IS AI USHERING IN AN ERA OF INFINITE BRANDS?
By Tim Shea, Data Scientist & AI Expert for Retail
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If high quality content becomes trivial to produce, shouldn’t we expect a tsunami of new brands to follow?
I recently had the pleasure of listening to Doug Shapiro introduce his upcoming book “Infinite Content”.
His idea is simple:
AI is bringing the cost of producing high-quality output down close to zero. Text, imagery, video, product designs, landing pages, and ads are all becoming trivial to produce at scale. So it seems obvious that Netflix, Instagram, Advertising, News will soon be hit with a tsunami of “stuff”.
Now, of course there’s a craft to produce quality. Of course there’s a “Last Mile” problem. But let’s be honest about the majority of the stuff already in our feeds. It’s not Steven Spielberg. It’s not Lee Clow. It’s just stuff. And our feeds are about to be flooded by essentially infinite amounts of AI-generated, AI-enhanced, AI-co-created stuff.
Here’s the thing: The same thing is going to happen with brands.
We’re about to enter into an era with something like infinite brands.
The effort and skill required to create a new brand from scratch has plummeted. Many companies, celebrities, influencers, civilians, and (yes) agents are going to do it. They’re going to shoot their shots. There’s no upper limit. The only constraints are supply chains, ad real estate, and capital—and the pressure on all three is about to skyrocket. COGS, CPMs, and valuations will shift accordingly.
SO, WHAT IS THE PLAN?
If you’re a brand, and you suddenly have 1,000 times the competition, how do you break through the noise? We could argue that AI-generated, AI-enhanced, AI-co-created brands are just noise, but it still needs to be broken through.
At Super Vision Studio we think there needs to be a radically new playbook for breaking through in the new era. We think that entirely new categories of brands, products, and experiences are on the precipice of emerging. We’ve been calling these “Future Brands”.
A “Future Brand” is a company that leverages an AI-First approach in every aspect of their business. They move faster, they explore more dimensions, they make better “stuff”.
FUTURE BRANDS DEVELOP RICH, MESMERIZING BRAND UNIVERSES.
They give consumers a reason to believe and to engage.
FUTURE BRANDS CREATE COMMUNITIES.
They provide consumers - who are inundated with content and isolated by screens - experience and events to connect with each other.
FUTURE BRANDS BUILD TOTEMIC PRODUCTS.
They’re first to discover new white-space and invent products, services, and experiences that could never have existed prior to AI.
FUTURE BRANDS INVENT THE FUTURE.
It may be overwhelming to think of a world with infinite content. It may not be the type of content we prefer. We may need to squint to see it clearly. But it’s undeniable that it’s coming.
And it likely creates opportunities, even for companies that feel vulnerable to the change. Agencies, Shopify developers, retail consultancies, analysts, and data scientists also get a boost from AI. They can be more prolific. They can service more brands. They can evaluate more options.
A colleague recently described the feeling of “keeping up” in the age of AI as “vertigo.” I think that’s exactly right. We’ve never experienced anything like this—and we can’t slow it down. So maybe the answer is to embrace the vertigo. The only way out is through.
If you’ve got feelings on this subject, we’d sincerely love to hear from you in the comments.
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