Thinks Out Loud: E-commerce and Digital Strategy
Thinks Out Loud: E-commerce and Digital Strategy

Thinks Out Loud: E-commerce and Digital Strategy

Tim Peter

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A weekly podcast exploring how e-commerce and digital trends shape your business and marketing strategy

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“Gatekeepers Gonna Gate” is Gonna Kill ChatGPT (Episode 477)
DEC 12, 2025
“Gatekeepers Gonna Gate” is Gonna Kill ChatGPT (Episode 477)
<a href="https://timpeter.com/blog/gatekeepers-google-kill-chatgpt-episode-477/" title="“Gatekeepers Gonna Gate” is Gonna Kill ChatGPT (Episode 477)" rel="nofollow"><img width="768" height="499" src="https://timpeter.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/gatekeepers-google-kill-chatgpt-768x499.png" class="webfeedsFeaturedVisual wp-post-image" alt="ChatGPT generated illustration of a gravestone with the text &quot;RIP ChatGPT 2022-202?&quot; carved into it to illustrate the idea that gatekeepers gonna gate could kill OpenAI and ChatGPT" style="display: block; margin: auto; margin-bottom: 5px;max-width: 100%;" link_thumbnail="1" decoding="async" fetchpriority="high" srcset="https://timpeter.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/gatekeepers-google-kill-chatgpt-768x499.png 768w, https://timpeter.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/gatekeepers-google-kill-chatgpt-300x195.png 300w, https://timpeter.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/gatekeepers-google-kill-chatgpt.png 1000w" sizes="(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px" /></a><p>You’ve heard me say that “gatekeepers gonna gate” for a long, long time. Hell, I wrote a whole book about the topic. The funny thing is that most folks assume that OpenAI and ChatGPT are going to bypass the gatekeepers &mdash; and will likely become the biggest gatekeepers of all. </p> <p>Maybe&#8230; But I’m not so sure. </p> <p>While I could be wrong about this, I think that OpenAI is in fact in deep trouble and largely because of their own actions &mdash; and, more importantly, those of Big Tech gatekeepers. I’m reasonably sure that gatekeepers &mdash; and the reality that gatekeepers gonna gate &amp; mdash; is bad news for ChatGPT. I don’t actually think that they’ll kill ChatGPT or OpenAI outright. But they’re likely to hurt them something bad. </p> <p>Why do I think “gatekeepers gonna gate” is gonna kill ChatGPT? What do I think is really going on here? And, most importantly, what does this mean for your business? That’s what this episode of the podcast is all about. </p> <p>Here are the show notes for you. </p> <h2>“Gatekeepers Gonna Gate” is Gonna Kill ChatGPT (Episode 477) &mdash; Headlines and Show Notes</h2> <h3>Show Notes and Links</h3> <ul> <li><a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cud2luZG93c2NlbnRyYWwuY29tL2FydGlmaWNpYWwtaW50ZWxsaWdlbmNlL29wZW5haS1jaGF0Z3B0L2FuYWx5c2lzLW9wZW5haS1pcy1hLWxvc3MtbWFraW5nLW1hY2hpbmU%3D&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10432">OpenAI is a loss-making machine, can it outlast the bubble? | Windows Central</a></li> <li><a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cudGhlYXJndW1lbnRtYWcuY29tL3AvY2hhdGdwdC1hbmQtdGhlLWVuZC1vZi1sZWFybmluZw%3D%3D&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10432">ChatGPT and the end of learning &#8211; by Lakshya Jain</a></li> <li><a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cud3NqLmNvbS90ZWNoL2FpL3lhbm4tbGVjdW4tYWktbWV0YS0wMDU4YjEzYw%3D%3D&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10432">Yann LeCun Has Been Right About AI for 40 Years. Now He Thinks Everyone Is Wrong. &#8211; WSJ</a></li> <li><a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cudG9tc2d1aWRlLmNvbS9haS9vcGVuYWlzLXNhbS1hbHRtYW4taHlwZXMtbXlzdGVyeS1jaGF0Z3B0LWRldmljZS1pdHMtc28tYmVhdXRpZnVsLWEtY2FzZS13b3VsZC1iZS1hLWNyaW1l&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10432">OpenAI’s Sam Altman hypes mystery ChatGPT device — &#8216;It’s so beautiful, a case would be a crime&#8217; | Tom&#8217;s Guide</a></li> <li><a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cucmV1dGVycy5jb20vYnVzaW5lc3MvbWVkaWEtdGVsZWNvbS9nb29nbGUtZXhlY3V0aXZlLXNlZXMtYWktc2VhcmNoLWV4cGFuc2lvbi13ZWItMjAyNS0xMi0wNC8%3D&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10432">Google executive sees AI search as expansion for web | Reuters</a></li> <li><a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuYXhpb3MuY29tLzIwMjUvMTIvMDIvYWktYnViYmxlLXN0b2NrLW1hcmtldC1mb3JlY2FzdC1vZWNk&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10432">AI bubble a &#8220;key downside risk&#8221; to US economy, OECD warns</a></li> <li><a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cubm9haHBpbmlvbi5ibG9nL3AvdGhlLWFpLWJ1c3Qtc2NlbmFyaW8tdGhhdC1uby1vbmU%2FdXRtX2NhbXBhaWduPXBvc3QmIzAzODt1dG1fbWVkaXVtPXdlYg%3D%3D&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10432">The AI bust scenario that no one is talking about</a></li> <li><a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly9icmFkZGVsb25nLnN1YnN0YWNrLmNvbS9wL2Nyb3NzcG9zdC1ub2FoLXNtaXRoLXRoZS1haS1idXN0P3I9Zzk2eSYjMDM4O3V0bV9tZWRpdW09aW9zJiMwMzg7dHJpZWRSZWRpcmVjdD10cnVl&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10432">CROSSPOST: NOAH SMITH: The AI Bust Scenario That No One Is Talking About</a></li> <li><a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly9icmFkZGVsb25nLnN1YnN0YWNrLmNvbS9wL3RoZS1haS1idWJibGVzLW1vc3QtbGlrZWx5LWVuZGdhbWU%2Fcj1nOTZ5JiMwMzg7dXRtX21lZGl1bT1pb3MmIzAzODt0cmllZFJlZGlyZWN0PXRydWU%3D&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10432">The AI-Bubble&#8217;s Most Likely Endgame Looks to Be Not Apocalypse, But an Awful Lot of Useful Compost</a></li> <li><a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cudW5kZXJzdGFuZGluZ2FpLm9yZy9wL3NpeC1yZWFzb25zLXRvLXRoaW5rLXRoZXJlcy1hbi1haT9yPWc5NnkmIzAzODt1dG1fbWVkaXVtPWlvcyYjMDM4O3RyaWVkUmVkaXJlY3Q9dHJ1ZQ%3D%3D&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10432">Six reasons to think there’s an AI bubble — and six reasons not to</a></li> <li><a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly90aW1wZXRlci5jb20vYmxvZy9mdXR1cmUtb2YtbWV0YXZlcnNlLw%3D%3D&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10432">The Future of the Metaverse? (Thinks Out Loud Episode 363)</a></li> <li><a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cubGF0aW1lcy5jb20vYnVzaW5lc3Mvc3RvcnkvMjAyNS0xMi0wNC9tZXRhcy16dWNrZXJiZXJnLXBsYW5zLWRlZXAtY3V0cy1mb3ItY29tcGFueXMtbWV0YXZlcnNlLWVmZm9ydHM%3D&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10432">Meta’s Zuckerberg plans deep cuts for company&#8217;s metaverse efforts &#8211; Los Angeles Times</a></li> <li><a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly9jb2lubWFya2V0Y2FwLmNvbS8%3D&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10432">Cryptocurrency Prices, Charts And Market Capitalizations | CoinMarketCap</a></li> <li><a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly9jb2lubWFya2V0Y2FwLmNvbS9jdXJyZW5jaWVzL2JpdGNvaW4v&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10432">Bitcoin price today, BTC to USD live price, marketcap and chart | CoinMarketCap</a></li> <li><a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly90aW1wZXRlci5jb20vYmxvZy9jaGFncHQtYXBwcy1wb2RjYXN0LTQ3MS8%3D&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10432">Are ChatGPT’s Apps Good for Your Business? (Episode 471)</a></li> <li><a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly90aW1wZXRlci5jb20vYmxvZy9haS1tYXJrZXRpbmctYnJhbmQtcHJvbXB0Lw%3D%3D&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10432">What ‘The Brand Is the Prompt’ Really Means for Your Business (Episode 474)</a></li> </ul> <h3>Buy the Book &mdash; Digital Reset: Driving Marketing and Customer Acquisition Beyond Big Tech</h3> <p>Tim Peter has written a new book called <em><a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuYW1hem9uLmNvbS9kcC9CMEY4TE5NMkZSLw%3D%3D&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10432">Digital Reset: Driving Marketing Beyond Big Tech</a></em>. You can learn more about it <a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cudGltcGV0ZXIuY29tL2RpZ2l0YWwtcmVzZXQ%3D&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10432">here on the site</a>. Or <a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuYW1hem9uLmNvbS9kcC9CMEY4TE5NMkZSLw%3D%3D&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10432">buy your copy on Amazon.com today</a>. </p> <h3>Past Appearances</h3> <p style="text-align: center;">Rutgers Business School MSDM Speaker: Series: a Conversation with Tim Peter, Author of &quot;Digital Reset&quot; <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/QnnxIPb6I_M?si=3SMKpiyU01Vk1kgm" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe></p> <h3>Free Downloads</h3> <p>We have some free downloads for you to help you navigate the current situation, which you can find right here:</p> <ul> <li><a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly9tY3VzZXJjb250ZW50LmNvbS8wOGFiZWMzNjA1MTI3NjdlYzBiZDA0NmU1L2ZpbGVzL2MyZjg4ZTgyLTE2ZWQtOWNlZS1mZTYxLTMzMWI3OTdlZmE1MS9UUEFfQ29udGVudF9EaXN0cmlidXRpb25fQ2hlY2tsaXN0X0Jsb2dfRGlzdHJpYnV0aW9uLnBkZg%3D%3D&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10432"><strong>A Modern Content Marketing Checklist.</strong></a> Want to ensure that each piece of content works for your business? Download our latest checklist to help put your content marketing to work for you.</li> <li><a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly90cGFzc29jLWJsdmI0YmRzdGV1c3VwZC5uZXRkbmEtc3NsLmNvbS93cC1jb250ZW50L3VwbG9hZHMvMjAyMC8wOS9kaWdpdGFsLWVjb21tZXJjZS1tYXR1cml0eS1tYXRyaXgucGRm&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10432"><strong>Digital &amp; E-commerce Maturity Matrix.</strong></a> As a bonus, here&#8217;s a PDF that can help you assess your company&#8217;s digital maturity. You can use this to better understand where your company excels and where its opportunities lie. And, of course, <a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cudGltcGV0ZXIuY29tL2RpZ2l0YWwtbWFya2V0aW5nLWNvbnN1bHRpbmctc2VydmljZXMvYnVzaW5lc3Mtc3RyYXRlZ3ktZGlnaXRhbC10cmFuc2Zvcm1hdGlvbi1jb25zdWx0aW5nLw%3D%3D&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10432">we&#8217;re here to help if you need it</a>. <a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly90cGFzc29jLWJsdmI0YmRzdGV1c3VwZC5uZXRkbmEtc3NsLmNvbS93cC1jb250ZW50L3VwbG9hZHMvMjAyMC8wOS9kaWdpdGFsLWVjb21tZXJjZS1tYXR1cml0eS1tYXRyaXgucGRm&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10432">The Digital &amp; E-commerce Maturity Matrix</a> rates your company&#8217;s effectiveness &mdash; Ad Hoc, Aware, Striving, Driving &mdash; in 6 key areas in digital today, including: <ul> <li>Customer Focus</li> <li>Strategy</li> <li>Technology</li> <li>Operations</li> <li>Culture</li> <li>Data</li> </ul> </li> </ul> <h3>Best of Thinks Out Loud</h3> <p>You can find our “Best of Thinks Out Loud” playlist on Spotify right here:<br /> <iframe style="border-radius:12px" src="https://open.spotify.com/embed/playlist/6IzixZ7sj5b1XdRGVJsLhf?utm_source=generator" width="100%" height="352" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="" allow="autoplay; 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You can also download/listen to the podcast here on <strong><em>Thinks</em></strong> using the player at the top of this page.</p> <h2>Transcript: “Gatekeepers Gonna Gate” is Gonna Kill ChatGPT</h2> <p>Anyone who&#8217;s listened to the show has heard me say that gatekeepers gonna gate. That&#8217;s what they do. Right now, three years after the launch of ChatGPT, there is not a gatekeeper for artificial intelligence. There&#8217;s too many players out there. The market is super unsettled.</p> <p>ChatGPT and Google and Meta could all make the claim that they&#8217;re the most used AI and those three, plus Perplexity or Claude could suggest that they are the most capable AI. They&#8217;re all kind of fighting for the same leadership crown and they all need to become the winner. They need this because they need to make more money, right?</p> <p>And to do that, first they have to put the AI, they have to put their artificial intelligence in front of more people. They have to get more people to use it. It&#8217;s a distribution challenge.</p> <p>That&#8217;s why you&#8217;re seeing things like the launch of AI browsers like ChatGPT Atlas or Perplexity Comet or Microsoft and Google embedding Copilot and Gemini into Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge, respectively. And the browser is a core part of what I want to talk about today. So I&#8217;m going to come back to that in just a moment.</p> <p>We are, of course, also seeing folks like Microsoft and Google putting Copilot and Gemini into all of their products. Again, they&#8217;re trying to solve for distribution. </p> <p>When you have distribution, you also need some degree of monetization. Every single one of these players needs to find the right monetization strategy that covers their massive, massive and accelerating costs—and drives profits. Now they don&#8217;t need this immediately, but every single one of these suppliers, every single one of these tech companies, needs to show investors that they&#8217;ll have some path to profits someday.</p> <p>And then of course the third leg of the stool around adoption here is that they have to provide functionality, they have to provide utility. Putting AI tools in front of customers doesn&#8217;t matter if customers don&#8217;t actually use them very often and customers won&#8217;t use them if they feel the AI doesn&#8217;t provide them utility. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has even declared a &quot;code red&quot; because of his concern that Google&#8217;s functionality is gaining on them. </p> <p>Now, I think that the launch of the AI browsers—Atlas, Comet, Gemini in Chrome—are one way that many of these companies are trying to solve for the utility and distribution problems. </p> <p>I also think that these are the true beginning of agentic AI. You simply tell the browser to do work for you. You don&#8217;t even go to a website. You just say, &quot;hey, go take care of this for me.&quot; And if you, the customer, find that the browser does the work for you, you might use it more often. And you might prefer a browser like Atlas or like Comet over Chrome or Safari. Agentic AI might be the true AI gatekeeper that we&#8217;re going to run into. I&#8217;m pretty confident that&#8217;s the most likely scenario. </p> <p>So, by the way, is Amazon. Amazon is suing Perplexity to prevent their browser, Comet, from using its agentic capabilities to shop and purchase on Amazon. </p> <p>Why?</p> <p>Because Amazon knows that gatekeepers gonna gate more than just about anyone. Amazon, along with Google and Meta and Apple and Microsoft, essentially invented the practice of gatekeeping for the internet age.</p> <p>And this lawsuit, this action that Amazon is taking, should be a massive wake-up call about the risks that agentic AI poses to your brand and to your business. Amazon being worried enough about this to take Perplexity to court is a flashing red light signaling all of us that big changes are coming.</p> <p>This is episode 476 of The Big Show. Today we&#8217;re looking at what Amazon&#8217;s lawsuit tells us about the future of AI and about the future of marketing more broadly. Let&#8217;s dive in.</p> <p>There&#8217;s a great article over on The Verge about Amazon&#8217;s lawsuit against Perplexity, and it includes the following banger quote. This is from The Verge. </p> <blockquote> <p>Amazon&#8217;s statement says third-party applications that purchase products for customers on its site “should respect service provider decisions about whether or not to participate,” and claims the comment provides &quot;a significantly degraded shopping and customer service experience” </p> </blockquote> <p>A &quot;<em>significantly degraded shopping and customer service experience.</em>&quot; Amazon clearly recognizes the same threat around AI agents that I do and I think many of you do.</p> <p>Those agents will make it harder for companies to create great distinct experiences that help us build long-term trust and relationships with our customers. We can ignore for a moment whether most companies actually do this or not, but the reality is that&#8217;s what we need to do. </p> <p>Amazon recognizes that Comet—and really, any agentic experience—can turn Amazon into a commodity. They&#8217;re scared. And they probably should be. At least to some degree, you should probably be a little concerned too. I don&#8217;t want you to be scared. My job here is not to scare you. But we need to be honest about what&#8217;s happening here. </p> <p>Agentic AI, whether delivered through a web browser, an app, or built into our device&#8217;s operating system will likely determine who wins and who loses at a level we&#8217;ve never seen before. </p> <p>Yes, customers have started their journeys for years using search and social. But “search&quot; and “social&quot; represent two entirely different platforms. And each of those have more or less more than one player. </p> <p>Obviously, there&#8217;s a dominant player. Sure, customers search on Google. But they also search, among others, on Bing and Expedia and <a class="autolink" href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly9Cb29raW5nLmNvbQ%3D%3D&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10432">Booking.com</a> and OpenTable and Yelp and G2… and sure, Google and YouTube and Google Maps. Google is the biggest one. But there have long been places where you can have your brand show up beyond just Google.</p> <p>Social has been dominated by Meta for a long time, via Facebook and Instagram. But Pinterest and YouTube and Snapchat and Reddit all existed even before TikTok came along to really shake things up. Again, you had a number of options for getting your product or your service and your brand in front of customers. </p> <p>Once customers use AI agents, though, they likely will stick with just one or two of them. Probably. And in my view, probably, the ones they&#8217;ll use will be the one or two integrated into their phone or their laptop or smart wearables like glasses and earbuds or the very small number of apps they still choose such as their browser and email.</p> <p>By the way, as a quick aside, this is one of the reasons that I think Google is in such a great position here. They already own and offer most of these services. Microsoft has a less secure position with home Windows consumers, but they have a great position with enterprise users for the same reason. And Meta is doing its best to win the wearables race and own the next device experience. Finally, whomever Apple partners with has a huge chance to win those customers. It could be OpenAI, it could be Google, it could be someone else. I&#8217;ve kind of been joking with a friend of mine that, you know, I wouldn&#8217;t be surprised if OpenAI buys Apple or Apple buys OpenAI. Right? Because that would be the perfect marriage from that perspective.</p> <p>The point remains that the agent, regardless of where customers interact with it, will likely be the next major gatekeeper. And that&#8217;s why Amazon is trying to nip Perplexity in the bud here. </p> <p>Now, the real key for you though is what do you do about it? Well, you want to remember that your brand is the prompt. That&#8217;s what we&#8217;re trying to work towards. And also remember that &quot;The King, The Queen, And The Crown Jewels&quot; are still key to building brand equity among customers. They&#8217;re still the key to having customers ask for you by name. </p> <p>Now, if you don&#8217;t remember &quot;The King, The Queen, And The Crown Jewels,” they are &quot;content is king, customer experience is queen, and data is the crown jewels&quot;.</p> <p>All three of those start with focusing on your customer. Your content needs to think about your customer&#8217;s needs and how you solve for those needs every single time. </p> <ul> <li>What are your customers&#8217; problems?</li> <li>Where do they need help?</li> <li>How do you help them solve their problems?</li> <li>And finally, what is your point of view that sets you apart from your competitors?</li> </ul> <p>We of course also need to think about content distribution. How do you deliver that content to customers? Well, first and foremost, especially in the age of AI, content distribution has to start with CRM. And your website has to be a machine for getting customers to talk to you directly. In a perfect world, everyone who comes to your website will sign up for your email or will sign up for SMS. On your website, you have to think about website conversions not just in terms of selling product, but in terms of getting customers to connect directly with you. Again, via email, via SMS, or via social follows. </p> <p>You also want to look at chat on your site and the website search on your site so that you&#8217;re providing the same kind of experience customers expect when they connect with any company anywhere.</p> <p>Of course, your own website is still going to be a place where your content lives, but you also need to make sure your content is available on social for the customers who are engaging there. </p> <p>And finally, you need to ensure your customers tell a great brand story on your behalf when they&#8217;re on social. And that&#8217;s where customer experience comes in.</p> <p>We&#8217;ve seen for years that customers will tell their friends and family and fans and followers about experiences they&#8217;ve had, good or bad, at almost every social opportunity. Sure, online, but also in group chats and face-to-face and even in casual encounters sometimes, if there&#8217;s a chance that they&#8217;ve got a good story to tell.</p> <p>It&#8217;s really critical for you to make sure that the story they&#8217;re telling about your brand is a positive one. That&#8217;s why customer experience matters so much. It&#8217;s why customer experience is queen. </p> <p>Finally, pay attention to your data. Obviously, we&#8217;re already starting to see shifts in traffic from AI or AI browsers. We&#8217;re seeing traffic show up in all kinds of ways.</p> <p>One of the main metrics I would encourage you to think about is something we call &quot;prompt brand equity.&quot; I talked about this a couple of weeks ago in &quot;What Your Brand Is The Prompt Really Means For Your Business.&quot; And that&#8217;ll be linked to in the show notes. </p> <p>Your data is going to be more valuable than syndicated or proprietary vendor research. There&#8217;s a fantastic article over on Search Engine Land about why this point matters so much. Essentially the idea is that most of this research is measuring different characteristics and that many of the specific narratives that they&#8217;re trying to tell are somewhat tied to their business objectives. They&#8217;re somewhat tied to the question that they ask and somewhat tied to what are they trying to accomplish with this research. It doesn&#8217;t mean that they&#8217;re faking the research. It doesn&#8217;t mean that they&#8217;re trying to lie to you with the research. It just means they&#8217;re coming from a specific lens. That&#8217;s why your data is going to tell you more than other data you see out there. </p> <p>Now, if that “content, customer experience, data, King, Queen, Crown Jewels” sounds like a framework you&#8217;ve heard about before, either here or in my book, <em>Digital Reset</em>, there&#8217;s a reason for that. And that&#8217;s because it&#8217;s based on tons of research into the way your customers act in a digital environment. </p> <p>AI is a new platform, but ultimately customer behaviors are still going to drive where we end up. Our job is to put customers first and make sure we&#8217;re not letting someone else get between our customers and our businesses. </p> <p>Amazon gets that. They also get that:</p> <p>A.) Gatekeeper&#8217;s gonna gate.<br /> B.) That agentic AI—probably delivered through a browser for now—is (probably) the next gatekeeper, and…<br /> C.) That they need to act today to ensure that customers keep asking for my name. </p> <p>While I&#8217;m not suggesting you sue Perplexity or anyone else, I would take a page out of Amazon&#8217;s playbook and act now to ensure you don&#8217;t find yourself on the wrong side of a new gatekeeper&#8217;s new gate.</p> <p>The shift is coming. The time to act is now. Take the right actions today. </p> <p>Focus on your content, your customer experience, your data and your customer and you should end up in a really good position. </p> <p>Keep me posted. I can&#8217;t wait to see how well you do. </p> <h2>Show Wrap-Up and Credits</h2> <p>Now, looking at the clock on the wall, we are out of time for this week.</p> <p>I&#8217;m willing to bet that you might know someone who would benefit from what we&#8217;ve talked about today. Are you thinking of someone? Why not send them a link to the episode? And let them know what you think, too. Keep the conversation going. </p> <p>You can also find the show notes for this episode, episode 476, as well as an archive of all past episodes by going to <a class="autolink" href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly90aW1wZXRlci5jb20vcG9kY2FzdA%3D%3D&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10432">timpeter.com/podcast</a>. Again, that&#8217;s <a class="autolink" href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly90aW1wZXRlci5jb20vcG9kY2FzdA%3D%3D&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10432">timpeter.com/podcast</a>. </p> <p>And as always, of course, be sure to like and subscribe wherever you get your favorite podcasts. </p> <p>If you&#8217;re looking for something new to read, something that goes deeper into this topic, I would love to suggest <a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuYW1hem9uLmNvbS9EaWdpdGFsLVJlc2V0LU1hcmtldGluZy1DdXN0b21lci1BY3F1aXNpdGlvbi1lYm9vay9kcC9CMEY4S0JKMlpXIzp%2BOnRleHQ9VGlt&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10432"s%20new%20book%20Digital%20Reset,Big%20Tech%20are%20gatekeepers"><em>Digital Reset: Driving Marketing and Customer Acquisition Beyond Big Tech</em></a> and written by me. It dives into today&#8217;s topic in even greater detail. Please pick up a copy, share it with your friends, and let me know what you think of the book. I would genuinely appreciate it. </p> <p>Finally, thank you so much for listening today. This show would not happen without you. I&#8217;ll be back with a new episode next week, and until then, please be well, be safe, and as always, be excellent to each other. I&#8217;ll see you soon.</p> <img src="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-post-id=10432" width="1" height="1" style="display: none;" /><p>The post <a href="https://timpeter.com/blog/gatekeepers-google-kill-chatgpt-episode-477/">“Gatekeepers Gonna Gate” is Gonna Kill ChatGPT (Episode 477)</a> appeared first on <a href="https://timpeter.com">Tim Peter &amp; Associates</a>.</p>
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23 MIN
What Amazon’s Perplexity Lawsuit Means for the Future of AI and Marketing (Episode 476)
DEC 5, 2025
What Amazon’s Perplexity Lawsuit Means for the Future of AI and Marketing (Episode 476)
<a href="https://timpeter.com/blog/amazon-perplexity-future-ai-marketing-episode-476/" title="What Amazon’s Perplexity Lawsuit Means for the Future of AI and Marketing (Episode 476)" rel="nofollow"><img width="768" height="499" src="https://timpeter.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/amazon-comet-768x499.png" class="webfeedsFeaturedVisual wp-post-image" alt="Screenshot of Amazon inside Perplexity Comet browser showing how Comet offers to use its assistant and find related products. Illustrates why Amazon is suing — and what this means for the future of AI and marketing" style="display: block; margin: auto; margin-bottom: 5px;max-width: 100%;" link_thumbnail="1" decoding="async" loading="lazy" srcset="https://timpeter.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/amazon-comet-768x499.png 768w, https://timpeter.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/amazon-comet-300x195.png 300w, https://timpeter.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/amazon-comet.png 1000w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px" /></a><p>You may have heard that Amazon is suing Perplexity, alleging that Perplexity’s Comet browser violates the e-commerce giant’s terms of service. Amazon goes even further, though, as an article from The Verge points out: </p> <blockquote> <p>Amazon&#8217;s statement says third-party applications that purchase products for customers on its site “should respect service provider decisions about whether or not to participate,” and claims the comment provides &quot;a significantly degraded shopping and customer service experience” </p> </blockquote> <p>Amazon knows better than just about anyone that gatekeepers gonna gate&#8230; and that a consequence of those gatekeepers’ actions often is “a significantly degraded shopping and customer service experience.” Of course Amazon knows this. They practically invented the practice.</p> <p>This lawsuit&mdash;and Amazon’s comments about AI’s effects on shopping and customer experience&mdash;tell us a ton about the future of AI and marketing. They highlight some core lessons we all need to learn about where we might be headed. And they provide a roadmap for how to respond. </p> <p>What are those lessons? What does Amazon’s lawsuit against Perplexity tell us about the future of AI and marketing? That’s what this episode of the podcast is all about. </p> <p>Here are the show notes for you. </p> <h2>What Amazon’s Perplexity Lawsuit Means for the Future of AI and Marketing (Episode 476) &mdash; Headlines and Show Notes</h2> <h3>Show Notes and Links</h3> <ul> <li><a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly9zZWFyY2hlbmdpbmVsYW5kLmNvbS93aHktZXZlcnktYWktc2VhcmNoLXN0dWR5LXRlbGxzLWEtZGlmZmVyZW50LXN0b3J5LTQ2NTUxMQ%3D%3D&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10426">Why every AI search study tells a different story</a></li> <li><a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly90aW1wZXRlci5jb20vYmxvZy9haS1tYXJrZXRpbmctYnJhbmQtcHJvbXB0Lw%3D%3D&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10426">What ‘The Brand Is the Prompt’ Really Means for Your Business (Episode 474)</a></li> <li><a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly90aW1wZXRlci5jb20vYmxvZy9yZXRoaW5rLXdlc2JpdGUtYWktNDczLw%3D%3D&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10426">Rethinking Your Website in the Age of AI (Episode 473)</a></li> <li><a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly90aW1wZXRlci5jb20vYmxvZy9hZ2UtYWktYnJhbmQtaXNudC1ldmVyeXRoaW5nLW9ubHktdGhpbmcv&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10426">In the Age of AI, Brand Isn’t Everything. It’s the Only Thing (Episode 472)</a></li> <li><a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly90aW1wZXRlci5jb20vYmxvZy9jaGFncHQtYXBwcy1wb2RjYXN0LTQ3MS8%3D&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10426">Are ChatGPT’s Apps Good for Your Business? (Episode 471)</a></li> <li><a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly90aW1wZXRlci5jb20vYmxvZy9hZ2VudGljLWFpLWtpbGwtY29udGVudC1tYXJrZXRpbmcv&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10426">Will Agentic AI Kill Your Content Marketing? (Episode 470)</a></li> <li><a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly90aW1wZXRlci5jb20vYmxvZy9uZXctc2VvLXBvZGNhc3QtZXBpc29kZS00Njkv&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10426">The New SEO? (Episode 469)</a></li> <li><a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly90aW1wZXRlci5jb20vYmxvZy9haS1hbmQtemVyby1jbGljay1zZWFyY2gtdGhlLXJlYWwtc3RvcnktZXBpc29kZS00Njcv&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10426">AI and Zero-Click Search: The Real Story (Episode 467)</a></li> <li><a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly90aW1wZXRlci5jb20vYmxvZy9hZ2VudGljLWFpLWN1c3RvbWVycy8%3D&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10426">The Rise of Agentic AI Among Your Customers (Episode 466)</a></li> <li><a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly90aW1wZXRlci5jb20vYmxvZy9icmFuZC1wcm9tcHQtYWkv&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10426">The Brand is the Prompt (Thinks Out Loud 465)</a></li> <li><a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly90aW1wZXRlci5jb20vYmxvZy9nb29nbGUtbm90LXVzZS1haS1jcmVhdGUtY29udGVudC10aGlua3Mtb3V0LWxvdWQtNDU3Lw%3D%3D&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10426">Google Says You Should Not Use AI To Create Content&#8230; Kind Of (Thinks Out Loud 457) &#8211; Tim Peter &amp; Associates</a></li> <li><a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly90aW1wZXRlci5jb20vYmxvZy9haS1jYW50LXNhdmUtYmFkLXN0cmF0ZWd5LWZ1bmRhbWVudGFscy1tYXR0ZXItdGhpbmtzLW91dC1sb3VkLTQ1NS8%3D&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10426">AI Can’t Save Bad Strategy: Why Fundamentals Still Matter in 2025 (Thinks Out Loud Episode 455)</a></li> <li><a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly90aW1wZXRlci5jb20vYmxvZy9haS1jb250ZW50LXJldmVudWUtY2xpY2tzLWFyZS1vdmVycmF0ZWQtdGhpbmtzLW91dC1sb3VkLTQ1MC8%3D&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10426">AI, Content, and Revenue: Why Clicks Are Overrated (Thinks Out Loud Episode 450)</a></li> </ul> <h3>Buy the Book &mdash; Digital Reset: Driving Marketing and Customer Acquisition Beyond Big Tech</h3> <p>Tim Peter has written a new book called <em><a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuYW1hem9uLmNvbS9kcC9CMEY4TE5NMkZSLw%3D%3D&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10426">Digital Reset: Driving Marketing Beyond Big Tech</a></em>. You can learn more about it <a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cudGltcGV0ZXIuY29tL2RpZ2l0YWwtcmVzZXQ%3D&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10426">here on the site</a>. Or <a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuYW1hem9uLmNvbS9kcC9CMEY4TE5NMkZSLw%3D%3D&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10426">buy your copy on Amazon.com today</a>. </p> <h3>Past Appearances</h3> <p style="text-align: center;">Rutgers Business School MSDM Speaker: Series: a Conversation with Tim Peter, Author of &quot;Digital Reset&quot; <iframe loading="lazy" width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/QnnxIPb6I_M?si=3SMKpiyU01Vk1kgm" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe></p> <h3>Free Downloads</h3> <p>We have some free downloads for you to help you navigate the current situation, which you can find right here:</p> <ul> <li><a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly9tY3VzZXJjb250ZW50LmNvbS8wOGFiZWMzNjA1MTI3NjdlYzBiZDA0NmU1L2ZpbGVzL2MyZjg4ZTgyLTE2ZWQtOWNlZS1mZTYxLTMzMWI3OTdlZmE1MS9UUEFfQ29udGVudF9EaXN0cmlidXRpb25fQ2hlY2tsaXN0X0Jsb2dfRGlzdHJpYnV0aW9uLnBkZg%3D%3D&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10426"><strong>A Modern Content Marketing Checklist.</strong></a> Want to ensure that each piece of content works for your business? Download our latest checklist to help put your content marketing to work for you.</li> <li><a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly90cGFzc29jLWJsdmI0YmRzdGV1c3VwZC5uZXRkbmEtc3NsLmNvbS93cC1jb250ZW50L3VwbG9hZHMvMjAyMC8wOS9kaWdpdGFsLWVjb21tZXJjZS1tYXR1cml0eS1tYXRyaXgucGRm&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10426"><strong>Digital &amp; E-commerce Maturity Matrix.</strong></a> As a bonus, here&#8217;s a PDF that can help you assess your company&#8217;s digital maturity. You can use this to better understand where your company excels and where its opportunities lie. And, of course, <a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cudGltcGV0ZXIuY29tL2RpZ2l0YWwtbWFya2V0aW5nLWNvbnN1bHRpbmctc2VydmljZXMvYnVzaW5lc3Mtc3RyYXRlZ3ktZGlnaXRhbC10cmFuc2Zvcm1hdGlvbi1jb25zdWx0aW5nLw%3D%3D&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10426">we&#8217;re here to help if you need it</a>. <a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly90cGFzc29jLWJsdmI0YmRzdGV1c3VwZC5uZXRkbmEtc3NsLmNvbS93cC1jb250ZW50L3VwbG9hZHMvMjAyMC8wOS9kaWdpdGFsLWVjb21tZXJjZS1tYXR1cml0eS1tYXRyaXgucGRm&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10426">The Digital &amp; E-commerce Maturity Matrix</a> rates your company&#8217;s effectiveness &mdash; Ad Hoc, Aware, Striving, Driving &mdash; in 6 key areas in digital today, including: <ul> <li>Customer Focus</li> <li>Strategy</li> <li>Technology</li> <li>Operations</li> <li>Culture</li> <li>Data</li> </ul> </li> </ul> <h3>Best of Thinks Out Loud</h3> <p>You can find our “Best of Thinks Out Loud” playlist on Spotify right here:<br /> <iframe style="border-radius:12px" src="https://open.spotify.com/embed/playlist/6IzixZ7sj5b1XdRGVJsLhf?utm_source=generator" width="100%" height="352" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="" allow="autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; fullscreen; picture-in-picture" loading="lazy"></iframe></p> <h3>Subscribe to Thinks Out Loud</h3> <ul> <li><a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly9pdHVuZXMuYXBwbGUuY29tL3VzL3BvZGNhc3QvdGhpbmtzLW91dC1sb3VkLWUtY29tbWVyY2UvaWQ1NjIzMjQxMjA%2FbXQ9Mg%3D%3D&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10426">Subscribe in iTunes</a></li> <li><a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly9nb28uZ2wvYXBwL3BsYXltdXNpYz9pYmk9Y29tLmdvb2dsZS5QbGF5TXVzaWMmYW1wO2lzaT02OTE3OTc5ODcmYW1wO2l1cz1nb29nbGVwbGF5bXVzaWMmYW1wO2xpbms9aHR0cHM6Ly9wbGF5Lmdvb2dsZS5jb20vbXVzaWMvbS9JaDQ0Z2ZycHV3anA1dXZ2dGhjNjJ2Zml5NWE%2FdCUzRFRoaW5rc19PdXRfTG91ZDpfRS1jb21tZXJjZV9hbmRfRGlnaXRhbF9TdHJhdGVneQ%3D%3D&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10426">Subscribe in the Google Play Store</a></li> </ul> <p>Contact information for the podcast: <a href="mailto:[email protected]">[email protected]</a></p> <h3>Past Insights from Tim Peter Thinks</h3> <h3>Technical Details for Thinks Out Loud</h3> <p>Recorded using a <a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly9hbXpuLnRvLzQzbHJBdmY%3D&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10426">Shure SM7B Vocal Dynamic Microphone</a><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=timpeterconsu-20&#038;l=as2&#038;o=1&#038;a=B0000AQRST" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /> and a <a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuYW1hem9uLmNvbS9Gb2N1c3JpdGUtU2NhcmxldHQtQXVkaW8tSW50ZXJmYWNlLVRvb2xzL2RwL0IwN1FTQzkyTkcvcmVmPWFzX2xpX3NzX3RsP2NyaWQ9MjBTMVVaOVQ1MFFaQiYjMDM4O2tleXdvcmRzPWZvY3Vzcml0ZStzY2FybGV0dCs0aTQrM3JkK2dlbiYjMDM4O3FpZD0xNTY3NjM2MDAxJiMwMzg7cz1tdXNpY2FsLWluc3RydW1lbnRzJiMwMzg7c3ByZWZpeD1mb2N1c3JpdGUrc2NhcmxldHQrNGk0LG1pLDEyOCYjMDM4O3NyPTEtNCYjMDM4O2xpbmtDb2RlPWxsMSYjMDM4O3RhZz10aW1wZXRlcmNvbnN1LTIwJiMwMzg7bGlua0lkPTdmMDE5MmUwMjgwZjc0Y2M3NWUwNDA5YmZkNjVlZGM3JiMwMzg7bGFuZ3VhZ2U9ZW5fVVM%3D&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10426">Focusrite Scarlett 4i4 (3rd Gen) USB Audio Interface</a><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=timpeterconsu-20&amp;l=as2&amp;o=1&amp;a=B003VZG550" width="1" height="1"/> into <a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuYW1hem9uLmNvbS9Mb2dpYy1Qcm8tWC9kcC9CMDdLVkMxMUc3L3JlZj1hc19saV9zc190bD9rZXl3b3Jkcz1hcHBsZStsb2dpYytwcm8reCZhbXA7cWlkPTE1NTUzNjI0NzImYW1wO3M9Z2F0ZXdheSZhbXA7c3I9OC0xJmFtcDtsaW5rQ29kZT1sbDEmYW1wO3RhZz10aW1wZXRlcmNvbnN1LTIwJmFtcDtsaW5rSWQ9MWYxNzdlZWViMGYwYWZjZDEwZTQzNGZjNWQwMzYyZWMmYW1wO2xhbmd1YWdlPWVuX1VT&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10426">Logic Pro X</a><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=timpeterconsu-20&amp;l=as2&amp;o=1&amp;a=B000EMIAGA" width="1" height="1"/> for the Mac. </p> <p>Running time: 17m 45s</p> <p>You can <a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cDovL2l0dW5lcy5hcHBsZS5jb20vdXMvcG9kY2FzdC90aW0tcGV0ZXItdGhpbmtzLW91dC1sb3VkL2lkNTYyMzI0MTIw&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10426">subscribe to <strong><em>Thinks Out Loud</em></strong> in iTunes</a>, <a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly9nb28uZ2wvYXBwL3BsYXltdXNpYz9pYmk9Y29tLmdvb2dsZS5QbGF5TXVzaWMmYW1wO2lzaT02OTE3OTc5ODcmYW1wO2l1cz1nb29nbGVwbGF5bXVzaWMmYW1wO2xpbms9aHR0cHM6Ly9wbGF5Lmdvb2dsZS5jb20vbXVzaWMvbS9JaDQ0Z2ZycHV3anA1dXZ2dGhjNjJ2Zml5NWE%2FdCUzRFRoaW5rc19PdXRfTG91ZDpfRS1jb21tZXJjZV9hbmRfRGlnaXRhbF9TdHJhdGVneQ%3D%3D&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10426">the Google Play Store</a>, via <a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cDovL3d3dy5ibHVicnJ5LmNvbS9mZWVkcy90aGlua3NvdXRsb3VkLnhtbA%3D%3D&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10426">our dedicated podcast RSS feed</a> (or <a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cDovL2VlcHVybC5jb20vdGJQNTk%3D&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10426">sign up for our free newsletter</a>). You can also download/listen to the podcast here on <strong><em>Thinks</em></strong> using the player at the top of this page.</p> <h2>Transcript: What Amazon’s Perplexity Lawsuit Means for the Future of AI and Marketing</h2> <p>Anyone who&#8217;s listened to the show has heard me say that gatekeepers gonna gate. That&#8217;s what they do. Right now, three years after the launch of ChatGPT, there is not a gatekeeper for artificial intelligence. There&#8217;s too many players out there. The market is super unsettled.</p> <p>ChatGPT and Google and Meta could all make the claim that they&#8217;re the most used AI and those three, plus Perplexity or Claude could suggest that they are the most capable AI. They&#8217;re all kind of fighting for the same leadership crown and they all need to become the winner. They need this because they need to make more money, right?</p> <p>And to do that, first they have to put the AI, they have to put their artificial intelligence in front of more people. They have to get more people to use it. It&#8217;s a distribution challenge.</p> <p>That&#8217;s why you&#8217;re seeing things like the launch of AI browsers like ChatGPT Atlas or Perplexity Comet or Microsoft and Google embedding Copilot and Gemini into Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge, respectively. And the browser is a core part of what I want to talk about today. So I&#8217;m going to come back to that in just a moment.</p> <p>We are, of course, also seeing folks like Microsoft and Google putting Copilot and Gemini into all of their products. Again, they&#8217;re trying to solve for distribution. </p> <p>When you have distribution, you also need some degree of monetization. Every single one of these players needs to find the right monetization strategy that covers their massive, massive and accelerating costs—and drives profits. Now they don&#8217;t need this immediately, but every single one of these suppliers, every single one of these tech companies, needs to show investors that they&#8217;ll have some path to profits someday.</p> <p>And then of course the third leg of the stool around adoption here is that they have to provide functionality, they have to provide utility. Putting AI tools in front of customers doesn&#8217;t matter if customers don&#8217;t actually use them very often and customers won&#8217;t use them if they feel the AI doesn&#8217;t provide them utility. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has even declared a &quot;code red&quot; because of his concern that Google&#8217;s functionality is gaining on them. </p> <p>Now, I think that the launch of the AI browsers—Atlas, Comet, Gemini in Chrome—are one way that many of these companies are trying to solve for the utility and distribution problems. </p> <p>I also think that these are the true beginning of agentic AI. You simply tell the browser to do work for you. You don&#8217;t even go to a website. You just say, &quot;hey, go take care of this for me.&quot; And if you, the customer, find that the browser does the work for you, you might use it more often. And you might prefer a browser like Atlas or like Comet over Chrome or Safari. Agentic AI might be the true AI gatekeeper that we&#8217;re going to run into. I&#8217;m pretty confident that&#8217;s the most likely scenario. </p> <p>So, by the way, is Amazon. Amazon is suing Perplexity to prevent their browser, Comet, from using its agentic capabilities to shop and purchase on Amazon. </p> <p>Why?</p> <p>Because Amazon knows that gatekeepers gonna gate more than just about anyone. Amazon, along with Google and Meta and Apple and Microsoft, essentially invented the practice of gatekeeping for the internet age.</p> <p>And this lawsuit, this action that Amazon is taking, should be a massive wake-up call about the risks that agentic AI poses to your brand and to your business. Amazon being worried enough about this to take Perplexity to court is a flashing red light signaling all of us that big changes are coming.</p> <p>This is episode 476 of The Big Show. Today we&#8217;re looking at what Amazon&#8217;s lawsuit tells us about the future of AI and about the future of marketing more broadly. Let&#8217;s dive in.</p> <p>There&#8217;s a great article over on The Verge about Amazon&#8217;s lawsuit against Perplexity, and it includes the following banger quote. This is from The Verge. </p> <blockquote> <p>Amazon&#8217;s statement says third-party applications that purchase products for customers on its site “should respect service provider decisions about whether or not to participate,” and claims the comment provides &quot;a significantly degraded shopping and customer service experience” </p> </blockquote> <p>A &quot;<em>significantly degraded shopping and customer service experience.</em>&quot; Amazon clearly recognizes the same threat around AI agents that I do and I think many of you do.</p> <p>Those agents will make it harder for companies to create great distinct experiences that help us build long-term trust and relationships with our customers. We can ignore for a moment whether most companies actually do this or not, but the reality is that&#8217;s what we need to do. </p> <p>Amazon recognizes that Comet—and really, any agentic experience—can turn Amazon into a commodity. They&#8217;re scared. And they probably should be. At least to some degree, you should probably be a little concerned too. I don&#8217;t want you to be scared. My job here is not to scare you. But we need to be honest about what&#8217;s happening here. </p> <p>Agentic AI, whether delivered through a web browser, an app, or built into our device&#8217;s operating system will likely determine who wins and who loses at a level we&#8217;ve never seen before. </p> <p>Yes, customers have started their journeys for years using search and social. But “search&quot; and “social&quot; represent two entirely different platforms. And each of those have more or less more than one player. </p> <p>Obviously, there&#8217;s a dominant player. Sure, customers search on Google. But they also search, among others, on Bing and Expedia and <a class="autolink" href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly9Cb29raW5nLmNvbQ%3D%3D&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10426">Booking.com</a> and OpenTable and Yelp and G2… and sure, Google and YouTube and Google Maps. Google is the biggest one. But there have long been places where you can have your brand show up beyond just Google.</p> <p>Social has been dominated by Meta for a long time, via Facebook and Instagram. But Pinterest and YouTube and Snapchat and Reddit all existed even before TikTok came along to really shake things up. Again, you had a number of options for getting your product or your service and your brand in front of customers. </p> <p>Once customers use AI agents, though, they likely will stick with just one or two of them. Probably. And in my view, probably, the ones they&#8217;ll use will be the one or two integrated into their phone or their laptop or smart wearables like glasses and earbuds or the very small number of apps they still choose such as their browser and email.</p> <p>By the way, as a quick aside, this is one of the reasons that I think Google is in such a great position here. They already own and offer most of these services. Microsoft has a less secure position with home Windows consumers, but they have a great position with enterprise users for the same reason. And Meta is doing its best to win the wearables race and own the next device experience. Finally, whomever Apple partners with has a huge chance to win those customers. It could be OpenAI, it could be Google, it could be someone else. I&#8217;ve kind of been joking with a friend of mine that, you know, I wouldn&#8217;t be surprised if OpenAI buys Apple or Apple buys OpenAI. Right? Because that would be the perfect marriage from that perspective.</p> <p>The point remains that the agent, regardless of where customers interact with it, will likely be the next major gatekeeper. And that&#8217;s why Amazon is trying to nip Perplexity in the bud here. </p> <p>Now, the real key for you though is what do you do about it? Well, you want to remember that your brand is the prompt. That&#8217;s what we&#8217;re trying to work towards. And also remember that &quot;The King, The Queen, And The Crown Jewels&quot; are still key to building brand equity among customers. They&#8217;re still the key to having customers ask for you by name. </p> <p>Now, if you don&#8217;t remember &quot;The King, The Queen, And The Crown Jewels,” they are &quot;content is king, customer experience is queen, and data is the crown jewels&quot;.</p> <p>All three of those start with focusing on your customer. Your content needs to think about your customer&#8217;s needs and how you solve for those needs every single time. </p> <ul> <li>What are your customers&#8217; problems?</li> <li>Where do they need help?</li> <li>How do you help them solve their problems?</li> <li>And finally, what is your point of view that sets you apart from your competitors?</li> </ul> <p>We of course also need to think about content distribution. How do you deliver that content to customers? Well, first and foremost, especially in the age of AI, content distribution has to start with CRM. And your website has to be a machine for getting customers to talk to you directly. In a perfect world, everyone who comes to your website will sign up for your email or will sign up for SMS. On your website, you have to think about website conversions not just in terms of selling product, but in terms of getting customers to connect directly with you. Again, via email, via SMS, or via social follows. </p> <p>You also want to look at chat on your site and the website search on your site so that you&#8217;re providing the same kind of experience customers expect when they connect with any company anywhere.</p> <p>Of course, your own website is still going to be a place where your content lives, but you also need to make sure your content is available on social for the customers who are engaging there. </p> <p>And finally, you need to ensure your customers tell a great brand story on your behalf when they&#8217;re on social. And that&#8217;s where customer experience comes in.</p> <p>We&#8217;ve seen for years that customers will tell their friends and family and fans and followers about experiences they&#8217;ve had, good or bad, at almost every social opportunity. Sure, online, but also in group chats and face-to-face and even in casual encounters sometimes, if there&#8217;s a chance that they&#8217;ve got a good story to tell.</p> <p>It&#8217;s really critical for you to make sure that the story they&#8217;re telling about your brand is a positive one. That&#8217;s why customer experience matters so much. It&#8217;s why customer experience is queen. </p> <p>Finally, pay attention to your data. Obviously, we&#8217;re already starting to see shifts in traffic from AI or AI browsers. We&#8217;re seeing traffic show up in all kinds of ways.</p> <p>One of the main metrics I would encourage you to think about is something we call &quot;prompt brand equity.&quot; I talked about this a couple of weeks ago in &quot;What Your Brand Is The Prompt Really Means For Your Business.&quot; And that&#8217;ll be linked to in the show notes. </p> <p>Your data is going to be more valuable than syndicated or proprietary vendor research. There&#8217;s a fantastic article over on Search Engine Land about why this point matters so much. Essentially the idea is that most of this research is measuring different characteristics and that many of the specific narratives that they&#8217;re trying to tell are somewhat tied to their business objectives. They&#8217;re somewhat tied to the question that they ask and somewhat tied to what are they trying to accomplish with this research. It doesn&#8217;t mean that they&#8217;re faking the research. It doesn&#8217;t mean that they&#8217;re trying to lie to you with the research. It just means they&#8217;re coming from a specific lens. That&#8217;s why your data is going to tell you more than other data you see out there. </p> <p>Now, if that “content, customer experience, data, King, Queen, Crown Jewels” sounds like a framework you&#8217;ve heard about before, either here or in my book, <em>Digital Reset</em>, there&#8217;s a reason for that. And that&#8217;s because it&#8217;s based on tons of research into the way your customers act in a digital environment. </p> <p>AI is a new platform, but ultimately customer behaviors are still going to drive where we end up. Our job is to put customers first and make sure we&#8217;re not letting someone else get between our customers and our businesses. </p> <p>Amazon gets that. They also get that:</p> <p>A.) Gatekeeper&#8217;s gonna gate.<br /> B.) That agentic AI—probably delivered through a browser for now—is (probably) the next gatekeeper, and…<br /> C.) That they need to act today to ensure that customers keep asking for my name. </p> <p>While I&#8217;m not suggesting you sue Perplexity or anyone else, I would take a page out of Amazon&#8217;s playbook and act now to ensure you don&#8217;t find yourself on the wrong side of a new gatekeeper&#8217;s new gate.</p> <p>The shift is coming. The time to act is now. Take the right actions today. </p> <p>Focus on your content, your customer experience, your data and your customer and you should end up in a really good position. </p> <p>Keep me posted. I can&#8217;t wait to see how well you do. </p> <h2>Show Wrap-Up and Credits</h2> <p>Now, looking at the clock on the wall, we are out of time for this week.</p> <p>I&#8217;m willing to bet that you might know someone who would benefit from what we&#8217;ve talked about today. Are you thinking of someone? Why not send them a link to the episode? And let them know what you think, too. Keep the conversation going. </p> <p>You can also find the show notes for this episode, episode 476, as well as an archive of all past episodes by going to <a class="autolink" href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly90aW1wZXRlci5jb20vcG9kY2FzdA%3D%3D&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10426">timpeter.com/podcast</a>. Again, that&#8217;s <a class="autolink" href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly90aW1wZXRlci5jb20vcG9kY2FzdA%3D%3D&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10426">timpeter.com/podcast</a>. </p> <p>And as always, of course, be sure to like and subscribe wherever you get your favorite podcasts. </p> <p>If you&#8217;re looking for something new to read, something that goes deeper into this topic, I would love to suggest <a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuYW1hem9uLmNvbS9EaWdpdGFsLVJlc2V0LU1hcmtldGluZy1DdXN0b21lci1BY3F1aXNpdGlvbi1lYm9vay9kcC9CMEY4S0JKMlpXIzp%2BOnRleHQ9VGlt&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10426"s%20new%20book%20Digital%20Reset,Big%20Tech%20are%20gatekeepers"><em>Digital Reset: Driving Marketing and Customer Acquisition Beyond Big Tech</em></a> and written by me. It dives into today&#8217;s topic in even greater detail. Please pick up a copy, share it with your friends, and let me know what you think of the book. I would genuinely appreciate it. </p> <p>Finally, thank you so much for listening today. This show would not happen without you. I&#8217;ll be back with a new episode next week, and until then, please be well, be safe, and as always, be excellent to each other. I&#8217;ll see you soon.</p> <img src="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-post-id=10426" width="1" height="1" style="display: none;" /><p>The post <a href="https://timpeter.com/blog/amazon-perplexity-future-ai-marketing-episode-476/">What Amazon’s Perplexity Lawsuit Means for the Future of AI and Marketing (Episode 476)</a> appeared first on <a href="https://timpeter.com">Tim Peter &amp; Associates</a>.</p>
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17 MIN
The Five Things I’m Thankful For This Year (Episode 475)
NOV 28, 2025
The Five Things I’m Thankful For This Year (Episode 475)
<a href="https://timpeter.com/blog/thankful-this-year-2025-episode-475/" title="The Five Things I’m Thankful For This Year (Episode 475)" rel="nofollow"><img width="768" height="499" src="https://timpeter.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/recapping-2022-768x499.png" class="webfeedsFeaturedVisual wp-post-image" alt="Photo of children pointing to the horizon in silhouette to illustrate the ideas of what I&#039;m most thankful for this year." style="display: block; margin: auto; margin-bottom: 5px;max-width: 100%;" link_thumbnail="1" decoding="async" loading="lazy" srcset="https://timpeter.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/recapping-2022-768x499.png 768w, https://timpeter.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/recapping-2022-300x195.png 300w, https://timpeter.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/recapping-2022.png 1000w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px" /></a><p>I am incredibly fortunate to do get to do what I do. I’m even more fortunate that I’m surrounded by amazing people every single day. And I’m tremendously thankful for all of those. </p> <p>In honor of Thanksgiving here in the US, I thought it made sense to share what I’m most thankful for this year. I also thought it was worthwhile to share how those might be useful to you too.</p> <p>Curious about the five things I’m most thankful for this year? That’s what this episode of the podcast is all about. Here are the show notes for you. </p> <h2>The Five Things I’m Thankful For This Year (Episode 475) &mdash; Headlines and Show Notes</h2> <h3>Show Notes and Links</h3> <ul> <li><a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cubGlua2VkaW4uY29tL2Jsb2cvbWVtYmVyL3Byb2R1Y3Qvc2ltcGxlLXRpcHMtdG8taW1wcm92ZS15b3VyLWxpbmtlZGluLWZlZWQ%3D&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10423">Simple Tips to Improve your LinkedIn Feed</a></li> <li><a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cubGlua2VkaW4uY29tL3Bvc3RzL2Fhcm9uemFrb3dza2lfbGlua2VkaW4taGFjay1oZXJlcy1ob3ctdG8tY3VyYXRlLXlvdXItYWN0aXZpdHktNzI4OTcxODQyMDUwMDA5OTA3Mi15RjlfLw%3D%3D&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10423">LinkedIn Hack: How to Curate Your LinkedIn Activity</a></li> <li><a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly90aW1wZXRlci5jb20vYmxvZy9pcy1pdC1pbXBvc3NpYmxlLWZvci1tYXJrZXRlcnMtdG8ta2VlcC11cC13aXRoLWFpLXRoaW5rcy1vdXQtbG91ZC00NTkv&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10423">Is It Impossible for Marketers to Keep Up With AI? (Thinks Out Loud 459)</a></li> <li><a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly90aW1wZXRlci5jb20vZGlnaXRhbC1yZXNldC9kaWdpdGFsLW1hcmtldGluZy1yZXNvdXJjZXMtZm9yLXlvdXItZGlnaXRhbC1yZXNldC8%3D&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10423">Digital Marketing Resources for Your Digital Reset &#8211; Tim Peter &amp; Associates</a></li> <li><a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly9naXptb2RvLmNvbS9sZWFybmluZy13aXRoLWFpLWZhbGxzLXNob3J0LWNvbXBhcmVkLXRvLW9sZC1mYXNoaW9uZWQtd2ViLXNlYXJjaC0yMDAwNjg4MDg1P3V0bV9jb250ZW50PWJ1ZmZlcmRkYjJhJmFtcDt1dG1fbWVkaXVtPXNvY2lhbCZhbXA7dXRtX3NvdXJjZT1ibHVlc2t5JmFtcDt1dG1fY2FtcGFpZ249YnVmZmVy&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10423">Learning With AI Falls Short Compared to Old-Fashioned Web Search</a></li> <li><a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cudGhlYXJndW1lbnRtYWcuY29tL3AvY2hhdGdwdC1hbmQtdGhlLWVuZC1vZi1sZWFybmluZw%3D%3D&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10423">ChatGPT and the end of learning &#8211; by Lakshya Jain</a></li> <li><a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly90aW1wZXRlci5jb20vYmxvZy9tYWtlLWN1c3RvbWVycy1saXZlcy1iZXR0ZXIv&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10423">We Owe It To Our Customers to Make Their Lives Better (Thinks Out Loud Episode 361)</a></li> <li><a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly90aW1wZXRlci5jb20vYmxvZy9haS1tYWtlcy1jdXN0b21lci1leHBlcmllbmNlLW1vcmUtaW1wb3J0YW50LXRoaW5rcy1vdXQtbG91ZC00Mjcv&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10423">Why AI Makes Customer Experience Even More Important for Your Business (Thinks Out Loud Episode 427)</a></li> </ul> <h3>Buy the Book &mdash; Digital Reset: Driving Marketing and Customer Acquisition Beyond Big Tech</h3> <p>Tim Peter has written a new book called <em><a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuYW1hem9uLmNvbS9kcC9CMEY4TE5NMkZSLw%3D%3D&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10423">Digital Reset: Driving Marketing Beyond Big Tech</a></em>. You can learn more about it <a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cudGltcGV0ZXIuY29tL2RpZ2l0YWwtcmVzZXQ%3D&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10423">here on the site</a>. Or <a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuYW1hem9uLmNvbS9kcC9CMEY4TE5NMkZSLw%3D%3D&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10423">buy your copy on Amazon.com today</a>. </p> <h3>Past Appearances</h3> <p style="text-align: center;">Rutgers Business School MSDM Speaker: Series: a Conversation with Tim Peter, Author of &quot;Digital Reset&quot; <iframe loading="lazy" width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/QnnxIPb6I_M?si=3SMKpiyU01Vk1kgm" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe></p> <h3>Free Downloads</h3> <p>We have some free downloads for you to help you navigate the current situation, which you can find right here:</p> <ul> <li><a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly9tY3VzZXJjb250ZW50LmNvbS8wOGFiZWMzNjA1MTI3NjdlYzBiZDA0NmU1L2ZpbGVzL2MyZjg4ZTgyLTE2ZWQtOWNlZS1mZTYxLTMzMWI3OTdlZmE1MS9UUEFfQ29udGVudF9EaXN0cmlidXRpb25fQ2hlY2tsaXN0X0Jsb2dfRGlzdHJpYnV0aW9uLnBkZg%3D%3D&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10423"><strong>A Modern Content Marketing Checklist.</strong></a> Want to ensure that each piece of content works for your business? Download our latest checklist to help put your content marketing to work for you.</li> <li><a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly90cGFzc29jLWJsdmI0YmRzdGV1c3VwZC5uZXRkbmEtc3NsLmNvbS93cC1jb250ZW50L3VwbG9hZHMvMjAyMC8wOS9kaWdpdGFsLWVjb21tZXJjZS1tYXR1cml0eS1tYXRyaXgucGRm&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10423"><strong>Digital &amp; E-commerce Maturity Matrix.</strong></a> As a bonus, here&#8217;s a PDF that can help you assess your company&#8217;s digital maturity. You can use this to better understand where your company excels and where its opportunities lie. And, of course, <a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cudGltcGV0ZXIuY29tL2RpZ2l0YWwtbWFya2V0aW5nLWNvbnN1bHRpbmctc2VydmljZXMvYnVzaW5lc3Mtc3RyYXRlZ3ktZGlnaXRhbC10cmFuc2Zvcm1hdGlvbi1jb25zdWx0aW5nLw%3D%3D&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10423">we&#8217;re here to help if you need it</a>. <a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly90cGFzc29jLWJsdmI0YmRzdGV1c3VwZC5uZXRkbmEtc3NsLmNvbS93cC1jb250ZW50L3VwbG9hZHMvMjAyMC8wOS9kaWdpdGFsLWVjb21tZXJjZS1tYXR1cml0eS1tYXRyaXgucGRm&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10423">The Digital &amp; E-commerce Maturity Matrix</a> rates your company&#8217;s effectiveness &mdash; Ad Hoc, Aware, Striving, Driving &mdash; in 6 key areas in digital today, including: <ul> <li>Customer Focus</li> <li>Strategy</li> <li>Technology</li> <li>Operations</li> <li>Culture</li> <li>Data</li> </ul> </li> </ul> <h3>Best of Thinks Out Loud</h3> <p>You can find our “Best of Thinks Out Loud” playlist on Spotify right here:<br /> <iframe style="border-radius:12px" src="https://open.spotify.com/embed/playlist/6IzixZ7sj5b1XdRGVJsLhf?utm_source=generator" width="100%" height="352" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="" allow="autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; fullscreen; picture-in-picture" loading="lazy"></iframe></p> <h3>Subscribe to Thinks Out Loud</h3> <ul> <li><a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly9pdHVuZXMuYXBwbGUuY29tL3VzL3BvZGNhc3QvdGhpbmtzLW91dC1sb3VkLWUtY29tbWVyY2UvaWQ1NjIzMjQxMjA%2FbXQ9Mg%3D%3D&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10423">Subscribe in iTunes</a></li> <li><a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly9nb28uZ2wvYXBwL3BsYXltdXNpYz9pYmk9Y29tLmdvb2dsZS5QbGF5TXVzaWMmYW1wO2lzaT02OTE3OTc5ODcmYW1wO2l1cz1nb29nbGVwbGF5bXVzaWMmYW1wO2xpbms9aHR0cHM6Ly9wbGF5Lmdvb2dsZS5jb20vbXVzaWMvbS9JaDQ0Z2ZycHV3anA1dXZ2dGhjNjJ2Zml5NWE%2FdCUzRFRoaW5rc19PdXRfTG91ZDpfRS1jb21tZXJjZV9hbmRfRGlnaXRhbF9TdHJhdGVneQ%3D%3D&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10423">Subscribe in the Google Play Store</a></li> </ul> <p>Contact information for the podcast: <a href="mailto:[email protected]">[email protected]</a></p> <h3>Past Insights from Tim Peter Thinks</h3> <h3>Technical Details for Thinks Out Loud</h3> <p>Recorded using a <a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly9hbXpuLnRvLzQzbHJBdmY%3D&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10423">Shure SM7B Vocal Dynamic Microphone</a><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=timpeterconsu-20&#038;l=as2&#038;o=1&#038;a=B0000AQRST" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /> and a <a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuYW1hem9uLmNvbS9Gb2N1c3JpdGUtU2NhcmxldHQtQXVkaW8tSW50ZXJmYWNlLVRvb2xzL2RwL0IwN1FTQzkyTkcvcmVmPWFzX2xpX3NzX3RsP2NyaWQ9MjBTMVVaOVQ1MFFaQiYjMDM4O2tleXdvcmRzPWZvY3Vzcml0ZStzY2FybGV0dCs0aTQrM3JkK2dlbiYjMDM4O3FpZD0xNTY3NjM2MDAxJiMwMzg7cz1tdXNpY2FsLWluc3RydW1lbnRzJiMwMzg7c3ByZWZpeD1mb2N1c3JpdGUrc2NhcmxldHQrNGk0LG1pLDEyOCYjMDM4O3NyPTEtNCYjMDM4O2xpbmtDb2RlPWxsMSYjMDM4O3RhZz10aW1wZXRlcmNvbnN1LTIwJiMwMzg7bGlua0lkPTdmMDE5MmUwMjgwZjc0Y2M3NWUwNDA5YmZkNjVlZGM3JiMwMzg7bGFuZ3VhZ2U9ZW5fVVM%3D&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10423">Focusrite Scarlett 4i4 (3rd Gen) USB Audio Interface</a><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=timpeterconsu-20&amp;l=as2&amp;o=1&amp;a=B003VZG550" width="1" height="1"/> into <a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuYW1hem9uLmNvbS9Mb2dpYy1Qcm8tWC9kcC9CMDdLVkMxMUc3L3JlZj1hc19saV9zc190bD9rZXl3b3Jkcz1hcHBsZStsb2dpYytwcm8reCZhbXA7cWlkPTE1NTUzNjI0NzImYW1wO3M9Z2F0ZXdheSZhbXA7c3I9OC0xJmFtcDtsaW5rQ29kZT1sbDEmYW1wO3RhZz10aW1wZXRlcmNvbnN1LTIwJmFtcDtsaW5rSWQ9MWYxNzdlZWViMGYwYWZjZDEwZTQzNGZjNWQwMzYyZWMmYW1wO2xhbmd1YWdlPWVuX1VT&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10423">Logic Pro X</a><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=timpeterconsu-20&amp;l=as2&amp;o=1&amp;a=B000EMIAGA" width="1" height="1"/> for the Mac. </p> <p>Running time: 16m 53s</p> <p>You can <a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cDovL2l0dW5lcy5hcHBsZS5jb20vdXMvcG9kY2FzdC90aW0tcGV0ZXItdGhpbmtzLW91dC1sb3VkL2lkNTYyMzI0MTIw&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10423">subscribe to <strong><em>Thinks Out Loud</em></strong> in iTunes</a>, <a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly9nb28uZ2wvYXBwL3BsYXltdXNpYz9pYmk9Y29tLmdvb2dsZS5QbGF5TXVzaWMmYW1wO2lzaT02OTE3OTc5ODcmYW1wO2l1cz1nb29nbGVwbGF5bXVzaWMmYW1wO2xpbms9aHR0cHM6Ly9wbGF5Lmdvb2dsZS5jb20vbXVzaWMvbS9JaDQ0Z2ZycHV3anA1dXZ2dGhjNjJ2Zml5NWE%2FdCUzRFRoaW5rc19PdXRfTG91ZDpfRS1jb21tZXJjZV9hbmRfRGlnaXRhbF9TdHJhdGVneQ%3D%3D&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10423">the Google Play Store</a>, via <a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cDovL3d3dy5ibHVicnJ5LmNvbS9mZWVkcy90aGlua3NvdXRsb3VkLnhtbA%3D%3D&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10423">our dedicated podcast RSS feed</a> (or <a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cDovL2VlcHVybC5jb20vdGJQNTk%3D&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10423">sign up for our free newsletter</a>). You can also download/listen to the podcast here on <strong><em>Thinks</em></strong> using the player at the top of this page.</p> <h2>Transcript: The Five Things I’m Thankful For This Year</h2> <p>Welcome back to the show. I&#8217;m Tim Peter. </p> <p>What are you thankful for? As anyone who has listened to the show for a while, know Thanksgiving, which is this week in the United States, is my favorite holiday. It gives me time to reflect on what matters in my life. I just think it&#8217;s an amazing opportunity each year to take a moment for gratitude.</p> <p>So I thought I&#8217;d share with you the things that I am most thankful for, the things that matter the most in my life over the last year. </p> <p>But to make it useful to you, I thought I&#8217;d also share some tips on how you might think about where those items can help you in your life. </p> <p>So if you don&#8217;t mind me skipping a ton of setup this time around, I&#8217;m gonna dive right in. This is episode 475 of the Big Show, and these are the five things I&#8217;m thankful for this year. Here we go.</p> <p>For starters, I&#8217;m not going to break this list into work items and personal items that just feels like cheating to me. My work is a huge part of who I am. It matters so much to me, so I don&#8217;t want to give it short shift. I believe less in work life balance &mdash; though that&#8217;s important &mdash; and more in work life integration. How do you make work and life work together properly so you don&#8217;t get too burned out, but you&#8217;re also keeping yourself fresh and sharp? Right. </p> <h3>5. New Social Media Experiences</h3> <p>So with that said, let&#8217;s start with number five on the list, which is new social media experiences. </p> <p>Social has been changing a lot over the last several years, and it&#8217;s changing the way I think about social media now. Not everything I&#8217;m about to tell you are new items or new ways to use social. They&#8217;re also really critical to how I do my work and how I live my life. </p> <p>I don&#8217;t really go on Facebook very much anymore, and Instagram has never really been my jam. I was always a Twitter guy, at least until Elon destroyed it. What I loved about Twitter more than anything else was its lists feature, which allowed me to curate the content and insights I most wanted to see from the people I most wanted to spend my time with. </p> <p>A lot of what I&#8217;ve been focused on this year is how to recreate that experience and the benefits both personal and professional, that I gained from my lists in other places. Turns out I&#8217;ve been able to do that to some degree. </p> <p>The places where I&#8217;m spending my time on social these days include:</p> <ul> <li><strong>Bluesky</strong>, which is sort of like Twitter, but not quite. It&#8217;s a little less commercial, so I spend more time there personally, but it&#8217;s still a pretty good site.</li> <li><strong>Reddit</strong>, which obviously I bet a lot of you use. The easiest way for me to think about Reddit is that it&#8217;s not a single social network. It&#8217;s a whole bunch of them wrapped up in a single place. So it&#8217;s really more about how do you curate Reddit to be the feed that you need to see.</li> <li><strong>YouTube</strong> goes without saying a great place to learn.</li> <li>A biggie for me is <strong>WhatsApp and other group chats</strong> with some super smart friends. More on those folks in a minute.</li> <li><strong>Email newsletters</strong>, and believe it or not, <strong>RSS feeds</strong> &mdash; talk about not new. I&#8217;ve been subscribed to various email newsletters and RSS feeds for years. You can subscribe to ours in the show notes. But the point is I&#8217;ve become far more intentional about how I&#8217;m using these to curate those set of feeds from sites or newsletters that help me learn and grow about in the topics that I care most about.</li> <li>And of course <strong>LinkedIn</strong>. And let&#8217;s be fair, it&#8217;s so easy to bash LinkedIn. It can be filled with pondorous amounts of self-promotion or absurd amounts of fluff. But if you curate your feed well &mdash; and I&#8217;ll link to some tips that I found useful in the show notes &mdash; you can make LinkedIn a far more dynamic, far more interesting and far more fabulous source of continuous learning.</li> </ul> <h3>4. How Easy Digital Makes it to Crate an Environment of Continuous Learning</h3> <p>And that brings me to number four on the list of things I&#8217;m thankful for, which is how easy digital makes it to create an environment of continuous learning. And I&#8217;m gonna spend some time on this one. As marketers, our world is changing rapidly. It can be overwhelming to try and keep up with all of those changes.</p> <p>I&#8217;ve talked about this before in other podcast episodes, and yes, they&#8217;re all linked to in the show notes. The toughest thing that I find is where you should learn from the, the issue isn&#8217;t content. We&#8217;re drowning in that it&#8217;s curriculum. It&#8217;s what is it that I need to know? One of the reasons I teach at Rutgers Business School is because they actually define a curricula.</p> <p>You absolutely can do this too. What I would suggest is that you start with the smartest people you know, the sharpest the most up to date. Take note of who they cite, what they&#8217;re reading. Uh, their LinkedIn feeds will often give you this information. They&#8217;ll tell you about, “I just read this great book, or I just was on this fantastic podcast or learned from this specific thing.”</p> <p>You can even search for their name by adding the terms “book recommendations” or “top five books” to see other sources that inspired them. And check their websites to see if they&#8217;ve shared slides from talks they&#8217;ve given her or conference keynotes. The structures of those presentations often offers an amazing curriculum of things you can learn.</p> <p>If they have a blog or a podcast, go back and look at some of their earliest content. Usually the first, oh, 10 or 20 posts or so can show you where their focus lies, what genuinely matters to them. </p> <p>You can also do this in a more robust way. You can identify five to seven key concepts that really matter in whatever topic you wanna know about. You know, in marketing, these might include: </p> <ul> <li>Customer behaviors</li> <li>SEO/GEO/Answer Engine Optimization</li> <li>CRM</li> <li>Content marketing</li> <li>Leadership</li> <li>How AI is shaping any or all of these</li> </ul> <p>For each of the concepts that you discover, find the best single explanation you can find from three different respected experts. You know, use a Google search for this. Don&#8217;t just go to AI for this, and I&#8217;m going explain why in a minute. Keep track of what you&#8217;re finding. Use a spreadsheet or use a tool to map the different ideas into categories like foundation, application and critique to help you sort out the information and stay up to date.</p> <p>If you do this regularly and repeatedly, this will help you build a dynamic curriculum from a variety of perspectives that ensures you&#8217;re not just learning <em>what someone knows</em>, but <em>how their knowledge is constructed, how it&#8217;s applied, how it&#8217;s evolving</em>. </p> <p>I said I&#8217;d come back to AI in a moment. You can absolutely use tools such as ChatGPT, or Gemini, or Claude, or Perplexity to help build some of the curriculum and direct you to useful resources.</p> <p>But &mdash; and I cannot emphasize this enough &mdash; do not use AI to tell you the answers. Don&#8217;t do it. </p> <p>Research shows that for the things you really want to learn, it&#8217;s far more important that you do the work yourself. As Shiri Melumad wrote on The Conversation, they did research on this, and as Shiri Melumad wrote about this research, </p> <blockquote> <p>“The data revealed a consistent pattern. People who learned about a topic through a large language model versus web search felt that they learned less, invested, less effort in subsequently writing their advice, and ultimately wrote advice that was shorter, less factual, and more generic.” </p> </blockquote> <p>The quote continues, </p> <blockquote> <p>“In turn, when this advice was presented to an independent sample of readers who were unaware of which tool had been used to learn about the topic, they found the advice to be less informative, less helpful, and they were less likely to adopt it.”</p> </blockquote> <p>When the learner used a LLM, critically, the researchers quote “found these differences to be robust across a variety of contexts.” </p> <p>Now I&#8217;m bullish on the ways AI can help you learn. The key language here though, is “<em>help you</em>” not “<em>tell you</em>.” </p> <p>Imagine if you owned a robot and asked it to lift weights or do aerobic exercises for you. I mean, sure, it could absolutely pick up heavier loads and it can exercise faster and longer. But your muscles wouldn&#8217;t improve at all. Quite the opposite. You would atrophy, your muscles would shrink. The same is true for your brain. If you are not doing the work yourself, you&#8217;re not learning. </p> <h3>3. Travel</h3> <p>One of my favorite ways to do the work, by the way, to do the learning is number three on my countdown, and that is travel.</p> <p>I learn more while traveling than almost anything else I do. Why? For starters, travel exposes me to new places. I do my best to learn a little bit about the history or something cool about everywhere I go, either by reading about it a little bit or by asking folks I run into along the way. That second point is the key one for me and why it matters from a marketing perspective.</p> <p>Quite simply, whenever I&#8217;m traveling, I&#8217;m talking with people throughout the journey. Those include the people I&#8217;m traveling to see, obviously. </p> <p>I also usually have a chance to talk at least for a couple of minutes with Lyft drivers or hotel staff or waitstaff at restaurants, and occasionally, not too often these days, but occasionally random folks on planes or in airports.</p> <p>I want to be clear, I&#8217;m super respectful when people are reading or wearing headphones or doing their very best to avoid eye contact with some person on a plane, right? Nobody wants to be <em>that guy</em> who kept trying to start a conversation and wouldn&#8217;t take the hint. </p> <p>I also try to keep myself aware of the people around me, and I&#8217;m absolutely happy to have a brief conversation if somebody engages and the opportunity arises.</p> <p>Our job as marketers is to make our customers lives better, and we can&#8217;t do that if we don&#8217;t understand people. So we need to make at least a little effort to talk to people from time to time in the wild, in the real world, not just in some controlled focus group or using, say, synthetic audiences on artificial intelligence. Those have their place too. </p> <p>So much comes from just talking to people when the opportunity presents itself. </p> <p>Speaking of people. People represent both the number two and number one items on my thankful list this year, and frankly most years.</p> <h3>2. Clients and team</h3> <p>At number two, are my clients and my team. Obviously, I love these folks.</p> <p>I&#8217;m super thankful, as you might imagine, for the financial success that comes from having a robust client roster and from having a team that helps me keep those clients happy. </p> <p>That&#8217;s not the part I like most though, weirdly. Instead, it&#8217;s that my clients give me the opportunity to do interesting work. They, that work helps me learn and grow. Sensing a theme here” </p> <p>Even more important than the learning are the people themselves. There is nothing more fulfilling than seeing the work that I do and that the team does help our clients succeed, help them learn and grow, help their businesses grow. It is deeply, deeply gratifying and it&#8217;s the main reason that I love the work that I do.</p> <p>I am so lucky to get to do this work, and my clients and my team are the reason that is. </p> <h3>1. Friends and Family</h3> <p>Number one on my thankful list, and I kind of have to separate this out, are my friends and family. To be fair, many clients and many folks on my team are part of my group of friends and family. I&#8217;m thrilled that some clients of mine are some of my best friends too. </p> <p>I could spend hours talking about how lucky I am to be surrounded by the people in my life. In the interest of your time, I&#8217;m not gonna do that today. It&#8217;s probably not why you listen to the show. I just want to say that I&#8217;m so deeply grateful for the people in my life and what they bring to me every day in terms of lifting me up and carrying me.</p> <p>What I am going to do is encourage you to take a minute after you listen to this episode and let the people that matter to you know how much they mean to you. Believe me, what I say, someday you&#8217;ll be glad you did. </p> <h3>Your Support</h3> <p>There is one last item on my gratitude list. That is that I&#8217;m so thankful for your support.</p> <p>I&#8217;ve said many times that I wouldn&#8217;t do this show or send out the newsletter or have written my book if it wasn&#8217;t for you. So thank you so much for all of your support this year and every year. It means the world to me. </p> <p>I&#8217;m going to wrap up this show quickly this week simply by reminding you that you can find the show notes for this episode at <a class="autolink" href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly90aW1wZXRlci5jb20vcG9kY2FzdA%3D%3D&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10423">timpeter.com/podcast</a>. Again, that&#8217;s tim <a class="autolink" href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly9wZXRlci5jb20vcG9kY2FzdA%3D%3D&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10423">peter.com/podcast</a>. Just look for episode 475. And take a minute to like share and subscribe to on wherever you get your favorite podcasts. </p> <p>I&#8217;ll be back next week with an all new episode of the podcast for you, but as I said many times throughout this show, thank you so much for listening.</p> <p>Thank you so much for giving me this opportunity to share with you. Until next time, please be well Be safe and be excellent to each other. I&#8217;ll see you soon.</p> <img src="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-post-id=10423" width="1" height="1" style="display: none;" /><p>The post <a href="https://timpeter.com/blog/thankful-this-year-2025-episode-475/">The Five Things I’m Thankful For This Year (Episode 475)</a> appeared first on <a href="https://timpeter.com">Tim Peter &amp; Associates</a>.</p>
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16 MIN
What ‘The Brand Is the Prompt’ Really Means for Your Business (Episode 474)
NOV 21, 2025
What ‘The Brand Is the Prompt’ Really Means for Your Business (Episode 474)
<a href="https://timpeter.com/blog/ai-marketing-brand-prompt/" title="What ‘The Brand Is the Prompt’ Really Means for Your Business (Episode 474)" rel="nofollow"><img width="768" height="499" src="https://timpeter.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/make-customers-lives-better-768x499.png" class="webfeedsFeaturedVisual wp-post-image" alt="Smiling couple using their mobile phone to demonstrate the idea of customers asking AI to find your business by name: &quot;the brand is the prompt.&quot;" style="display: block; margin: auto; margin-bottom: 5px;max-width: 100%;" link_thumbnail="1" decoding="async" loading="lazy" srcset="https://timpeter.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/make-customers-lives-better-768x499.png 768w, https://timpeter.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/make-customers-lives-better-300x195.png 300w, https://timpeter.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/make-customers-lives-better.png 1000w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px" /></a><p>I’ve been talking about the idea of “the brand is the prompt” for a while now. But I think now would be helpful to dive into what that means in a lot more detail. Why? Because too many folks seem to think that AI agents and answer engines will always come between you and your customer. </p> <p>I don’t believe that has to be true. </p> <p>I’ve studied how we can build brands beyond Big Tech for over 20 years. That’s the core of what <a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly90aW1wZXRlci5jb20vZGlnaXRhbC1yZXNldC8%3D&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10417"><em>Digital Reset</em></a> is all about. And while AI is different, I believe that the only way that AI will always get between us and our customers is if we let it. </p> <p>So, what does “the brand is the prompt” really mean for your business? That’s what this episode of the podcast is all about. </p> <p>Here are the show notes for you. </p> <h2>What ‘The Brand Is the Prompt’ Really Means for Your Business &mdash; Headlines and Show Notes</h2> <h3>Show Notes and Links</h3> <ul> <li>Mark Schaefer on <a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cubGlua2VkaW4uY29tL3B1bHNlL21vc3QtaW1wb3J0YW50LXNvZnQtc2tpbGwtYWktZXJhLW1hcmstc2NoYWVmZXItbm5lc2UvP3RyYWNraW5nSWQ9d2wlMkZDb0RqTVIlMkZ1eUxxN2o4WEZYN0ElM0QlM0Q%3D&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10417">the most important &quot;soft skill&quot; in the AI Era</a> where he talks about Amazon limiting the number of books that a person can self-publish to three per day.</li> <li><a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly90aW1wZXRlci5jb20vYmxvZy9icmFuZC1wcm9tcHQtYWkv&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10417">The Brand is the Prompt (Thinks Out Loud 465)</a></li> <li>My original post about <a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cubGlua2VkaW4uY29tL3Bvc3RzL3RpbXBldGVyX21hcmtldGluZ3N0cmF0ZWd5LW1hcmtldGluZ2NvbnN1bHRpbmctYWN0aXZpdHktNzMzNjM4NDcwNzI1MDU2MTAyNi05SGRkLw%3D%3D&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10417">“The Brand is the Prompt” on LinkedIn</a></li> <li><a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly90aW1wZXRlci5jb20vYmxvZy9hZ2UtYWktYnJhbmQtaXNudC1ldmVyeXRoaW5nLW9ubHktdGhpbmcv&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10417">In the Age of AI, Brand Isn’t Everything. It’s the Only Thing (Episode 472)</a></li> <li><a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly90aW1wZXRlci5jb20vYmxvZy9jaGFncHQtYXBwcy1wb2RjYXN0LTQ3MS8%3D&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10417">Are ChatGPT’s Apps Good for Your Business? (Episode 471)</a></li> <li><a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly90aW1wZXRlci5jb20vYmxvZy9hZ2VudGljLWFpLWtpbGwtY29udGVudC1tYXJrZXRpbmcv&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10417">Will Agentic AI Kill Your Content Marketing? (Episode 470)</a></li> <li><a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly90aW1wZXRlci5jb20vYmxvZy9uZXctc2VvLXBvZGNhc3QtZXBpc29kZS00Njkv&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10417">The New SEO? (Episode 469)</a></li> <li><a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly90aW1wZXRlci5jb20vYmxvZy9haS1hbmQtemVyby1jbGljay1zZWFyY2gtdGhlLXJlYWwtc3RvcnktZXBpc29kZS00Njcv&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10417">AI and Zero-Click Search: The Real Story (Episode 467)</a></li> </ul> <h3>Buy the Book &mdash; Digital Reset: Driving Marketing and Customer Acquisition Beyond Big Tech</h3> <p>Tim Peter has written a new book called <em><a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuYW1hem9uLmNvbS9kcC9CMEY4TE5NMkZSLw%3D%3D&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10417">Digital Reset: Driving Marketing Beyond Big Tech</a></em>. You can learn more about it <a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cudGltcGV0ZXIuY29tL2RpZ2l0YWwtcmVzZXQ%3D&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10417">here on the site</a>. Or <a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuYW1hem9uLmNvbS9kcC9CMEY4TE5NMkZSLw%3D%3D&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10417">buy your copy on Amazon.com today</a>. </p> <h3>Past Appearances</h3> <p style="text-align: center;">Rutgers Business School MSDM Speaker: Series: a Conversation with Tim Peter, Author of &quot;Digital Reset&quot; <iframe loading="lazy" width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/QnnxIPb6I_M?si=3SMKpiyU01Vk1kgm" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe></p> <h3>Free Downloads</h3> <p>We have some free downloads for you to help you navigate the current situation, which you can find right here:</p> <ul> <li><a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly9tY3VzZXJjb250ZW50LmNvbS8wOGFiZWMzNjA1MTI3NjdlYzBiZDA0NmU1L2ZpbGVzL2MyZjg4ZTgyLTE2ZWQtOWNlZS1mZTYxLTMzMWI3OTdlZmE1MS9UUEFfQ29udGVudF9EaXN0cmlidXRpb25fQ2hlY2tsaXN0X0Jsb2dfRGlzdHJpYnV0aW9uLnBkZg%3D%3D&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10417"><strong>A Modern Content Marketing Checklist.</strong></a> Want to ensure that each piece of content works for your business? Download our latest checklist to help put your content marketing to work for you.</li> <li><a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly90cGFzc29jLWJsdmI0YmRzdGV1c3VwZC5uZXRkbmEtc3NsLmNvbS93cC1jb250ZW50L3VwbG9hZHMvMjAyMC8wOS9kaWdpdGFsLWVjb21tZXJjZS1tYXR1cml0eS1tYXRyaXgucGRm&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10417"><strong>Digital &amp; E-commerce Maturity Matrix.</strong></a> As a bonus, here&#8217;s a PDF that can help you assess your company&#8217;s digital maturity. You can use this to better understand where your company excels and where its opportunities lie. And, of course, <a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cudGltcGV0ZXIuY29tL2RpZ2l0YWwtbWFya2V0aW5nLWNvbnN1bHRpbmctc2VydmljZXMvYnVzaW5lc3Mtc3RyYXRlZ3ktZGlnaXRhbC10cmFuc2Zvcm1hdGlvbi1jb25zdWx0aW5nLw%3D%3D&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10417">we&#8217;re here to help if you need it</a>. <a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly90cGFzc29jLWJsdmI0YmRzdGV1c3VwZC5uZXRkbmEtc3NsLmNvbS93cC1jb250ZW50L3VwbG9hZHMvMjAyMC8wOS9kaWdpdGFsLWVjb21tZXJjZS1tYXR1cml0eS1tYXRyaXgucGRm&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10417">The Digital &amp; E-commerce Maturity Matrix</a> rates your company&#8217;s effectiveness &mdash; Ad Hoc, Aware, Striving, Driving &mdash; in 6 key areas in digital today, including: <ul> <li>Customer Focus</li> <li>Strategy</li> <li>Technology</li> <li>Operations</li> <li>Culture</li> <li>Data</li> </ul> </li> </ul> <h3>Best of Thinks Out Loud</h3> <p>You can find our “Best of Thinks Out Loud” playlist on Spotify right here:<br /> <iframe style="border-radius:12px" src="https://open.spotify.com/embed/playlist/6IzixZ7sj5b1XdRGVJsLhf?utm_source=generator" width="100%" height="352" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="" allow="autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; fullscreen; picture-in-picture" loading="lazy"></iframe></p> <h3>Subscribe to Thinks Out Loud</h3> <ul> <li><a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly9pdHVuZXMuYXBwbGUuY29tL3VzL3BvZGNhc3QvdGhpbmtzLW91dC1sb3VkLWUtY29tbWVyY2UvaWQ1NjIzMjQxMjA%2FbXQ9Mg%3D%3D&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10417">Subscribe in iTunes</a></li> <li><a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly9nb28uZ2wvYXBwL3BsYXltdXNpYz9pYmk9Y29tLmdvb2dsZS5QbGF5TXVzaWMmYW1wO2lzaT02OTE3OTc5ODcmYW1wO2l1cz1nb29nbGVwbGF5bXVzaWMmYW1wO2xpbms9aHR0cHM6Ly9wbGF5Lmdvb2dsZS5jb20vbXVzaWMvbS9JaDQ0Z2ZycHV3anA1dXZ2dGhjNjJ2Zml5NWE%2FdCUzRFRoaW5rc19PdXRfTG91ZDpfRS1jb21tZXJjZV9hbmRfRGlnaXRhbF9TdHJhdGVneQ%3D%3D&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10417">Subscribe in the Google Play Store</a></li> </ul> <p>Contact information for the podcast: <a href="mailto:[email protected]">[email protected]</a></p> <h3>Past Insights from Tim Peter Thinks</h3> <h3>Technical Details for Thinks Out Loud</h3> <p>Recorded using a <a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly9hbXpuLnRvLzQzbHJBdmY%3D&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10417">Shure SM7B Vocal Dynamic Microphone</a><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=timpeterconsu-20&#038;l=as2&#038;o=1&#038;a=B0000AQRST" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /> and a <a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuYW1hem9uLmNvbS9Gb2N1c3JpdGUtU2NhcmxldHQtQXVkaW8tSW50ZXJmYWNlLVRvb2xzL2RwL0IwN1FTQzkyTkcvcmVmPWFzX2xpX3NzX3RsP2NyaWQ9MjBTMVVaOVQ1MFFaQiYjMDM4O2tleXdvcmRzPWZvY3Vzcml0ZStzY2FybGV0dCs0aTQrM3JkK2dlbiYjMDM4O3FpZD0xNTY3NjM2MDAxJiMwMzg7cz1tdXNpY2FsLWluc3RydW1lbnRzJiMwMzg7c3ByZWZpeD1mb2N1c3JpdGUrc2NhcmxldHQrNGk0LG1pLDEyOCYjMDM4O3NyPTEtNCYjMDM4O2xpbmtDb2RlPWxsMSYjMDM4O3RhZz10aW1wZXRlcmNvbnN1LTIwJiMwMzg7bGlua0lkPTdmMDE5MmUwMjgwZjc0Y2M3NWUwNDA5YmZkNjVlZGM3JiMwMzg7bGFuZ3VhZ2U9ZW5fVVM%3D&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10417">Focusrite Scarlett 4i4 (3rd Gen) USB Audio Interface</a><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=timpeterconsu-20&amp;l=as2&amp;o=1&amp;a=B003VZG550" width="1" height="1"/> into <a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuYW1hem9uLmNvbS9Mb2dpYy1Qcm8tWC9kcC9CMDdLVkMxMUc3L3JlZj1hc19saV9zc190bD9rZXl3b3Jkcz1hcHBsZStsb2dpYytwcm8reCZhbXA7cWlkPTE1NTUzNjI0NzImYW1wO3M9Z2F0ZXdheSZhbXA7c3I9OC0xJmFtcDtsaW5rQ29kZT1sbDEmYW1wO3RhZz10aW1wZXRlcmNvbnN1LTIwJmFtcDtsaW5rSWQ9MWYxNzdlZWViMGYwYWZjZDEwZTQzNGZjNWQwMzYyZWMmYW1wO2xhbmd1YWdlPWVuX1VT&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10417">Logic Pro X</a><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=timpeterconsu-20&amp;l=as2&amp;o=1&amp;a=B000EMIAGA" width="1" height="1"/> for the Mac. </p> <p>Running time: 20m 10s</p> <p>You can <a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cDovL2l0dW5lcy5hcHBsZS5jb20vdXMvcG9kY2FzdC90aW0tcGV0ZXItdGhpbmtzLW91dC1sb3VkL2lkNTYyMzI0MTIw&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10417">subscribe to <strong><em>Thinks Out Loud</em></strong> in iTunes</a>, <a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly9nb28uZ2wvYXBwL3BsYXltdXNpYz9pYmk9Y29tLmdvb2dsZS5QbGF5TXVzaWMmYW1wO2lzaT02OTE3OTc5ODcmYW1wO2l1cz1nb29nbGVwbGF5bXVzaWMmYW1wO2xpbms9aHR0cHM6Ly9wbGF5Lmdvb2dsZS5jb20vbXVzaWMvbS9JaDQ0Z2ZycHV3anA1dXZ2dGhjNjJ2Zml5NWE%2FdCUzRFRoaW5rc19PdXRfTG91ZDpfRS1jb21tZXJjZV9hbmRfRGlnaXRhbF9TdHJhdGVneQ%3D%3D&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10417">the Google Play Store</a>, via <a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cDovL3d3dy5ibHVicnJ5LmNvbS9mZWVkcy90aGlua3NvdXRsb3VkLnhtbA%3D%3D&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10417">our dedicated podcast RSS feed</a> (or <a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cDovL2VlcHVybC5jb20vdGJQNTk%3D&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10417">sign up for our free newsletter</a>). You can also download/listen to the podcast here on <strong><em>Thinks</em></strong> using the player at the top of this page.</p> <h2>Transcript: What ‘The Brand Is the Prompt’ Really Means for Your Business</h2> <p>Welcome back to the show. I&#8217;ve been talking a fair bit about this idea that the brand is the prompt as part of your company&#8217;s digital reset. Today, I want to go deeper on what this means and why it&#8217;s absolutely critical for the future of your brand and your business. I am completely serious. See this face? See my face? This is my serious face. My friend, Mark Schaefer gave an unbelievable stat on LinkedIn the other day that I think everyone should know. Here&#8217;s what he said in full: &quot;Amazon has limited the number of books that a person can self-publish to three per day.&quot; </p> <p>Three books per day. I’m an author. I wrote a book. Imagine how tough it is for my book to be seen when a single “AI author” — and I’m using that term loosely — focused on my topic can “create” — again, LOOSELY — then upload roughly 1,100 books per year. And that&#8217;s only one person. If a thousand people do this, that&#8217;s essentially 1.1 million books every single year. Now&#8230;</p> <p>This isn&#8217;t about books only. Extrapolate that to every piece of content that you create for your brand: </p> <ul> <li>Every webpage</li> <li>Every blog post</li> <li>Every social media post</li> <li>Every email</li> <li>Every SMS.</li> </ul> <p>And imagine that individuals and organizations that might compete with you could use AI to churn out three versions or more of those every day.</p> <p>And that&#8217;s just the good actors, the good guys. Imagine the bad guys. Your marketing, as you know it, at least in theory, is doomed. </p> <p>Or is it? I don&#8217;t think so. And I believe that the brand is the prompt will save you. </p> <p>That&#8217;s why I think it&#8217;s time to look more deeply into the brand is the prompt and what it really means for your digital reset, your brand and ultimately your business. </p> <p>I&#8217;m Tim Peter. This is episode 474 of The Big Show. Let&#8217;s dive in. </p> <p>AI slop is here today. exists. Mark Schaefer&#8217;s story about Amazon limiting the number of books that a person can self-publish to three per day illustrates the point perfectly. Almost all of those books are, to use a technical term, crap. They&#8217;re just absolute garbage. But they&#8217;re garbage that every decent quality book has to compete against just to be seen. So you&#8217;d think that&#8217;d be the doom, that&#8217;d be the end of books, right? </p> <p>If you look at Amazon&#8217;s best-selling book list, though, you won&#8217;t see a whole lot of AI slop. You&#8217;ll see well-known, well-regarded books by authors we&#8217;ve all come to know and trust. Hmm. That sounds important, don&#8217;t you think? These are authors who&#8217;ve built reputations good enough that their readers ask for them by name. </p> <p>Cool. Keep that in mind. </p> <p>Now let&#8217;s shift this discussion to AI answer engines and agents. We know that technology shapes customer behavior. Customers are starting to use AI agents and AI answer engines differently than the way they&#8217;ve traditionally used search engines. They&#8217;re having more robust, more detailed, more personal, more intimate conversations than simply a search query. </p> <p>As a result, lots of folks are focused on teaching you how to show up when your potential customers have these conversations with their favorite AI tool. And that&#8217;s a good thing, by the way. Sometimes I&#8217;m one of those folks. You should 100% do the work to show up in those contexts. No two ways about it. What&#8217;s also true, though, is that we need to flip this idea on its head. Because customer behavior also shapes the technology. </p> <p>For instance, tech that doesn&#8217;t meet customer expectations doesn&#8217;t get adopted ever. History is littered with great technology that failed in the marketplace because it didn&#8217;t meet its customers&#8217; needs. </p> <p>Supposedly, Betamax was a better videotape format than VHS, which won in the marketplace. AOL got everyone on the internet and then promptly vanished. Blackberry was a smartphone before anyone called them that. MySpace was social media before Facebook came along. Google Glass was smart glasses before Ray-Ban&#8217;s Meta AI glasses. And, you we&#8217;re gonna have to see if those will stick around. </p> <p>But you see the point. We know the ideas work because most of those technology concepts still exist. We still have video, we still have the internet, we still have smartphones, we still have social media&mdash;for better or worse&mdash;and we&#8217;re seeing an increasing number of smart wearable devices in day-to-day lives. Even if the Ray-Ban Meta partnership ultimately isn&#8217;t the winner, I strongly suspect that the format is going to live on and probably for a long time to come. </p> <p>The technologies, the tools that live on are the ones we know by name. YouTube, Verizon, and AT&amp;T, iPhone and Android and Samsung, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn. These brands are the brands we know and trust&mdash;or okay, more or less trust&mdash;to help us meet our needs.</p> <p>You may not know this, but were you aware that one of the top searches on Google is YouTube? Another is Facebook. Another is Amazon. Customers aren&#8217;t just going to those websites, they&#8217;re &quot;searching&quot; by typing in a name they already know. They&#8217;re not asking, &quot;Where should I look for video? Where should I look for my social network?&quot; They&#8217;re telling Google, &quot;Take me to the place I already know.&quot; These services have built reputations that are good enough that their users, their customers, ask for them by name. </p> <p>Again, that&#8217;s the key lesson. I&#8217;m convinced that AI is going to work, will work the same way because humans have needs. </p> <p>We talk about agents getting between our businesses and our customers as though it&#8217;s inevitable. Bullshit. I don&#8217;t believe it&#8217;s inevitable. I believe it&#8217;s only inevitable if we let it happen. Instead, we have to make sure that our customers know and care about us enough to ask for us by name. There&#8217;s this belief that the tools will provide the perfect, true, one and only answer that meets customer needs every time. </p> <p>How exactly do you think that&#8217;s going to happen?</p> <p>I said a couple of minutes ago that customer behavior also shapes the technology. That happens first. I&#8217;m convinced that will happen here. </p> <p>An AI answer engine or agent cannot give you the perfect, true, one and only answer until it knows what&#8217;s perfect and true for your customer. The AI is going to have to learn. </p> <p>Sometimes it will learn by inference. It will watch customer behaviors, for instance, in an AI-powered browser like Atlas, Comet, or Chrome, and it will figure out what your customer likes best. Sometimes its learning will be explicit. It will ask, &quot;do you like option A or do you like option B?&quot; </p> <p>But until it learns, it can&#8217;t possibly recommend the perfect, true, one and only answer. Our job is to get our customers to teach their AI tools that our brands are the ones that they want. And the time to do that is right now before our customers teach AIs to recommend someone else.</p> <p>It&#8217;s easy when we do this to focus on what our business needs first. That&#8217;s why we&#8217;re putting so much attention into things like GEO. And we should do that. We also have to pay attention, we must pay attention to what our customers need and find the intersections between their needs and our own. </p> <p>The Venn diagram of those two needs will never be a perfect circle. For starters, customers will almost always want to pay less than you want to charge. The point remains that the more you can make that Venn diagram overlap, the better a chance you have of getting customers to ask for you by name. </p> <p>I&#8217;m going to give you an example from the hospitality industry where I&#8217;ve done lots of work over the years. The first time guests travel somewhere new, they choose hotels for a combination of four reasons:</p> <ul> <li>How close is the hotel to whatever else they need? We call this <strong>proximity</strong>.</li> <li>They care about how well the hotel meets or exceeds their quality standards, you know, <strong>quality</strong>.</li> <li>They care how much the hotel charges for the stay, the <strong>price</strong>.</li> <li>And they care whether the hotel offers amenities that the guest needs during their particular stay. You know, it could be a fitness center, it could be a pool, it could be restaurants, what have you. Doesn&#8217;t matter. Those are the <strong>qualities</strong> that matter.</li> </ul> <p>Those four attributes&mdash;price, proximity, quality, qualities&mdash;make up our P&#8217;s&amp;Q&#8217;s model. We&#8217;ve used this for years. </p> <p>There is a fifth attribute that I don&#8217;t talk about as much, which is brand. Brand absolutely plays a key role in many cases, and especially for the next time a guest chooses a hotel in the same city or town, or the same brand in a different city or town. A well-known, well-regarded brand provides an easy short-cut to understand the P&#8217;s&amp;Q&#8217;s that matter to me as a traveler. Guests say &quot;I really liked the Four Seasons when I stayed in Orlando. I&#8217;ll probably like the one in Chicago, too.&quot; That&#8217;s the reason why so many of the hotels in the U.S. carry a well-known, franchised brand like Marriott or Hilton or Hyatt or Wyndham or whomever. It makes it easy for someone who wants to open a hotel to tell guests whether or not the hotel is any good without them having to do a whole bunch of other work first. </p> <p>In any case, hotels build brand equity first by being a good fit for their guests, P&#8217;s&amp;Q&#8217;s. The best hotels then reinforce that by offering amazing, memorable experiences. As you&#8217;ve heard me say, customer experience is queen. That&#8217;s kind of where that came from.</p> <p>Many hotels also offer loyalty or reward points to keep you coming back. And those are particularly important when your experience isn&#8217;t as distinct, it isn&#8217;t as differentiated. If I can&#8217;t make you remember the place, I can at least remind you that you&#8217;ll get paid for staying with me. The point is that great experiences that guests remember help guests remember the hotel and ask for it by name the next time they&#8217;re heading to that town.</p> <p>Other businesses and other industries have their own versions of the P&#8217;s&amp;Q&#8217;s. They&#8217;re not going to be exactly the same. But, know, Jeff Bezos famously built Amazon by always providing &quot;broad selection, fast shipping, and low prices.&quot; Walmart did something similar in the days before e-commerce without having to worry about the fast shipping part. Nordstrom&#8217;s famously focused on remarkable customer service for every single shopper, every single time. FedEx was built on fast delivery. Apple focused all their energies on what they called &quot;insanely great products.&quot; Google provided the best search results. And Facebook originally was the one place where all your friends and family were online. You see the same pattern again and again.</p> <p>And if you notice, these are all brands that we know and love. Well, okay&#8230; brands we know. </p> <p>Besides that, what do these brands all have in common? Well, they&#8217;re all different; you have to be different. They all have values and you have to have values, authentic values. To be fair, most companies, most people aren&#8217;t that authentic. They&#8217;re presenting &quot;processed cheese authenticity,&quot; a version of themselves designed for mass public consumption. Unless folks and brands are willing to stand apart and take the risks associated with that stance, they&#8217;re going to drown in the flood of AI slop. </p> <p>These brands that we know don&#8217;t just meet the P&#8217;s&amp;Q&#8217;s. They&#8217;re great at something. Customer experience, product quality, executing flawlessly every time. They&#8217;re memorable. They&#8217;re different. They stand apart from their competitors. They&#8217;re authentically who they are. </p> <p>My friend, Mark Schaefer, calls this practice of standing apart this way, being audacious. He talked about this in his book <em>Audacious</em>. The title alone models the behavior. He could have called the book &quot;Different.&quot; He could have called it &quot;Distinct.&quot; He could have called it &quot;Authentic.&quot; Because you do need to be different, distinct, and authentic. </p> <p>But <em>Audacious</em>? That&#8217;s literally putting it out there. That is drawing a line in the sand and saying this is what matters. </p> <p>By the way doing this strategy isn&#8217;t just coming from me. Google has said, Danny Sullivan at Google has said, &quot;are you doing the things that are useful for human beings? That&#8217;s what we want to reward.&quot; Perplexity is, and this is a quote, &quot;advising marketers that AI search will shift budgets toward old fashioned brand marketing.&quot; </p> <p>Focus on your customers. Build a brand that customers love. How about that?</p> <p>I don&#8217;t think people like Mark have to worry about getting lost behind AI slop. I don&#8217;t think the great hotels I work with do either. I don&#8217;t think Nordstrom&#8217;s or Apple or BMW or Fender or a host of amazing brands have that concern. They know that their customers will ask for them by name. </p> <p>Their brands are the prompt.</p> <p>And that&#8217;s really the key. That&#8217;s what you have to do. </p> <p>Pick one area to be great at: </p> <ul> <li><strong>Product quality</strong>. Be the best product in your space or category.</li> <li><strong>Customer experience</strong>. Offer exceptional customer experience every time to every customer.</li> <li><strong>Flawless execution</strong>. Deliver fast, on time, and at a reasonable price every time.</li> </ul> <p>Then focus your content and your customer experience on reinforcing that point every chance you get. Ask your customers to connect with you directly through your email, your CRM, what have you, so you can talk directly with them and bypass AI and bypass Big Tech overall. That&#8217;s how you teach customers to ask for you by name. That&#8217;s how you get them to teach their AI agents that you&#8217;re the one they want. That&#8217;s what &quot;the brand is the prompt&quot; means. And that&#8217;s why it&#8217;s so critical for your digital reset, your brand and your business long term.</p> <p>It&#8217;s not just &quot;<em>the</em> brand is the prompt.&quot; It&#8217;s &quot;<em>your</em> brand is the prompt.&quot; When your customers do that, it won&#8217;t matter whether they use traditional search, AI, or whatever comes next, because they&#8217;ll always end up coming to you.</p> <h2>Show Wrap-Up and Credits</h2> <p>Now looking at the clock on the wall, we are out of time for this week. I&#8217;m willing to bet that you know someone who would benefit from what we&#8217;ve talked about today. Are you thinking of someone? Why not send them a link to the episode and let them know what you think too. Keep the conversation going. </p> <p>You can also find the show notes for this episode, episode 474, and an archive of all of our past <a class="autolink" href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly9lcGlzb2Rlcy5ieQ%3D%3D&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10417">episodes.by</a> going to <a class="autolink" href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly90aW1wZXRlci5jb20vcG9kY2FzdA%3D%3D&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10417">timpeter.com/podcast</a>. Again, that&#8217;s <a class="autolink" href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly90aW1wZXRlci5jb20vcG9kY2FzdA%3D%3D&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10417">timpeter.com/podcast</a>. </p> <p>And of course, be sure to like and subscribe wherever you get your favorite podcasts. </p> <p>If you&#8217;re looking for something to read about this topic in more detail, I&#8217;d love to suggest my book, <a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuYW1hem9uLmNvbS9EaWdpdGFsLVJlc2V0LU1hcmtldGluZy1DdXN0b21lci1BY3F1aXNpdGlvbi1lYm9vay9kcC9CMEY4S0JKMlpXIzp%2BOnRleHQ9VGlt&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10417"s%20new%20book%20Digital%20Reset,Big%20Tech%20are%20gatekeepers"><em>Digital Reset: Driving Marketing and Customer Acquisition Beyond Big Tech</em></a>, that you can find on <a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuYW1hem9uLmNvbS9EaWdpdGFsLVJlc2V0LU1hcmtldGluZy1DdXN0b21lci1BY3F1aXNpdGlvbi1lYm9vay9kcC9CMEY4S0JKMlpXIzp%2BOnRleHQ9VGlt&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10417"s%20new%20book%20Digital%20Reset,Big%20Tech%20are%20gatekeepers">Amazon.com</a> or <a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly9ib29rc2hvcC5vcmcvcC9ib29rcy9kaWdpdGFsLXJlc2V0LWRyaXZpbmctbWFya2V0aW5nLWFuZC1jdXN0b21lci1hY3F1aXNpdGlvbi1iZXlvbmQtYmlnLXRlY2gtdGltLXBldGVyL2MzYWM0M2YyZDkwNzlhMGY%2FZWFuPTk3OTgyMTg2ODE1ODYmYW1wO25leHQ9dCZhbXA7bmV4dD10&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10417">Bookshop.org</a>. Please pick up a copy and let me know what you think. I&#8217;d genuinely appreciate it. </p> <p>Finally, I just want to say thanks so much for listening. This show would not happen without you. We&#8217;ll be back with a new episode next week. Until then, please be well, be safe, and as the saying goes, be excellent to each other. We&#8217;ll see you soon.</p> <img src="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-post-id=10417" width="1" height="1" style="display: none;" /><p>The post <a href="https://timpeter.com/blog/ai-marketing-brand-prompt/">What ‘The Brand Is the Prompt’ Really Means for Your Business (Episode 474)</a> appeared first on <a href="https://timpeter.com">Tim Peter &amp; Associates</a>.</p>
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20 MIN
Revisiting Will Agentic AI Kill Your Content Marketing? (Podcast)
NOV 15, 2025
Revisiting Will Agentic AI Kill Your Content Marketing? (Podcast)
<a href="https://timpeter.com/blog/revisit-agentic-ai-content-marketing/" title="Revisiting Will Agentic AI Kill Your Content Marketing? (Podcast)" rel="nofollow"><img width="768" height="499" src="https://timpeter.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/building-business-case-digital-768x499.png" class="webfeedsFeaturedVisual wp-post-image" alt="Team brainstorming content ideas to illustrate the point that agentic AI will not kill your content marketing." style="display: block; margin: auto; margin-bottom: 5px;max-width: 100%;" link_thumbnail="1" decoding="async" loading="lazy" srcset="https://timpeter.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/building-business-case-digital-768x499.png 768w, https://timpeter.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/building-business-case-digital-300x195.png 300w, https://timpeter.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/building-business-case-digital.png 1000w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px" /></a><link rel=“canonical” href=“https://timpeter.com/blog/agentic-ai-kill-content-marketing/” /> <p>We’ve seen a lot of work around agentic AI in the last handful of weeks and months, with Google adding agentic AI to Chrome and in its Search Labs; ChatGPT offering its Atlas browser that offers agentic capabilities, and Perplexity doing the same with its Comet browser. This last one seems to be ruffling some feathers, as Amazon has <a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuYmxvb21iZXJnLmNvbS9uZXdzL2FydGljbGVzLzIwMjUtMTEtMDQvYW1hem9uLWRlbWFuZHMtcGVycGxleGl0eS1zdG9wLWFpLWFnZW50LWZyb20tbWFraW5nLXB1cmNoYXNlcw%3D%3D&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10415">“demanded” that Perplexity stop using its agents to buy stuff on Amazon</a>. </p> <p>Part of me wants to say, “Boo-hoo, Amazon. Not so fun when the shoe is on the other foot, is it?”</p> <p>BUT&#8230; </p> <p>Amazon has invested lots of money and effort into creating content and crafting experiences only to have Perplexity come along and scoop it all up. While it’s tough to feel bad for any Big Tech gatekeeper, at least in this case, Amazon’s got a point. </p> <p>That point is even more relevant for your business, your brand, and your content. What happens to you? Will agents replace the content you’ve worked so hard to create and curate, giving customers answers to their questions? In short, will agentic AI kill your content marketing? </p> <p>I’m skeptical. In fact, I believe our job now is to actively work and <em>make sure that agentic AI doesn’t kill your content marketing</em>.</p> <p>Why? What’s so important about maintaining a coherent, capable content marketing strategy in an AI-dominated landscape? How can you make sure you content continues to work for your brand and business? Ultimately, how can you make sure that agentic AI doesn’t kill your content marketing? </p> <p>That’s what this episode of the podcast is all about. </p> <p>Want to learn more? Here are the show notes for you. </p> <h2>Revisiting Will Agentic AI Kill Your Content Marketing? &mdash; Headlines and Show Notes</h2> <h3>Show Notes and Links</h3> <ul> <li><a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuYmxvb21iZXJnLmNvbS9uZXdzL2FydGljbGVzLzIwMjUtMTEtMDQvYW1hem9uLWRlbWFuZHMtcGVycGxleGl0eS1zdG9wLWFpLWFnZW50LWZyb20tbWFraW5nLXB1cmNoYXNlcw%3D%3D&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10415">Amazon Demands Perplexity Stop AI Tool From Making Purchases &#8211; Bloomberg</a></li> <li><a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly90aW1wZXRlci5jb20vYmxvZy9hZ2VudGljLWFpLWtpbGwtY29udGVudC1tYXJrZXRpbmcv&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10415">Will Agentic AI Kill Your Content Marketing? (Episode 470)</a></li> <li><a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly9ibG9nLmdvb2dsZS9wcm9kdWN0cy9jaHJvbWUvY2hyb21lLXJlaW1hZ2luZWQtd2l0aC1haS8%3D&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10415">Chrome: The browser you love, reimagined with AI</a></li> <li><a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly9jbG91ZC5nb29nbGUuY29tL2Rpc2NvdmVyL3doYXQtaXMtYWdlbnRpYy1haQ%3D%3D&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10415">What is agentic AI? Definition and differentiators | Google Cloud</a></li> <li><a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly90aW1wZXRlci5jb20vYmxvZy9hZ2VudGljLWFpLWN1c3RvbWVycy8%3D&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10415">The Rise of Agentic AI Among Your Customers (Episode 466)</a></li> <li><a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly90aW1wZXRlci5jb20vYmxvZy9uZXctc2VvLXBvZGNhc3QtZXBpc29kZS00Njkv&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10415">The New SEO? (Episode 469)</a></li> <li><a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly90aW1wZXRlci5jb20vYmxvZy9nb29nbGUtYW50aXRydXN0LXdpbi1iaWctdGVjaC8%3D&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10415">Google&#8217;s Antitrust Case: A Win for Big Tech? (Episode 468)</a></li> <li><a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly90aW1wZXRlci5jb20vYmxvZy9haS1hbmQtemVyby1jbGljay1zZWFyY2gtdGhlLXJlYWwtc3RvcnktZXBpc29kZS00Njcv&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10415">AI and Zero-Click Search: The Real Story (Episode 467)</a></li> <li><a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuc2VhcmNoZW5naW5lam91cm5hbC5jb20vYWdlbnRpYy1haS1pbi1zZW8tYWktYWdlbnRzLXRoZS1mdXR1cmUtb2YtY29udGVudC1zdHJhdGVneS1wYXJ0LTMvNTU1NTIxLw%3D%3D&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10415">Agentic AI In SEO: AI Agents &amp; The Future Of Content Strategy (Part 3)</a></li> <li><a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuc2VhcmNoZW5naW5lam91cm5hbC5jb20vcmVzZWFyY2gtc2hvd3MtaG93LXRvLW9wdGltaXplLWZvci1nb29nbGUtYWlvLWFuZC1jaGF0Z3B0LzU1NDgyOS8%2FdXRtX3NvdXJjZT1ibHVlc2t5JmFtcDt1dG1fbWVkaXVtPXNvY2lhbCZhbXA7dXRtX2NhbXBhaWduPWJsdWVza3ktYXV0by1wdWJsaXNo&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10415">Research Shows How To Optimize For Google AIO And ChatGPT</a></li> <li><a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly9zZWFyY2hlbmdpbmVsYW5kLmNvbS9nb29nbGUtc2VhcmNoLWxhYnMtZ2FpbnMtYWdlbnRpYy1jYXBhYmlsaXRpZXMtaW4tYWktbW9kZS00NjI2MzE%3D&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10415">Google Search Labs gains Agentic capabilities in AI Mode</a></li> <li><a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly9hZGFnZS5jb20vdGVjaG5vbG9neS9haS9hYS1nb29nbGUtdXBkYXRlcy1jaHJvbWUtYnJhbmRzLWFnZW50aWMtYnJvd3Npbmcv&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10415">How Google’s AI updates to Chrome threaten brands &#8211; Ad Age</a></li> </ul> <h3>Buy the Book &mdash; Digital Reset: Driving Marketing and Customer Acquisition Beyond Big Tech</h3> <p>Tim Peter has written a new book called <em><a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuYW1hem9uLmNvbS9kcC9CMEY4TE5NMkZSLw%3D%3D&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10415">Digital Reset: Driving Marketing Beyond Big Tech</a></em>. You can learn more about it <a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cudGltcGV0ZXIuY29tL2RpZ2l0YWwtcmVzZXQ%3D&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10415">here on the site</a>. Or <a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuYW1hem9uLmNvbS9kcC9CMEY4TE5NMkZSLw%3D%3D&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10415">buy your copy on Amazon.com today</a>. </p> <h3>Past Appearances</h3> <p style="text-align: center;">Rutgers Business School MSDM Speaker: Series: a Conversation with Tim Peter, Author of &quot;Digital Reset&quot; <iframe loading="lazy" width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/QnnxIPb6I_M?si=3SMKpiyU01Vk1kgm" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe></p> <h3>Free Downloads</h3> <p>We have some free downloads for you to help you navigate the current situation, which you can find right here:</p> <ul> <li><a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly9tY3VzZXJjb250ZW50LmNvbS8wOGFiZWMzNjA1MTI3NjdlYzBiZDA0NmU1L2ZpbGVzL2MyZjg4ZTgyLTE2ZWQtOWNlZS1mZTYxLTMzMWI3OTdlZmE1MS9UUEFfQ29udGVudF9EaXN0cmlidXRpb25fQ2hlY2tsaXN0X0Jsb2dfRGlzdHJpYnV0aW9uLnBkZg%3D%3D&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10415"><strong>A Modern Content Marketing Checklist.</strong></a> Want to ensure that each piece of content works for your business? Download our latest checklist to help put your content marketing to work for you.</li> <li><a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly90cGFzc29jLWJsdmI0YmRzdGV1c3VwZC5uZXRkbmEtc3NsLmNvbS93cC1jb250ZW50L3VwbG9hZHMvMjAyMC8wOS9kaWdpdGFsLWVjb21tZXJjZS1tYXR1cml0eS1tYXRyaXgucGRm&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10415"><strong>Digital &amp; E-commerce Maturity Matrix.</strong></a> As a bonus, here&#8217;s a PDF that can help you assess your company&#8217;s digital maturity. You can use this to better understand where your company excels and where its opportunities lie. And, of course, <a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cudGltcGV0ZXIuY29tL2RpZ2l0YWwtbWFya2V0aW5nLWNvbnN1bHRpbmctc2VydmljZXMvYnVzaW5lc3Mtc3RyYXRlZ3ktZGlnaXRhbC10cmFuc2Zvcm1hdGlvbi1jb25zdWx0aW5nLw%3D%3D&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10415">we&#8217;re here to help if you need it</a>. <a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly90cGFzc29jLWJsdmI0YmRzdGV1c3VwZC5uZXRkbmEtc3NsLmNvbS93cC1jb250ZW50L3VwbG9hZHMvMjAyMC8wOS9kaWdpdGFsLWVjb21tZXJjZS1tYXR1cml0eS1tYXRyaXgucGRm&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10415">The Digital &amp; E-commerce Maturity Matrix</a> rates your company&#8217;s effectiveness &mdash; Ad Hoc, Aware, Striving, Driving &mdash; in 6 key areas in digital today, including: <ul> <li>Customer Focus</li> <li>Strategy</li> <li>Technology</li> <li>Operations</li> <li>Culture</li> <li>Data</li> </ul> </li> </ul> <h3>Best of Thinks Out Loud</h3> <p>You can find our “Best of Thinks Out Loud” playlist on Spotify right here:<br /> <iframe style="border-radius:12px" src="https://open.spotify.com/embed/playlist/6IzixZ7sj5b1XdRGVJsLhf?utm_source=generator" width="100%" height="352" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="" allow="autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; fullscreen; picture-in-picture" loading="lazy"></iframe></p> <h3>Subscribe to Thinks Out Loud</h3> <ul> <li><a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly9pdHVuZXMuYXBwbGUuY29tL3VzL3BvZGNhc3QvdGhpbmtzLW91dC1sb3VkLWUtY29tbWVyY2UvaWQ1NjIzMjQxMjA%2FbXQ9Mg%3D%3D&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10415">Subscribe in iTunes</a></li> <li><a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly9nb28uZ2wvYXBwL3BsYXltdXNpYz9pYmk9Y29tLmdvb2dsZS5QbGF5TXVzaWMmYW1wO2lzaT02OTE3OTc5ODcmYW1wO2l1cz1nb29nbGVwbGF5bXVzaWMmYW1wO2xpbms9aHR0cHM6Ly9wbGF5Lmdvb2dsZS5jb20vbXVzaWMvbS9JaDQ0Z2ZycHV3anA1dXZ2dGhjNjJ2Zml5NWE%2FdCUzRFRoaW5rc19PdXRfTG91ZDpfRS1jb21tZXJjZV9hbmRfRGlnaXRhbF9TdHJhdGVneQ%3D%3D&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10415">Subscribe in the Google Play Store</a></li> </ul> <p>Contact information for the podcast: <a href="mailto:[email protected]">[email protected]</a></p> <h3>Past Insights from Tim Peter Thinks</h3> <h3>Technical Details for Thinks Out Loud</h3> <p>Recorded using a <a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly9hbXpuLnRvLzQzbHJBdmY%3D&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10415">Shure SM7B Vocal Dynamic Microphone</a><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=timpeterconsu-20&#038;l=as2&#038;o=1&#038;a=B0000AQRST" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /> and a <a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuYW1hem9uLmNvbS9Gb2N1c3JpdGUtU2NhcmxldHQtQXVkaW8tSW50ZXJmYWNlLVRvb2xzL2RwL0IwN1FTQzkyTkcvcmVmPWFzX2xpX3NzX3RsP2NyaWQ9MjBTMVVaOVQ1MFFaQiYjMDM4O2tleXdvcmRzPWZvY3Vzcml0ZStzY2FybGV0dCs0aTQrM3JkK2dlbiYjMDM4O3FpZD0xNTY3NjM2MDAxJiMwMzg7cz1tdXNpY2FsLWluc3RydW1lbnRzJiMwMzg7c3ByZWZpeD1mb2N1c3JpdGUrc2NhcmxldHQrNGk0LG1pLDEyOCYjMDM4O3NyPTEtNCYjMDM4O2xpbmtDb2RlPWxsMSYjMDM4O3RhZz10aW1wZXRlcmNvbnN1LTIwJiMwMzg7bGlua0lkPTdmMDE5MmUwMjgwZjc0Y2M3NWUwNDA5YmZkNjVlZGM3JiMwMzg7bGFuZ3VhZ2U9ZW5fVVM%3D&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10415">Focusrite Scarlett 4i4 (3rd Gen) USB Audio Interface</a><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=timpeterconsu-20&amp;l=as2&amp;o=1&amp;a=B003VZG550" width="1" height="1"/> into <a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuYW1hem9uLmNvbS9Mb2dpYy1Qcm8tWC9kcC9CMDdLVkMxMUc3L3JlZj1hc19saV9zc190bD9rZXl3b3Jkcz1hcHBsZStsb2dpYytwcm8reCZhbXA7cWlkPTE1NTUzNjI0NzImYW1wO3M9Z2F0ZXdheSZhbXA7c3I9OC0xJmFtcDtsaW5rQ29kZT1sbDEmYW1wO3RhZz10aW1wZXRlcmNvbnN1LTIwJmFtcDtsaW5rSWQ9MWYxNzdlZWViMGYwYWZjZDEwZTQzNGZjNWQwMzYyZWMmYW1wO2xhbmd1YWdlPWVuX1VT&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10415">Logic Pro X</a><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=timpeterconsu-20&amp;l=as2&amp;o=1&amp;a=B000EMIAGA" width="1" height="1"/> for the Mac. </p> <p>Running time: 19m 09s</p> <p>You can <a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cDovL2l0dW5lcy5hcHBsZS5jb20vdXMvcG9kY2FzdC90aW0tcGV0ZXItdGhpbmtzLW91dC1sb3VkL2lkNTYyMzI0MTIw&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10415">subscribe to <strong><em>Thinks Out Loud</em></strong> in iTunes</a>, <a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly9nb28uZ2wvYXBwL3BsYXltdXNpYz9pYmk9Y29tLmdvb2dsZS5QbGF5TXVzaWMmYW1wO2lzaT02OTE3OTc5ODcmYW1wO2l1cz1nb29nbGVwbGF5bXVzaWMmYW1wO2xpbms9aHR0cHM6Ly9wbGF5Lmdvb2dsZS5jb20vbXVzaWMvbS9JaDQ0Z2ZycHV3anA1dXZ2dGhjNjJ2Zml5NWE%2FdCUzRFRoaW5rc19PdXRfTG91ZDpfRS1jb21tZXJjZV9hbmRfRGlnaXRhbF9TdHJhdGVneQ%3D%3D&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10415">the Google Play Store</a>, via <a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cDovL3d3dy5ibHVicnJ5LmNvbS9mZWVkcy90aGlua3NvdXRsb3VkLnhtbA%3D%3D&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10415">our dedicated podcast RSS feed</a> (or <a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cDovL2VlcHVybC5jb20vdGJQNTk%3D&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10415">sign up for our free newsletter</a>). You can also download/listen to the podcast here on <strong><em>Thinks</em></strong> using the player at the top of this page.</p> <h2>Transcript: Revisiting Will Agentic AI Kill Your Content Marketing?</h2> <p>I saw a funny story a few days back about how Amazon wants Perplexity’s agents to stop making purchases on Amazon’s channels. Why does Amazon hate what Perplexity is doing? Three reasons:</p> <ol> <li>They realize that Perplexity’s success borrows Amazon’s content without doing the work of adding to or improving that content.</li> <li>Amazon knows that Perplexity’s agent prevents Amazon from offering a distinct, branded customer experience… which hurts Amazon’s long-term brand value.</li> <li>And, of course, Perplexity gains a ton of data about how customers browse and shop and buy — all at Amazon’s expense.</li> </ol> <p>Content. Customer experience. Data. Those are the three legs of the stool necessary to build a brand through digital, as I’ve talked about in my book Digital Reset — and just about everywhere else for the last 10-plus years. And Perplexity is kicking all three of those legs out from under Amazon’s seat as the king of e-commerce. </p> <p>Huh. Kinda sucks when gatekeepers get between you and your customers, doesn’t it, Amazon? </p> <p>Normally, I’d say, “Let them fight. Let the best content and experience win.” Except, in this case, Amazon’s got a point. They’re terrified that they’ll be stuck on the wrong side of an intermediary and lose their connection to customers. Few companies know better than Amazon how destructive this can be to businesses and brands. For years, in fact, having this done to your business was called “getting Amazon’d.” </p> <p>The point though remains. Connecting with your customers — especially in the age of AI — has never been more important. And it’s my view that the first, best way to build that connection is through great, distinct, engaging content. However, the age of AI also changes how we create, curate, and circulate our content.</p> <p>That’s why now is a great time to revisit this episode of the podcast that asked, “Will Agentic AI Kill Your Content Marketing?” Spoiler alert: Only if you let it. The rest of the episode will tell you how to keep that from happening. And it’s coming at you right now. </p> <p>Something that is universally true is that agents need content. I&#8217;m going to assume for reasons that I&#8217;m going to get into a little bit later in the show that agents will want the best content that they can get their hands &mdash; or little AI agent brains &mdash; on every single time. </p> <p>Sure, they can make up their own content using generative AI to create answers that probably make sense. They can also source it from social media, from user generated content. </p> <p>Generative AI and social sites or UGC are 100%, absolutely potential sources. In fact, I think they&#8217;re more than potential sources. They are likely to be actual sources some of the time. </p> <p>The challenge for your brand and for your business is that you don&#8217;t control either of those.</p> <p>But that&#8217;s okay because there&#8217;s another issue and that&#8217;s the challenge these sources represent to agents. The challenge for the agents is that each of those other sources have some inherent trust issues. And I don&#8217;t think that&#8217;s a small challenge. I think that&#8217;s a pretty big problem. </p> <p>Is the content that they find or create accurate? Is the content true? Does it have biases?</p> <p>Yes, content on your website will also have a bias, but that&#8217;s a known bias. The answer engine can take those biases for granted and attempt to adjust its expectations for them. Unknown biases, the type that might sneak into GenAI content or on social media sites? Those are a lot tougher to figure out.</p> <p>Was the content on the UGC site written by an experienced customer? Or was it written by a competitor or maybe a former employee with an axe to grind? </p> <p>Figuring out whether or not those content sources meet the standards that they have to set for quality content is really challenging. And I&#8217;m going to come back to this in just a moment, so hang tight. </p> <p>I expect that the content they&#8217;ll rely on will be a combination of sources. It&#8217;ll be <strong>your content</strong>, what you say about your products, your services, and your solutions to customer problems. It will also be <strong>UGC, user generated content</strong> that validates what you say. And some of it might be <strong>generative AI</strong> when that adds to the overall content experience for the person who&#8217;s actually interacting with the answer engine.</p> <p>Next, agents will need a place to go to find that content. That could be your brand&#8217;s social presence. Sure, absolutely. </p> <p>It also raises the issue for you that social sites might preference somebody else&#8217;s brand, somebody else&#8217;s content over yours for any number of reasons. Could be commercial reasons, could be quality reasons, could be they just like them better. Who&#8217;s to say? You just don&#8217;t have the control then. </p> <p>Social sites like that also raise the issue of whether or not the page where the answer engine finds the content: if it&#8217;s genuine or not; if it&#8217;s a genuine and trusted source of content about your brand, your products, your services. Again, is that content accurate? Is it true? Is it free of unknown biases?</p> <p>That&#8217;s the problem with content on sites other than those that belong to brands. That&#8217;s been true for a while. Instead, it&#8217;s better for the answer engines if they find the content they need on a trusted source, something like, oh, I don&#8217;t know&#8230; a website? Then they can also use user generated content to test the brand&#8217;s contents claims against. </p> <p>So while you&#8217;ll undoubtedly use social media and other resources to put your content in front of both customers and AI answer engines, you also will always need a place where your content can always be found. </p> <p>Always. </p> <p>I&#8217;m going to say that again. Always. </p> <p>In short, you&#8217;ll still need a website. </p> <p>I do think it&#8217;s incredibly likely &mdash; in fact, it&#8217;s almost certain &mdash; that the definition of a website will change. You&#8217;ll probably use more structured data, or tools like a model context protocol server (MCP), to make your structured data more accessible to AI answer engines. Your web pages &mdash; your entire website &mdash; also might be more dynamic, exposing only content that&#8217;s most relevant in the moment to the actual human beings who visit your site. </p> <p>None of those factors though mean that your website goes away. It simply evolves. </p> <p>If you think that my point about websites evolving is wishful thinking, we actually have a real world case that followed this exact model. We&#8217;ve seen this movie before. Google and other traditional search engines have given more weight to brands and trusted domains in their algorithms in recent years to prevent spammers and scammers from taking over their search results. Those algorithms increasingly favor large, well-known brands as trusted sources of information.</p> <p>That&#8217;s why larger sites have been winning in search more often and why smaller sites have had a harder time cutting through. Google&#8217;s Quality Rater Guidelines have specific sections advising their quality raters to evaluate the reputation of the website, not just the page, placing particular emphasis on validating that other sites also speak well of the business or the website. They want to be sure that they&#8217;re getting information and that they&#8217;re learning from the most trustworthy sources in every case. </p> <p>Similarly, Google&#8217;s ongoing focus on EEAT &mdash; that&#8217;s experience, expertise, authority, and trustworthiness &mdash; reflect Google&#8217;s desire for truly trustworthy content, content that they can believe in.</p> <p>Remember, they only added experience recently. It used to just be EAT: “expertise, authority, and trustworthiness.” But it&#8217;s not enough for them that content was created by people with quote-unquote “expertise.” They also wanted folks with, and I quote from their guidelines, “necessary firsthand or life experience for the topic.” Google wanted to be sure that the people who were talking about this topic literally knew what they were talking about and had hands on experience. </p> <p>If you ask me, it looks like the LLMs haven&#8217;t figured out the importance of that work yet. They really haven&#8217;t dived into that enough yet. I&#8217;m convinced that they will. </p> <p>I spoke about this in our last episode and I&#8217;m going to continue speaking about this until I see evidence that suggests it&#8217;s no longer necessary. </p> <p>But LLMs have a lot of trust factors to deal with, including a big one right now. They&#8217;ve already got hallucinations. If you&#8217;re not familiar with why hallucinations are a big deal, I&#8217;ll point you to research in the show notes that explains why hallucinations might be an inherent and permanent feature of the way generative AI works. Hallucinations almost certainly are not going away anytime soon. </p> <p>Add in the fact that scammers and spammers are trying to get their content into large language models, into AI answer engines, and you&#8217;ve got a recipe for really bad answers being presented to customers regularly. </p> <p>Longer term, I&#8217;m confident that this is an issue that LLM companies must address. AI answer engines have to get this right. If customers find that they can&#8217;t trust the answers they&#8217;re getting from, for instance, ChatGPT or Perplexity, it&#8217;s easy enough for them to switch to someone else. After all, isn&#8217;t that the very situation Google faces right now? Isn&#8217;t that why people assume that they&#8217;re under threat, that customers are looking for better answers? </p> <p>Customers ultimately get to decide who wins as their go-to experience for the answers that they need. Period. Only services that give them the answers they need are in a position to succeed. </p> <p>Your job is to make sure that you appear there, and that ultimately depends on your content.</p> <p>Finally, I genuinely believe with all of my heart that we are foolish to give up our websites without a fight, to give up ownership of our content and the customer experience without a fight. The open web has been one of the most critical resources helping businesses &mdash; new and old, small and large &mdash; attract and acquire customers effectively, efficiently, and affordably.</p> <p>The open web is under greater threat than it&#8217;s been at any time in its 35 year history. These threats aren&#8217;t just from AI answer engines. They&#8217;re also from entities and enterprises that want to put themselves between people and the content that those people can see. That&#8217;s an enormous problem. </p> <p>I&#8217;ve talked about how gatekeeper is going to gate here on the podcast, on my blog, and in my book for years. Well, “gatekeepers gonna gate” isn&#8217;t always solely about business or economics. And it&#8217;s something that we need to be really conscious about and do our best to prevent from making go away. </p> <p>So the question becomes what can you do to keep your business front and center for your customers as AI agents emerge? I&#8217;m not suggesting that we&#8217;re not going to have AI agents. They&#8217;re real, they&#8217;re coming, and they&#8217;re going to be important. </p> <p>But there are things you can do to ensure that you remain relevant and remain front and center with your customers as they become more everyday experiences for people. </p> <p>The first of these is to <strong>own your content hub</strong>. Keep your website and your CRM as the single source of truth for your brand. Think of it as your control center for both customers and AI agents. The one place they can always go to, the hub. You&#8217;ve heard me say it before, content is, was, and always shall be king. Make sure the king has a place it always lives. </p> <p>Next, begin to <strong>structure your content for AI</strong>. Make sure you&#8217;re connecting your data with artificial intelligence in appropriate ways. Invest in cleaning up structured data, invest in adding website schema, or begin testing emerging tools like MCP servers so agents can easily understand, find, and surface your content to customers. </p> <p>Next, <strong>leverage social proofs</strong>. I&#8217;m reasonably confident, I&#8217;ve said this a couple times in this episode, that AI will look for external confirmation of your content&#8217;s claims. Actively encourage and curate user-generated content that validates those claims. And make sure you&#8217;re continuing to improve customer experience so that your customers want to tell a great story about your brand and business on social media, that they want to participate in the creation and curation of a positive brand story for your business. Again, customer experience is queen. </p> <p>Finally, <strong>evolve, don&#8217;t retreat</strong>. Agentic AI is not the end of content marketing. It&#8217;s a shift in content distribution. That&#8217;s how you want to think about it. </p> <p>Brands that adapt the fastest and the most effectively are going to win more trust. They&#8217;re going to win more reach. They&#8217;re going to win more customers. And ultimately, they&#8217;re going to win more revenue. </p> <p>It&#8217;s absolutely in your best interest to create content that continues to answer customer questions. It is also absolutely in your best interest to have single repository, a single hub that you own and control where your content can always be found. Anything else ensures that the gatekeepers will always win. It&#8217;s surrendering your brand and your business without a fight. </p> <p>So maybe let&#8217;s not do that.</p> <h2>Show Wrap-Up and Credits</h2> <p>Now looking at the clock on the wall, we are out of time for this week. I&#8217;m willing to bet that you know someone who would benefit from what we&#8217;ve talked about today. Are you thinking of someone? Why not send them a link to the episode and let them know what you think too. Keep the conversation going. </p> <p>You can also find the show notes for this episode, episode 470, and an archive of all of our past <a class="autolink" href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly9lcGlzb2Rlcy5ieQ%3D%3D&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10415">episodes.by</a> going to <a class="autolink" href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly90aW1wZXRlci5jb20vcG9kY2FzdA%3D%3D&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10415">timpeter.com/podcast</a>. Again, that&#8217;s <a class="autolink" href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly90aW1wZXRlci5jb20vcG9kY2FzdA%3D%3D&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10415">timpeter.com/podcast</a>. </p> <p>And of course, be sure to like and subscribe wherever you get your favorite podcasts. </p> <p>If you&#8217;re looking for something to read about this topic in more detail, I&#8217;d love to suggest my book, <a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuYW1hem9uLmNvbS9EaWdpdGFsLVJlc2V0LU1hcmtldGluZy1DdXN0b21lci1BY3F1aXNpdGlvbi1lYm9vay9kcC9CMEY4S0JKMlpXIzp%2BOnRleHQ9VGlt&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10415"s%20new%20book%20Digital%20Reset,Big%20Tech%20are%20gatekeepers"><em>Digital Reset: Driving Marketing and Customer Acquisition Beyond Big Tech</em></a>, that you can find on <a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuYW1hem9uLmNvbS9EaWdpdGFsLVJlc2V0LU1hcmtldGluZy1DdXN0b21lci1BY3F1aXNpdGlvbi1lYm9vay9kcC9CMEY4S0JKMlpXIzp%2BOnRleHQ9VGlt&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10415"s%20new%20book%20Digital%20Reset,Big%20Tech%20are%20gatekeepers">Amazon.com</a> or <a href="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly9ib29rc2hvcC5vcmcvcC9ib29rcy9kaWdpdGFsLXJlc2V0LWRyaXZpbmctbWFya2V0aW5nLWFuZC1jdXN0b21lci1hY3F1aXNpdGlvbi1iZXlvbmQtYmlnLXRlY2gtdGltLXBldGVyL2MzYWM0M2YyZDkwNzlhMGY%2FZWFuPTk3OTgyMTg2ODE1ODYmYW1wO25leHQ9dCZhbXA7bmV4dD10&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=10415">Bookshop.org</a>. Please pick up a copy and let me know what you think. I&#8217;d genuinely appreciate it. </p> <p>Finally, I just want to say thanks so much for listening. This show would not happen without you. We&#8217;ll be back with a new episode next week. Until then, please be well, be safe, and as the saying goes, be excellent to each other. We&#8217;ll see you soon.</p> <img src="https://timpeter.com/?feed-stats-post-id=10415" width="1" height="1" style="display: none;" /><p>The post <a href="https://timpeter.com/blog/revisit-agentic-ai-content-marketing/">Revisiting Will Agentic AI Kill Your Content Marketing? (Podcast)</a> appeared first on <a href="https://timpeter.com">Tim Peter &amp; Associates</a>.</p>
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19 MIN