An eventful March unfolds in the arts, technology, and entertainment space. With the sale of TikTok still pending, well-known tech investors like Perplexity, Microsoft, and Oracle throw their hats in the ring. And, though ethical debates of AI-generated and AI-assisted work are ongoing, it is finding success in the auction houses and award ceremonies. Meanwhile, recent tech acquisitions may signal a shift in the music industry, and South by Southwest (SXSW) is making a strategic adjustment following this year’s festival. Read the highlights below.

Perplexity proposed a bid to buy TikTok and open-source its algorithms

Perplexity AI revealed a proposal to acquire TikTok this month, aiming to make the platform more transparent and keep its operations in the United States. The proposal includes maintaining infrastructure in American data centers with American oversight, rebuilding an open-source “For You” algorithm, and upgrading and integrating advanced AI capabilities into the platform. Perplexity also aspires to create the best “search box” in the world by combining its answer engine with TikTok’s extensive video library. Perplexity’s interest in TikTok adds “Little Tech” companies to the lineup of potential buyers for the platform.

The future of TikTok is still unknown as the sale deadline of April 5 approaches. Other potential buyers include Microsoft, Oracle, MrBeast and more. On March 24, three Democratic senators urged the White House to seek authority from Congress to extend the sale deadline of TikTok further, preventing it from a potential ban.

Christie’s AI Art Auction Exceeds Expectations

Christie’s first-ever auction dedicated solely to AI-generated art, named “Augmented Intelligence”, brought back impressive results. The online auction ran from February 20 to March 5, 2025, selling 28 out of 34 lots and bringing in over $728,784. The auction sparked many controversies regarding its ethical implications. In February, an open letter was signed by nearly 6,500 people to call for the auction’s cancellation, expressing concerns about copyright infringement and the exploitation of human artists. Despite this, Christie’s proceeded with the auction, claiming “the artists represented in this sale all have strong, existing multidisciplinary art practices.” The controversy had seemingly helped the auction, attracting many new bidders, with 37% of registered participants being new to Christie's and 48% of bidders being Millennials or Gen Z.

Source: Holly Herndon and Mat Dryhurst, Christie’s

SXSW’s Scaling Back on Music Came with Misleading Headline

A day after the SXSW festival in Austin, the Hollywood Reporter posted a report titled “SXSW Music is No More,” igniting fierce discussion on the ending of the music portion of the festival online since SXSW began as a music festival in 1987. The fact is, SXSW Music will still be here in 2026, but scaled back. Instead of having its dedicated weekend, SXSW Music will happen concurrently with SXSW’s film and television programming, cutting two days off the total duration of the festival. In the report, a spokesperson from SXSW expressed disappointment with breakout music stars failing to fill their 2750-capacity ACL Live venue despite having free public RSVP access. Therefore, SXSW is making adjustments to its music programming in 2026. Later, the title of the report was changed to “SXSW Clarifies Changes to 2026 Music Conference.”

The Brutalist producer defends the Oscar-winning Film's use of AI

Adrien Brody takes home another Oscar, winning Best Actor for The Brutalist. The film was under fire in January when the movie’s editor, Dávid Jancsó, revealed the use of the AI tool, Respeecher, to improve the Hungarian dialogue spoken by the leading star. The controversy did not prevent Adrien Brody from getting an Oscar, yet the discussion surrounding the use of AI in film production continued. The Brutalist producer, D.J. Gugenheim, claims that AI was used as a tool, and no jobs were replaced by the technology during the production. The Brutalist was also not the only movie in this year’s Oscars to use AI. Emilia Perez, Dune: Part Two, and A Complete Unknown had all disclosed the use of AI tools during their production.

Napster Acquired by Tech Startup Infinite Reality

Napster, the rebel child of the music industry, was recently sold to tech startup Infinite Reality for $207 million. The company once sent the entire music industry into disarray with its online file-sharing capabilities, disrupting the traditional music distribution model. From being the symbol of music piracy in 1999, Napster has evolved into a fully licensed streaming music service today. Ownership of the company has changed multiple times since its original bankruptcy in 2002 due to legal disputes. The new owner, Infinite Reality, plans to promote active fan engagement over passive listening by creating “branded 3D virtual spaces” for fans to enjoy “virtual concerts, social listening parties, and other immersive and community-based experiences.”

Researchers Combine AI models to Generate High-Quality Images Faster

Researchers at MIT have been working on a new image generation tool to produce high-quality images with greater efficiency. The two common image generation models are diffusion and autoregressive. Diffusion models, such as Stable Diffusion and DALL-E, can create highly detailed images but are time-consuming and computationally demanding. Autoregressive models, mainly used for text generation but also applicable to image generation, are fast but come with errors and are unable to correct mistakes. The new tool, HART (short for Hybrid Autoregressive Transformer), combines the two models and produces images of similar or enhanced quality to diffusion models alone — while processing nine times faster.