I usually agree with almost everything you post @eric_seufert - but not on this take… my personal experience using Muse to purchase directly from Nike was excellent. It brought all shoes and apparel in my size for me to review, I selected what I like, and checked out without doing anything but approving a Link code for payment, and it then let me know when it shipped and arrived. It was seamless and I never had to open a browser, fill in forms or apply payment information. The second purchase of flowers for my wife on our anniversary was even smoother and it was completed in 3 minutes right before I entered a meeting. In the short term, payment comes from Amazon’s current tax structure on merchants which has a take rate of ~35%. Referral fees + fulfillment fees + advertising + storage costs. The merchant also builds their first party data which is invaluable in the longer term.

Merchants selling through Amazon and their own website now have an opportunity to offer a cheaper price via Muse. They avoid Amazon seller fees + Fulfillment By Amazon fees + ad tax. Merchants profit by adding customers first party data for repurchases. Breakeven = a 25-30% discount via Muse and they break their reliance on Amazon and control their data again. Amazon’s margin becomes the merchants opportunity.

To me, it’s simply a battle for Amazon to protect the high-margin ads layer that props up the retail P&L. No consumers entering the store means half their operating income evaporates.

It’s reminding me of when photoshop came out and everyone commented that images were ‘photoshopped’. In a few years we will look back and laugh when AI gen content is normal course.

ProgrammaticJoke is just another NPC in the game.

The ex-googler strategy being deployed at TTD is a head scratcher.

Confirmed.

We see the same value for having a topology layer and model routing in advertising. Your product is on the money.

The winners of the past will be the same winners in the future but using newer technology. Vision is everything and there are few in society that have it.

My favorite line is "shaped by the people they serve." Domain expertise of humans will be the lasting value for all of us in the long run.

Always insightful given the access to executives you have!

Another reason why HR shouldn't be making decisions for the whole organization.

This is an excellent take. One distinction, the smaller the company, the easier it is to adopt AI in advertising. In early tests of our autonomous ad product, the AI outperformed human traders on cost efficiency of transactions by 67%. This is going to be a huge unlock as adoption scales to larger org's.

I agree with everything you are saying on AIaaS. We are about to see a transformation where companies will offer AI that performs those services autonomously. AI-as-a-Service will enable companies to do what was once unimaginable.

🤣 A free portal where publishers see the signals and scoring on inventory they send our DSP. QPS, HHID coverage, IRIS ID coverage, how we grade their supply for quality, etc. Nothing for sale.

Imagine what their revenue would have been if they were all in the office…

You just described how Google is a Monopoly and the quality of the product doesn’t matter when you monopolized distribution! Turns out it is impossible to beat a monopoly!!

I still can’t figure out what would be different or unique based on what you mentioned above. Is this a CRM only for the social channel? Doesn’t seem possible via the Open Web with the descriptions you gave.

It’s just ‘Artificial’