The companion-ship sails on

Opinion – Week in Focus

As we post less to social media, one in three of us is instead using AI for emotional support or social interaction. However, AI isn’t the only companion media. WPP Media’s David Wilding analyses what’s going on.

Given the choice of more personalisation or more companionship, which one would you choose? My strong hunch is that most of the time, most of us would choose companionship. 

Ok, I’m not really going out on a limb here. The need for companionship is deeply rooted in our evolutionary history, and our basic survival has always depended on forming groups and cooperating with each other, while isolation and loneliness have been shown to have severely negative impacts on our physical and mental health and on society. 

So, in the context of the 21st century’s loneliness epidemic, is it any wonder that more and more people are turning to AI for companionship? 

This is not a niche behaviour. One in three of us in the UK is using AI for emotional support or social interaction, and a quarter of teenagers in England and Wales are turning to AI chatbots for mental health support. 

As a sentient human, it’s hard not to feel several things at once when you’re confronted with a trend like this.

For me personally, it’s a heady cocktail of concern, sadness, empathy and anger that it’s come to this, alongside an admiration for the people finding innovative ways to find companionship, and intrigue about the extent to which tech can be used to help tackle such a huge societal problem. 

But I think my biggest takeaway is that it’s further evidence of the visceral, powerful nature of the human need for companionship. 

Over a decade ago, when I worked at Twitter, I used to say my favourite Tweet was one from Seth Meyers during the Oscars. It simply said “I like it when we all watch the same thing”.

I loved the simplicity but also the sentiment – it spoke to the power of companionship that came from watching something on the TV and chatting about it on Twitter simultaneously. Those days seem like a VERY long time ago now, but the sentiment remains.

At Advertising Week Europe last month, Meta revealed that 70% of the content people see on Facebook and Instagram come from accounts you don’t follow (in 2020 this figure was 0%). It’s a move that Meta says shows that we have moved from “the social graph to the interest graph”.

The algorithm now decides what you see, not your friends. And in any case, your friends are probably posting less.

A recent Ofcom report revealed that fewer of us are now posting on ‘social’ media platforms with the number declining from 61% to 49% in the last year.

But as ‘social’ media moves away from companionship, there’s no shortage of alternatives taking up the mantle. 

Companion podcasts have gone stratospheric and not just for huge mainstream TV hits. Shows such as Pluribus, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, and The Pitt have flourishing companion podcasts where fans can enjoy the company of fellow fans and podcast hosts as they break down the show they’ve just watched. And there are vibrant rewatch podcast series around classic fan favourites such as The Office, Veep and One Tree Hill.

With a ready-made and engaged audience for the content you’re discussing, the ability to create high quality video content at lower budgets than TV and the attractiveness of being “rights adjacent” without having to pay for the full rights themselves, it’s no surprise that media companies are investing more and more into companion podcasts to big TV events and the established TV companies have started to notice.

Goalhangers’ The Rest is Football will be covering the FIFA World Cup from a New York studio this summer in a landmark deal that will see its ‘companion’ World Cup content being streamed on Netflix. 

Dish from Waitrose takes a slightly different approach to companion podcasting. It’s not a companion podcast in the sense of accompanying another show, but it is selling the joy of companionship in a broader, human sense.

First, by providing a welcoming show for people to enjoy listening to or watching and feel a part of, and secondly, by providing inspiration and enabling people to come together to enjoy each other’s company. 

And perhaps it’s in that second area that the real opportunity for brands exists.

At an event in London last year, President Obama was asked for his views on social media platforms, given that he was elected in 2008 during a period of so much optimism about them. One of the many things he highlighted was the need for us all to work out how social media can be a tool to get people to “meet and talk and see” rather than “to scream at each other”. 

For me, his comments reflect a wider movement towards people adapting their relationships with technology and algorithms.

We now know that greater personalisation is not necessarily better or inevitable. The rise of ‘companion media’ (in all its forms) is a very positive step for us all as well as an opportunity for brands.  

David Wilding is EVP strategy at WPP Media and writes a monthly column for The Media Leader.