There are ads in your AI chats and microplastics in your blood
+ Are We Dating the Same Guy got a brand identity and turned into an app
Hello everyone. I just returned from Newfoundland and had a revelatory time, travel post upcoming.
It’s become apparent through data collected by AI companies that younger and older generations are using AI chatbots in different ways. Gen Z and millennials tend to use it like a life advisor / therapist / personal advisor / friend, while older generations treat it as a Google replacement. However, there’s a commonality in the way LLMs are being used as a brand discovery tool / product informant across generations. Which vacuum should I get? What hotel chain works better for this trip? Where should I get each thing on this packing list for my Dolomites hike?
The current crop of adtech startups that are exiting mainly via acquisition are characteristic of adtech 1.0: ad-placement in connected TV (i.e. streaming services), to boil it down simply. The next wave of adtech startups will be synonymous with AI search: there will be ads embedded into your AI chats.
Google Search’s enshittification, or the pattern in which two-sided online products and services decline in quality over time as vendors’ only goal becomes maximizing shareholder value, is widely accepted at this point: by design, searchers have to spend more time on Google before they find what they are looking for. This way, they can be shown more ads. There’s a mistaken view that using AI for search is and will continue to be free of this kind of meddling and pay-for-play; that the LLMs solely crowdsource online reviews to recommend you products.
This next wave of adtech-AI startups are betting that consumers will discover brands via AI chats, not through interactions with the brand itself. In this new fragmented landscape, brands will find it difficult to “control the narrative” around their perception and story. The solution these companies offer is:
MONITOR: analytics and insights into how LLMs are presenting your brand
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SOLUTION: influence AI outcomes through targeted ad campaigns
Evertune AI and Bluefish AI are two early-stage companies I’m watching in this space. Evertune offers generative engine optimization (GEO) as a means of influencing how your brand is presented in LLMs, in addition to monitoring tools that track AI’s share of voice and sentiment of your brand, and analyze which attributes of a product or service AI models think are most important to consumers. It also recommends specific messaging and keywords to close the gap with competitors. Bluefish offers similar monitoring and insight tools, as well as a means to syndicate and “send” brand-verified data to AI and deploy targeted ad campaigns into AI chats. Brandrank.ai, Profound, and Brandlight all have similar offerings. I am amused at how Bluefish, Brandlight, Brandrank.ai, and Profound all basically have the same graphic on their website, with the moving type deleting and retyping the names of different AI chatbots:
Nexad takes it all a step further and “dynamically tailors ads to fit the context of ongoing AI conversations or content” (pitch deck here). Their business has two main arms: one that matches ads with the right audiences, and another that creates the ads themselves.
Anne Levy did a great theoretical overview of this “Post-Interface Economy” on Arena. Essentially, the classic customer journey is dead: LLMs and product algorithms prepare purchase decisions, and the moment of purchase decision can temporally precede any brand encounter. The linear narrative of “brand” is being replaced by a fragmented, asynchronous web of touchpoints with various stakeholders and opinion-makers, both human and artificial intelligence.
But, AI CAN’T GENERATE SAND BETWEEN YOUR TOES!: Amazing Polaroid OOH wheatpaste campaign in NYC and London, by their talented in-house creative team:
Some exciting NYC openings:
Annie Shi, talented sommelier and co-owner of King has opened Lei, a wine bar in Chinatown serving Chinese plates.
I Cavallini is coming to East Williamsburg from the Four Horsemen team.
Double Chicken Please is rumored to be opening an ice cream shop across the street from the bar.
Not an opening, but Lola Taverna has finally closed, and Chloe Sevigny is leading the charge to bring macrobiotic restaurant Souen back to its original location:
A study of the restaurant caste system in the Hamptons, from the NY Mag Hamptons issue:
The best sentence that sums up the dizzying array of pop-ups and annual “residences” by city hotspots in the enclave: “The ecosystem here revolves around the temporary whims of the visiting classes.” The answer to the zero-sum game that is Hamptons dining seems to be dining at home.
Thesis Driven did a great deep dive on the state of outdoor hospitality. “Glamping 1.0”, beginning around 2010, first disrupted the traditional campground model: think Under Canvas and Getaway (now renamed Postcard Cabins). These served as proof-of-concept, but revealed structural difficulties such as costly infrastructure and one-and-done demand (i.e. people get that photo of the Postcard Cabin window for their Instagram and never return). 2.0 iterates on these challenges via a combination of technological and operational innovations, including modular construction and a “full throated commitment to nature immersion” that manifests in true, visceral luxury experiences off-the-grid as opposed to a photo op and weekend getaway. TLDR, outdoor hospitality is no longer a novelty or niche hospitality investment opportunity but a strong channel with durable demand (look at Marriott’s purchase of Postcard Cabins and Hilton’s booking-channel alliance with AutoCamp).
Legal is one of the main industries people are sounding the alarms for with regards to AI’s ability to automate tasks to near-replaceability. There are several startups, such as Harvey AI and Paxton AI, that make AI software for lawyers, but Crosby, which came out of stealth with a $5.8MM seed round led by Sequoia, takes that logic a step further: it is an actual law firm that hires lawyers to oversee its internally developed AI software, which provides services at a speed unheard of (hours, and soon, minutes) in the staid world of months-long legal negotiations. I was curious about what sorts of legal hires they were making - per LinkedIn, all ex-Big Law associates.
Endeavor Catalyst, the co-investment fund affiliated with global entrepreneurial network Endeavor Global, is raising a new $300 million fund, its fifth and largest fund yet, as it looks to deepen its bet on high-growth startups across Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia. Raising a large new fund to double-down on a strategy that isn’t focused on secondaries is a bold choice in this market full of headwinds: muted exits, few follow-ons, and a generally constrained global capital environment.
It’s finally here… the first Excel AI agent, shortcut.
Has anyone used the women’s dating-safety app Tea?
It is a female-only community meant to empower and protect women by providing them with a platform on which they can share dating stories and run makeshift background checks on the men they’re seeing. The tech essentially consolidates the splintered landscape of group chats, Facebook groups, and reddit threads of local women trying to protect each other and share stories about men in their area. The branding and copy are impressive; I am on a 17 hour waiting list currently and am curious to peruse…
Tea was founded and entirely self-funded by Sean Cook, a Salesforce and Shutterfly veteran. I know your initial reaction is to get upset that Tea’s founder is a white man, but keep an open mind… he could be one of the good ones…
The subreddit r/AWDTSGisToxic (“Are We Dating the Same Guy is Toxic”), referring to the proliferation of Facebook groups dedicated to supporting and protecting women from potentially dangerous men, is up in arms about the app.
Peter Thiel, Palmer Luckey (Anduril co-founder), and Joe Lonsdale (8VC founder) are preparing to launch a neobank called “Erebor” to compete with SVB. Peter T’s fund, Founders Fund, will also be among the investors. Luckey and Lonsdale were big donors to the 2024 Trump campaign, and Lonsdale particularly is known for some tweets and retweets that raise eyebrows. Culture-war friendly bank.
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Take yourself out to dinner at King on a Sunday evening.
