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ABC chief Michelle Guthrie has talked of the day she can deliver programs before people realise they want them.
Speaking at the Australian National University Crawford Leadership Forum, Ms Guthrie said part of her vision for the ABC came from her five years working for Google in Asia.
When she began at Google, she thought its search engine was a pretty good product.
But the engineers told her it took too long to deliver results. "What do you mean, it only takes milliseconds?" she replied.
They told her it took too long because people took too long to type.
"So people taking too long to type became Google's problem. Coming from a media organisation like News Corporation, it didn't occur to me about those type of problems were the organisation's rather than the consumer's problems."
"Then they came up with idea of predicting. So if someone is typing 'w' that pretty much means 'weather', and they serve up the weather results?"
"It's this sense of trying to deliver the consumer something before they even think they have a problem. And now it's: 'Why shouldn't we be able to predict what you think you want, based on your behaviour, based on the time of day, based on where you are located? How about we serve you results based on your calendar entry and how long it would normally take you to get somewhere and let you know that you should leave earlier because there is a lot of traffic'.
"That level of thought about the customer was completely mind-blowing for me. It gave me a sense what was possible."
When people interact with organisations and are asked where they live they can get upset because they've already told other organisations where they live.
"It's up to us to help them by finding out."
Half of all viewers for the high-rating indigenous science fiction series Cleverman were online. The ABC was no longer primarily in the business of broadcasting what it wanted at the times it wanted.
But like other media organisations, the ABC was pretty risk-averse.
"My sense is that when you are taxpayer-funded and you have a responsibility to get the best value for money for the taxpayer, it breeds a certain level of caution. You don't want to waste money," she said.
ABC content was being provided on Apple and Facebook as a way to reach viewers and would soon be would soon be more widely available overseas.
Asked whether Apple was paying for the ABC content, Ms Guthrie replied: "Watch this space."
Ms Guthrie said on returning to Australia after 16 years in Asia she was struck by how diverse Australia had become, particularly in the cities.
"What worried me, and I made this very clear to staff, is that we need to represent all of Australia in our content, in our ideas and in our on-air talent.
"Because unless you are relevant to all of Australia as a taxpayer-funded entity, you're not going to be able to justify that on an ongoing basis."
Appointed in December to replace ABC managing director Mark Scott, who had been in the job for 10 years, Ms Guthrie has been in the job for seven weeks.
