Advertising platforms survive the AI agent transition
Traditional advertising and brand equity will remain highly resilient because humans will continue to make the final purchasing decisions in the agentic commerce loop.
The argument
Collison dismissed the idea of a 'post-advertising future,' arguing that AI agents will primarily act as researchers presenting options, leaving the final decision to humans who are heavily influenced by brand affinity. Additionally, undirected shopping (like scrolling social media) will remain highly ad-driven.
The thesis, stress-tested
✓ What validates it
- ✓Meta and Alphabet maintaining or growing ad revenues despite rising AI search adoption
- ✓AI search engines successfully integrating sponsored product placements into agent recommendations
▸ Risks discussed
- ▸AI assistants could become highly opinionated and filter out brand choices entirely
- ▸Ad-blocking behavior could shift to the agent level
Hear it yourself
"But, anyway, when you find the product at the very end, do you really then want to go and be filling out all these web form deals and things like that? Or do you want to just say, yeah. That sounds good. Buy it for me in this size. And our bet is that people will want the lower friction option. I think in the history of technology, the lower friction option tends to win out. And so we think that clearly will happen and is happening to some degree already. It's just the agent filling out the forms for you."
AFFILIATE LINK · ZORTIX MAY EARN A COMMISSION · NEVER A RECOMMENDATION TO TRADE