves, Stanley’s VP of global brand marketing, and GSD&M’s Sheehy will be speaking about the TikTok cup craze at the JW Marriott. GSD&M is Stanley’s social media agency, with a focus on TikTok.

“We will do a little case study on what has led to some of [Stanley’s] success over the last year,” Sheehy said, “and really dig deep into how TikTok is at the core of how they rethought and kind of reinvigorated the brand.”

More: Stanley and rivals battle for water bottle dominance

Stanley is hosting a series of picnics around Austin from Tuesday to Thursday, too, but GSD&M would not provide more details about the plans. GSD&M, which puts on a yearly party at its Austin headquarters, has a bash planned for Monday.

Extended reality play

The past two years, SXSW has evolved with technology. In 2022, NFTs and Web3 were major themes, and then last year the metaverse was a hot concept. While those will still emerge in talks, the conversation has turned more to extended reality and spatial computing, according to festival goers.

“Web3 is still coming along and coming more in vogue,” said Thompson of Walton Isaacson.

Some of the talks about gaming and extended reality, which has enabled virtual reality gamescapes, do incorporate Web3. For example, Vince Kadlubek, founder of the surrealist entertainment studio Meow Wolf, will be a panelist in a discussion on storytelling in the age of AI, Web3 and VR.

Major brands playing in the immersive reality space include Honda, which has a presence at SXSW for the first time since 2017. Honda has a central position at the convention center, where it will demo its Uni-One mobility device, which is a new type of personal vehicle. Honda paired it with a game it developed through Meta Quest’s VR platform.

Rewind: How Honda is marketing its first mainstream EV

“This product provides a new experience,” said Hirokazu Hara, VP of new business development at American Honda Motor Co. “SXSW is a good opportunity to [present] our new experience because even in Japan SXSW is very famous, and it is good to know what we want to do [as a company] in the future, especially in the entertainment domain.”

Meta Quest will also be at the convention center with a booth, and Meta, which also owns Facebook and Instagram, is hosting a happy hour on Monday at Fogo De Chao.

Read more: Meta Quest vs. Apple Vision Pro

Tech lineup

Aside from Meta and TikTok, Google, Reddit and Snap will also send people to SXSW. Starting Friday, Snap is hosting what it calls Snap Sanctuary at The Pershing. Also on Friday, Lilian Rincon, Google’s senior director of shopping product, will host a fireside chat with Danielle Schmelkin, chief innovation officer of J. Crew, discussing shopping and technology.

On Saturday and Sunday, Reddit will be stationed at Two Hands Austin. The company is showing up at SXSW soon after it filed for its initial public offering, which is reportedly planned for later this month.

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CORRECTION: A previous version of this story misstated the day Stanley and GSD&M will be speaking at SXSW.