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Listen: The Standard’s Tech and Science Daily podcast interviews Dr Mark Kennedy about Chinese AI company DeepSeek

Evie Burrows-Taylor — Mon, 03 Feb 2025 09:58:57 +0000

Listen: The Standard’s Tech and Science Daily podcast interviews Dr Mark Kennedy about Chinese AI company DeepSeek Evie Burrows-Taylor Mon, 03/02/2025 - 09:58

28 January 2025

Artificial Intelligence

ITV News interviews David Shrier about DeepSeek’s emerging dominance in the technology market

Evie Burrows-Taylor — Mon, 03 Feb 2025 09:49:09 +0000

ITV News interviews David Shrier about DeepSeek’s emerging dominance in the technology market Evie Burrows-Taylor Mon, 03/02/2025 - 09:49

27 January 2025

Artificial Intelligence

The Times features Imperial’s new Venture Capital Fellowship

Evie Burrows-Taylor — Mon, 27 Jan 2025 12:05:17 +0000

The Times features Imperial’s new Venture Capital Fellowship Evie Burrows-Taylor Mon, 27/01/2025 - 12:05

22 January 2025

Education and Learning

Will European regulators shape Hollywood’s bidding war?

Tommaso Valletti — Wed, 15 Jan 2025 12:14:02 +0000

Will European regulators shape Hollywood’s bidding war?

Tommaso Valletti Wed, 15/01/2025 - 12:14

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Article at a glance

The European Commission (EC) competition authority is scrutinising rival bids for Warner Bros. from Netflix and Paramount, an unusual scenario
Both bids raise different competition concerns
A frontrunner could emerge if one bidder gets cleared before the other
The EC prefers light-touch remedies
US politics, not Europe, is likely to decide the winner

A bidding saga across the Atlantic

Europe’s competition regulator is simultaneously reviewing competing bids by major US companies Netflix and Paramount to acquire entertainment company Warner Bros. This is unusual and strategically sensitive, given the current geopolitical climate. The bidding saga has attracted significant attention on both sides of the Atlantic.

Both bids raise competition concerns, but in different ways:

The Paramount deal would reduce rivalry between two major Hollywood studios.
Netflix’s acquisition of Warner Bros. would increase market dominance in streaming across Europe

Professor Tommaso Valletti, Professor of Economics at Imperial Business School and former Chief Competition Economist at the EC, questions whether the EC will act boldly, given its preference for light-touch remedies and geopolitical considerations. US politics, not Europe’s regulators, may ultimately decide the winner.

What’s at stake

Netflix agreed to buy Warner Bros.’ studios and streaming assets in a transaction valued around $82.7 billion. To challenge this, rival Paramount Skydance launched a hostile takeover bid for the entire company, including news network CNN, worth $108 billion, offering shareholders a higher per-share cash price.

The Warner Bros. board backs Netflix, but competition concerns are significant and more complex than the ones associated with Paramount’s bid.

A lack of clear precedent in the EU merger control raises a key question: how will the EC proceed?

Because all three companies operate across Europe and the Americas, the European Commission must review the market implications under its EU merger control framework. A simultaneous review could shape the race. By clearing one bidder, while subjecting the other to a longer investigation, a frontrunner could emerge.

A lack of clear precedent in EU merger control raises a key question: how will the EC proceed? Historically, the regulator tends to favour light-touch remedies, like small divestitures or access commitments, over prohibitions.

Netflix: from scale to market power

Netflix’s story of scale in Europe has shifted to revenue diversification. Netflix already shows signs of pricing power: in the UK, a standard subscription rose from £6 to £13 per month over the past decade. A deal with Warner Bros. would lead to:

Further market concentration: Netflix already holds over 50 percent of Europe’s subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) market. Combining this with Warner Bros.’ studios, HBO Max and other streaming platforms would increase its dominance.
Monopolisation of streaming content: Netflix could control one of the largest content libraries and production pipelines in the world, cutting off production for cinemas and other traditional content platforms.

Netflix could address these concerns through remedies such as divesting HBO Max. Its likely defence would be that its streaming services compete with a broader digital entertainment market, including social media and video gaming. Regulators may accept this argument to some extent, although previous merger reviews have generally used a narrower, SVOD-focused market definition.

Paramount: traditional Hollywood rivalry

Paramount’s acquisition of Warner Bros. raises more traditional competition concerns. Combining two established major Hollywood studios would:

reduce industry rivalry and lead to fewer big players in Hollywood,
increase bargaining power over distributors, advertisers and creators, and
potentially lead to fewer market players, less innovation, higher costs for consumers.

The deal would also continue the consolidation of Hollywood studios that has been ongoing for 50 years, reducing the “Big Five” studios (Disney, Warner Bros., Universal, Paramount and Sony) to four. Disney would remain number one, possibly facing stronger competition from the combined entities currently ranked number two (Warner Bros.) and number five (Paramount).

While the merger could be easier to clear overall, overlaps between the studios, for example franchises between Paramount and Warner Bros., could still raise competition concerns that may be harder to address.

Why Europe and the US may decide differently

Whether the EC’s decision will impact the deal remains uncertain. In the US, regulators face a different and more political context. Paramount’s bid would include CNN, which Netflix is not acquiring. President Trump, a vocal critic of CNN, has previously argued that the network should be sold or restructured. These dynamics may influence the outcome.

Given the current political climate, a European ban on either deal seems unlikely. While the EC can still influence the pace and outcome of the bidding war, the winner will ultimately be decided in the US.

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A rare regulatory scenario could see Brussels tilt the Netflix - Paramount battle for Warner Bros.

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4 minute read

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When winning comes at a price: The business of pay-to-win add-ons

Mushegh Harutyunyan — Wed, 15 Jan 2025 12:14:02 +0000

When winning comes at a price: The business of pay-to-win add-ons

Mushegh Harutyunyan Wed, 15/01/2025 - 12:14

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The video game industry is booming. According to Statista, more than three billion people played video games worldwide in 2024. As per PwC’s Global Entertainment and Media Outlook 2022-26, the gaming industry is tipped to maintain its recent rapid growth, and could be worth $321 billion by 2026. A big slice of that — $82 billion in 2024 — came from in-game purchases such as cosmetic “skins”, virtual currency, map packs, and more. In the UK, a recent Censuswide poll revealed that gamers, on average, spend £540 a year on in-game purchases (£22 a month) and subscriptions (£23 a month).

One of the most debated forms of in-game spending is the pay-to-win add-on, a digital item that gives players a clear advantage in player-versus-player games. A special weapon in Call of Duty: Warzone, a premium camouflage in Escape from Tarkov, or unique cards in Hearthstone can tilt the odds decisively in favor of paying players. For the buyer, these items boost the chance of winning; for everyone else, they create a frustrating disadvantage. One gamer described their game experience bluntly: “It was absurd and halfway to unplayable if you didn’t drain your wallet.”

The developer’s dilemma

At first glance, offering P2W add-ons seems like easy money. They cost little to produce and appeal directly to players’ powerful motivations: the desire to win and the dread of losing. Yet our research shows that the business case is more nuanced.

Unlike traditional add-ons (like hotel WiFi or an extended warranty), the value of P2W items is shaped by network effects. Their appeal grows when few players own them, because they confer an advantage over many others. But as adoption of P2W items spreads, their edge diminishes.

Players who do not spend on P2W may abandon the game entirely as they face a daunting competitive disadvantage against the large number of P2W owners. The fewer non-buyers remain, the smaller is the pool of players against whom P2W will bring an advantage, further eroding the add-on’s value. This negative network effect created by the P2W add-ons calls for a careful assessment of market conditions before introducing them. We find that ironically, when a large share of players is willing to buy, introducing P2W can reduce profits, leaving developers better off without it.

The psychology of competition makes this balance even trickier. Players who are highly motivated by winning make the add-on more lucrative: the thrill of victory increases their willingness to pay. But the story is different with loss sensitivity. If defeats sting only mildly, add-ons hold little attraction. If they sting too much, non-buyers disengage altogether. Developers can influence these sensitivities through design choices — making victories more rewarding while keeping defeats painful but not unbearable.

Design and pricing

One might assume that the stronger the add-on, the better for profits. Yet our findings suggest otherwise. Making the add-on too powerful discourages non-buyers from playing at all, shrinking the competitive field and eroding the add-on’s value. In highly competitive genres, developers may actually benefit from deliberately limiting the power of pay-to-win items, ensuring the game remains engaging for all.

The introduction of P2W items forces developers to lower the base game price to keep P2W-non-buyers in the fold, compensating their disadvantage against P2W-buyers. In some cases, this means shifting to a freemium model, or even — in theory — setting a negative price, paying players to participate because their presence sustains the market for add-ons. And while lower prices might seem to discourage investment in quality, the opposite can happen: when losses feel especially painful for non-buyers, developers are pushed to raise quality to keep them engaged.

Perhaps most surprising is what this means for players themselves. P2W is often accused of undermining fairness and reducing enjoyment. Yet under the right conditions, our analysis shows it can actually increase player surplus. By broadening the player base and motivating higher investment in quality, the system can leave players better off than in a world without P2W.

Keeping the pond healthy

Players are often categorised into "whales" (big spenders), "dolphins" (moderate spenders) and "minnows" (low or non-spenders). For developers, pay-to-win add-ons are a tempting way to extract more profits from the less price-sensitive whales and dolphins. Yet their very success depends on the participation of the more price-sensitive minnows. These players may never spend much, but their presence ensures that competitive advantages remain meaningful for others. If minnows abandon the game, the pond dries up — and the value of P2W erodes with it.

The lesson is clear: introducing P2W is not simply about monetizing the biggest spenders. It is about keeping the entire ecosystem in balance. Developers who want sustainable profits must design their games so that whales, dolphins, and minnows can all swim in the same pond — even if not on equal terms.

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Pay-to-win (P2W) add-ons are controversial in the gaming industry. New research by Mushegh Harutyunyan and Esma Koca reveals when a game developer should introduce a P2W add-on and how to design and price it.

Main image: Milan_Jovic / iStock via Getty Images Plus

5 minute read

Shaping smarter healthcare decisions through economic evaluation at Imperial

Shamita Harsh — Wed, 15 Jan 2025 12:14:02 +0000

Shaping smarter healthcare decisions through economic evaluation at Imperial

Shamita Harsh Wed, 15/01/2025 - 12:14

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Professor Anita Patel, Provost's Visiting Professor of Health Economics at ��ý, talks about the thinking behind the recently launched Imperial Health Economic Evaluation (IHEE).

IHEE is a new joint initiative between Imperial Business School and the School of Public Health to build a flagship institutional capability in health economic evaluation. Its aim is to embed robust economic analysis at every stage of health innovation and research, supporting both internal projects and eventually external partnerships.

Q: What inspired the creation of the Imperial Health Economic Evaluation initiative?
In any resource-constrained system, any ‘new’ programme or innovation - be it a medicine, medical device or a different way of delivering a care pathway - often requires robust economic and outcomes data to demonstrate value for money, either to justify new investment or to understand the implications of redirecting existing resources. Throughout my career, I’ve worked on economic evaluations for health interventions across national and global settings, so I understand well the methods, process and value of generating such evidence robustly.

��ý is home to outstanding health-related research across all faculties, from basic sciences through to translational (research that is concerned with facilitating the practical application of scientific discoveries to the development and implementation of new ways to prevent, diagnose, and treat disease). But embedding economic evaluation into research has often been challenging due to underdeveloped capacity at Imperial in this area of health economics.

Health economists and other related capabilities are dispersed across faculties and departments at the university – with some critical masses at the Business School and the School of Public Health. However, they have tended to converge around specific areas of research, e.g. infectious diseases, which entail specific methodological focuses.

While such expertise is helpful for specific areas there is a wider need that draws on a whole mix of approaches across different clinical contexts and this kind of generalisable economic evaluation within an organised structure has been a long-standing gap area at Imperial, leading to those needing economic evaluation expertise to frequently look for this outside the institution.

IHEE directly addresses this fragmentation and gap by consolidating expertise within a centralised collaborative hub that strengthens Imperial’s capacity in this crucial area.

Ultimately, it’s about embedding economic insight into every step of health innovation across all of Imperial’s health-related ecosystem, so that great ideas don’t just remain ideas - they become sustainable, impactful solutions.

We hosted a launch event in June 2025 to introduce this new initiative designed to strengthen Imperial’s capacity for economic evaluation in health research. IHEE embodies Imperial’s strategy of scientifically grounded interdisciplinary research.

During my time at Imperial so far, I have been mapping the economic evaluation landscape across the college and have spent many hours speaking individually with people who have any interest in economic evaluation, whether in undertaking this kind of research, or needing support in it. As a next phase, the event was focussed on bringing people in a room together to have open conversations about who needs what kind of support so that the shape and nature of IHEE fits the need.

We intentionally brought together the “supply” of economic expertise and the “demand” from researchers and clinicians in one space. We are committed to engage in a way that includes all staffing levels for socially impactful collaboration. So the event intentionally drew on early career researcher involvement to widen the ownership of the initiative and allow it to evolve to meet the needs of future health challenges. It’s an opportunity to map capability, build relationships, and start thinking strategically about how to embed this across Imperial’s health research legacy.

Q: How do you plan to engage with external stakeholders interested in health economic evaluation?

The first step is visibility. Creating a named entity - Imperial Health Economic Evaluation - gives funders, partners, and all stakeholders something concrete to connect with. There are obviously some basic administrative prerequisites e.g. an email point of contact, a dedicated webpage, directory of expertise and support mechanisms to make collaboration easier.

But it’s really about building meaningful connections and a track record. Isolated successful projects don’t in themselves signal long-term capability. A structured network with active and invested members, strong and impactful outputs, and shared goals does. Other researchers and funders want to engage with teams that are credible, diverse, and strategically aligned.

Q: How important is it to deal with the complexity of health economics before solving challenges at large scale?
Health challenges are rarely isolated. They sit within wider structural contexts that involve social, behavioural, political, commercial, environmental, and technological dimensions. Economic evaluation of potential solutions would ideally account for such context in understanding value – although in reality the extent to which this happens is driven by the nature of decision-making frameworks, both explicitly and implicitly.

Nevertheless, interdisciplinary approaches are often necessary even when not allowing for the full scale of complexity.

For example, if assessing a robotic surgical tool, it is relevant to account for engineering insights, clinical outcomes, patient and professional experiences, and market potential. Or in evaluating post-heart-attack behavioural interventions, it may be important to consider patient psychology, caregiver burden, and long-term cost implications including impacts on work productivity.

We want IHEE to be a diverse and versatile collection of expertise that not just undertakes economic analysis for others but offers informed ideas and contributions to help frame these interdisciplinary questions in a way that leads to meaningful, actionable and scalable insights.

Health, innovation and improvement is not just about the human body but also people's behaviour and the conditions in which illness arises and the conditions in which illness can be solved.

Q: What kind of projects can drive innovation in this space?
We’re already seeing engagement across domains: engineers developing health tech, clinicians designing care models, and social scientists working on behavioural interventions. Projects might range from national policy evaluations to local, community-based studies.

Crucially, we want evaluations to reflect real-world impact - not just system efficiency but also the lived experience of patients and carers. Embedding economic evaluation from the outset ensures research has both scientific and societal relevance.

Q: What does the initiative need to succeed and what is its long-term vision?
Strong foundations are essential for growing capabilities that are relevant and sustainable. Initially, we need a few key ingredients like resourcing for key posts, and commitment to a growth plan. Along with the initial investment, we need people who can dedicate energy to drive this forward with a truly collaborative spirit that can move beyond siloed thinking. A centralised hub is important for facilitating this.

A few high-quality grant wins can change everything. They enable us to recruit dedicated researchers who can embed economic thinking into everyday research. We also can't achieve a long-term roadmap that is simply led by senior academics - PhD ��ý and early-career researchers are critical for giving the initiative life through initiating ideas and projects, contributing to training and development, and ultimately sustaining the work and human connections.

In an organisation as large and diverse as Imperial, that might well entail tricky internal conversations about sharing credit, rethinking collaboration and funding allocation mechanisms, and embracing new ways of working – but these are all just processes and it is important to keep a clear view that they merely exist to support the end goal of producing excellent research that informs policy and practice. Imperial has world-leading expertise.

But to realise our full potential, we need to act as one - cohesive, connected, and committed to collaboration.

Note: This Q & A was updated ton 04.04.2025 to better reflect the outcomes of the IHEE launch.

In conversation with Professor Anita Patel to learn about the strategic launch of Imperial Health Economic Evaluation

Main image: Launch of the Imperial Health Economic Evaluation initiative | ��ý

6 minute read

AI-powered rental fashion: Smarter recommendations for a sustainable future

Gah-Yi Ban — Wed, 15 Jan 2025 12:14:02 +0000

AI-powered rental fashion: Smarter recommendations for a sustainable future

Gah-Yi Ban Wed, 15/01/2025 - 12:14

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6 May 2025

Fashion is one of the most polluting industries in modern times. It produces about 10 per cent of the UK's annual carbon footprint – more than all international flights and maritime shipping combined. Research from Climatetrade, 2023, shows it also consumes vast amounts of water and generates millions of tons of waste. According to Fashion Transparency Index 2023, the constant demand for cheap clothing has made the industry a "key driver of human rights abuses". One of the largest study into clothing habits ever undertaken by climate action NGO WRAP shows the UK's wardrobes hold 1.6 billion items of unworn clothes.

To address some of these challenges, a new business model of subscription rental fashion has sprung up in recent years. Established brands like LK Bennett and Ann Taylor, along with startups such as Hurr, My Wardrobe HQ, nuuly, and Armoire, now offer rental services that allow multiple customers to “share” a much larger wardrobe, reducing the need for constant new purchases. These companies operate on a monthly subscription model, enabling members to rent and swap garments within each period. Returned garments are inspected, cleaned, and recirculated, ensuring efficient inventory use. The rental fashion business model has potential for reducing waste, lowering emissions, and extending the lifecycle of clothing, all the while keeping customers stylish and satisfied.

The challenge of keeping customers engaged

As operations researchers, my colleagues and I, together with a PhD student, Jiannan Xu, were drawn to rental fashion because of the operational complexity it presents. We partnered with a rental fashion startup and analysed its customer data. One issue stood out from the analysis: customers were not staying on the platform long enough. Many left after the initial discounted trial period, citing dissatisfaction with the style or fit of their rented items.

To improve retention and enhance the customer experience, we developed a novel approach to optimising personalised recommendations for rental fashion businesses. Our work focused on two key challenges:

Encouraging customers to subscribe – many companies offer discounted trials, yet potential subscribers hesitate because they’re unsure whether they’ll find styles they like.
Retaining customers beyond the trial period – a large percentage of cancellations stem from product fit uncertainty. Customers may select items based on images and descriptions, only to find that they don’t meet expectations in person. This mismatch leads to frustration, increased returns, and lower renewal rates.

Smarter assortment optimisation with AI

To tackle these issues, we developed an AI-powered algorithm that improves how rental companies curate product recommendations. Instead of relying on generic recommendation engines or brute-force optimisation, our model develops and optimises a stochastic decision model to account for the unique structure of rental fashion businesses. Specifically, it considers:

Initial selection uncertainty – predicting which items are most likely to encourage customers to subscribe.
Renewal uncertainty – identifying which items will maximise customer retention after the first rental cycle.

By carefully balancing these factors and using smart mathematical approximations, we developed a fast, scalable, and personalized ranking algorithm—one of the simplest and quickest methods for optimising the assortment curation process. Essentially, our algorithm gives a personalised score to each garment, whereby the score weighs in the expected consumer surplus (“signal”) and the uncertainties regarding the customer’s initial and post-wear valuations (“noise”). It thus has parallels with finance and engineering applications where good decisions are made by balancing signal-to-noise ratios.

Alternative methods to our algorithm would be either too slow for real-time use, or ineffective as they do not optimise the business objective. In extensive numerical simulations, we show our algorithm ranks and refines product assortments in milliseconds, compared to minutes using brute-force optimisation. We further show that, even under stress-testing scenarios, our algorithm can achieve results within 6.5 per cent of the best possible profit outcomes, making it both effective and scalable.

Practical benefits for rental fashion companies

Beyond technical advancements, our research has real-world implications for the rental fashion industry. By ensuring that customers receive better-matched recommendations, businesses can reduce unnecessary returns and improve overall satisfaction. This leads to:

Fewer shipments and exchanges, reducing logistics costs.
Better use of inventory, maximising item circulation.
Higher customer retention rates, strengthening long-term profitability.

The future of AI in subscription-based rentals

Beyond rental fashion, the principles behind our AI-powered optimisation model extend to subscription-based rentals of experience goods in general. This includes electronics rentals, furniture subscriptions, and toy libraries, where selecting the right assortment is key to customer satisfaction and retention. By refining product recommendations, businesses can optimise customer engagement, reduce churn, and improve profitability.

Our research is among the first to explore assortment optimisation in this space, setting the stage for further studies in inventory and subscription management. While rental businesses may not solve all the environmental challenges, smarter, AI-powered recommendations can significantly enhance business viability and the overall customer experience—paving the way for a smarter, more efficient future in rental commerce.

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