by 
This week on the Brief, we’re going to dive into three seemingly separate stories about AI, social media, and retail, respectively. Google wants you to migrate your AI conversations to Gemini. Meta wants you to take out your wallet and pay for Instagram Plus. And Target made sure to update its legal language to exonerate itself from agentic commerce mistakes you (the shopper) may make.
As I reflected on the episode after I recorded it, I realized all three of these stories are actually tied closely together…in fact, they’re almost inseparable. That’s because they’re all rooted in communication. Communicating why this AI is better than the next, persuading you to pay for social media features, defensively deferring liability for agentic commerce through T&C language.
What’s the big takeaway? Big Tech is starting to shift from explaining the ‘features’ of their respective technologies, to focusing on how these tools are going to specifically help you, the human. Don’t worry, I’m not looking at Big Tech through rose-colored glasses, I know they are fully incentivized to make as much money as possible (and by any means necessary). I just find it fascinating how their posturing can shift and adapt so quickly.
It’s as if AI and the internet are evolving so fast, even Big Tech can’t even keep up with how it’s all being perceived and adopted by consumers. So, they continue to pivot, pitch and plead to all of us to “trust them” as the sole solution moving forward.
Spoiler alert: one platform or provider will never be the silver bullet that is promised. You have to decide for yourself on the ‘tech stack’ you will use for your life and work, a decision that requires using your brain and thinking critically, which ironically is what AI is hoping you’ll delegate to their systems!