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Is Big Tech Becoming Too Powerful? Kara Swisher Weighs In on the Future of Innovation and AI
Is big tech growing too large? What role will these companies play in influencing lawmakers? How will AI reshape industries? These are some of the questions we posed to Kara Swisher, an experienced technology journalist with deep insights into Silicon Valley.
Swisher has been an outspoken critic of tech's dominance, arguing that the growth of large corporations stifles innovation. She believes that big firms must face more competition in order to thrive and predicts that U.S. regulators will eventually seek to break up Google.
“The only way to solve problems,” she says, “is through innovation from below.”
Swisher also sees AI as a transformative force, especially for industries looking to innovate and become more efficient. With tech giants like OpenAI and Google pushing AI tools into the market, now is the perfect time to build businesses around AI, from healthcare to journalism.
When asked about the potential for AI to displace jobs, Swisher replied bluntly: “Maybe there are some jobs people shouldn’t do.”
This interview was filmed at Trust Conference 2024, where Swisher joined Nobel laureate Maria Ressa and Thomson Reuters President and CEO Steve Hasker for a discussion on tech-enabled threats to global democracy.
Transcript:
Q: You interact with many tech CEOs. What do you think is the biggest misconception the public has about them?
Swisher: There’s this idea of “big tech,” but I don’t think that’s helpful. There are individual tech companies with different leaders—some great, some trying their best, and some not so great. It’s not useful to lump them all together. We need to look at who is willing to innovate and who is just amassing power. They're not superhuman; they’re just rich.
Q: A lot of Silicon Valley executives are worried about the inability to merge companies. Do you think this is a legitimate concern?
Swisher: It’s a concern for them because they want to grow larger. But more competition leads to better innovation, period. These companies are too big to innovate effectively. In fact, if Google were broken up, it would likely be worth more.
Q: Do you think regulators will eventually try to break up Google?
Swisher: Yeah, probably. You can’t control both sides of a market without disrupting fair competition. It just makes sense to most people. We need to foster entrepreneurship, not just in tech, but across all industries, to solve societal problems. That’s the only way out—through innovation from the ground up.
Q: But could that create new choke points, similar to what we see with third-party sellers on Amazon?
Swisher: We don’t know what this is going to look like yet. Think about the internet in 1999—could anyone have predicted Uber? It’s about letting innovation unfold. Let it happen at the expense of big tech companies. More competition benefits everyone.
Q: One of your key points is, “If it can be digitized, it will be digitized.” What do you think is still untapped for digitization?
Swisher: Everything is going digital, and generative AI is turbocharging that. We’re creating more data than ever before, and AI is thriving on that. The next step? We might even see organ printing. Healthcare is an area that hasn’t fully embraced digitization yet, so that’s ripe for change.
Q: Some people claim that AI is overrated. What’s your take?
Swisher: I’ve seen this before with the internet. People said the same about that, and they were wrong. This is a Cambrian explosion—something transformative that’s unfolding before us.
Q: Do you think AI is more like crypto, or is it more like the internet?
Swisher: AI is the internet—bigger and better. It’s going to reshape everything.
Q: Do you think news organizations could use AI to innovate their business models?
Swisher: Absolutely. But they need to make tough decisions. You can’t keep doing things the same way. The future is about figuring out how to integrate AI into your business—use it creatively, not fearfully. We’re already using AI to translate our podcast into multiple languages, and it’s costing us nothing.
Q: Some say AI will eliminate jobs. Is that fear-mongering?
Swisher: It’s more complicated than that. Yes, many jobs will change, just like we saw with farming—70% of people used to work on farms, now it’s 2%. We need to figure out the jobs of the future. Some jobs, frankly, shouldn’t exist. We’re not here to create meaningless work, but to find creative, forward-thinking jobs.
Things change. It’s the nature of progress.