Stephane Zermatten

Everyone's asking what AI can do. That's the wrong question. The right one: what makes a difference when AI can do everything? Taste. Conviction. Knowing which question is even worth asking. That's the human side. And it just became the edge.

A skill you can lose to a software update was never really yours. The one thing that stays yours is knowing what's worth making.

Every model upgrade makes your prompt skills worth less and your judgement worth more. You're getting good at the half that expires.

Mastering an AI tool is a skill with a one-month shelf life. It re-optimises itself faster than you can learn it. Get good at the call instead.

Half the subscriptions I pay for every month, I'd struggle to tell you what they include. Not because they're bad. Because I never had a reason to review them. Comfort and inattention feel identical from the inside.

Switching costs aren't loyalty. They're a tax on leaving. AI Agents are about to make the tax zero.

Most brand loyalty is just inertia in a nicer coat. An AI agent that switches you in one sentence strips the coat off, and shows what's actually underneath.

The brands worth your attention have something real under the surface. The rest just have the surface.

So polish stopped being proof of anything. The thing that stopped you was never the polish. It was whatever the polish was pointing at.

Think about the last brand that actually stopped you. Not one your industry was talking about. One that caught you while you were doing something else.

AI isn't the indictment. It's the receipt. This week's Off Script: szermatten.substack.com/p/ai-didnt-kil…

Same moment, opposite outcomes. One brand had something real under the polish. The other only ever had the polish.

AI didn't make these brands authentic. It just revealed the ones that already were.

The "made by humans" badge is a confession. Find out more about my take on this on this week's Off Script: szermatten.substack.com/p/ai-didnt-kil…

The stock photos. The cast "real customers." The retouched everything. AI's only crime was making the trick cheap enough that anyone could finally see it.

AI didn't kill marketing. It exposed it.