Thursday, August 21, 2025

August 21, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 9 minutes

Thursday, August 21, 2025 

In today’s digest, Broadway Week returns, ads get AI’d, and a secret pinball museum hides among us. 🧐

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  • The MTA plans to launch an unlimited daily pass on the LIRR and Metro-North Railroad aimed at hybrid workers, as the five-day-in-office work week doesn’t show signs of coming back. 🚉 (Crain’s New York Business)

    • The pass will replace round-trip tickets and on weekends, cost 10% less than two one-way peak tickets. It will eventually save regular commuters money in the long run.

  • In other transit news, officials have approved the nearly $2 billion construction cost to continue the expansion of the Second Avenue subway line that will add three stops along the Q line at 106th, 116th, and 125th Streets. (New York Times)

    • Work is scheduled to begin later this year, with the digging of a new tunnel set to start in 2027. 

  • Mamma Mia! Broadway Week is back! The program returns Sept. 8-21 with 2-for-1 tickets for two dozen shows as part of continual efforts to make Broadway more accessible. 🎭 (ABC New York)

    • Check out the show lineup and score tix here.


In other reading:

  • Is New York City ready to say 'neigh' to Central Park's carriage horses? (Gothamist)

  • At first, it was beachy. Then it became a New York City dance (New York Times)

  • The back room of this Brooklyn bar hides a secret pinball museum — and you can play a machine that’s over 140 years old (Secret NYC)

Love that commercial? It may be the byproduct of AI, as more marketers turn to the technology to create video advertisements. 🤖

  • Nearly 90% of marketers who spent more than $1 million on digital video ads last year are using or have plans to use gen AI to create video advertisements.

🤔 The why: The rise of AI-generated content helps companies deal with real market pressures:

  • With smaller budgets, AI can help lower high-cost parts of production, making it more accessible to previously locked-out brands that were unable to afford commercial content.

  • AI enables brands to turn around commercials faster as firms can respond to trends in hours instead of weeks.

  • Small and midsize companies can compete with larger ones on creative output and campaign volume. 

🧐 The how: Marketers are using AI in a number of ways to help streamline the process:

  • Generative AI: Some tools, like TikTok’s AI tools, enable marketers to create polished video ads quickly, setting a precedent for the integration of generative AI into video content creation.

  • AR/VR-augmented AI commercials: As AR and VR become more mainstream, these experiences, powered by AI, will shape immersive marketing campaigns.

  • Voice-based AI marketing: With the rise of smart assistants, voice-based commercials are becoming a new channel for reaching audiences.

🔍 Zooming out: AI is also creating more personalization opportunities. This shift has given rise to an AI-driven approach that lets marketers deliver highly tailored experiences at scale.

  • Key AI-driven innovations in adtech include dynamic creative optimization, real-time behavioral targeting, predictive analytics, and contextual targeting.

“The amount of content that is being created today makes what was happening 10 years ago look like child’s play,” said David Cohen, chief executive of the Interactive Advertising Bureau.

In other reading:

  • With the labor market weak, employees are ‘job hugging’ (Axios)

  • Why working in an office still matters (Fast Company)

  • How you're using AI at work right now (NPR)

  • Legion, an NYC-based crypto fundraising platform, raised $5 million in seed funding. VanEck and Brevan Howard Digital led the round and were joined by Kraken, Coinbase Ventures, GSR, Crypto.com Capital, cyber•Fund, Bitscale Capital, Blockchain Builders Fund, and Systemic.

  • September 3-4: Go-To-Market: Building Distribution Engine that Scales, a two-day workshop for early-stage founders to master go-to-market strategy, build a scalable distribution engine, and get real feedback from top operators and founders. Register here.

  • September 8: Make It in Brooklyn Meetup: Design + Technology Panel, a discussion on how design-driven innovation is shaping the future of product development, and how products are conceived, prototyped, and launched. Register here.

  • September 9-10: New York Venture Summit, featuring 220+ leading VCs speaking on moderated panels and judging startup pitches, and 180+ innovators across AI, cleantech, fintech, medtech, life sciences, and more. Register with promo code early200 for $200 off a ticket here. 

  • September 10: NYC Summit, Primary’s annual invite-only conference, bringing together 2,000 top founders, VCs, and LPs. This year’s speakers include Larry Fitzgerald (Arizona Cardinals), David Karp (Tumblr), Toyin Ajayi (Cityblock Health), Lina Khan (FTC), Kareem Amin (Clay), and more. Apply to attend here.

  • September 11: Expanding the Tech Corridor: U.S.–Europe Innovation, a tech networking event connecting U.S. innovators with Europe's top innovation region, Baden-Württemberg. Register here.

  • September 18-20: The Atlantic Festival relocates to NYC with its screenings, book talks, and more with influential thinkers including Scott Galloway, Keri Russell, Mark Cuban, H.R. McMaster, Robert Downey Jr., Richard Ayoade, David Letterman, Dr. Becky Kennedy, Tom Hanks, and others. Register with promo code TECHNYC20 for 20% off one-day passes here.

  • September 19: Vibe Coding for VCs, ​a crash course for venture investors to move from talking about AI to building with it. Register here.

  • September 23: Deep Tech Forum + Startup Showcase in NYC, bringing together deep tech startups from across the globe alongside corporate innovation leaders, investors, and ecosystem partners. Register with promo code TECHNYC for a 20% discount here.

  • September 25: 11th Annual Bloomberg-Columbia Machine Learning in Finance Conference 2025, with talks by international practitioners and academics on AI applications in finance including asset pricing models, neural SDEs, market sentiment analysis, and fairness in financial ML. Register for early rates here. 

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