7,983 karma · joined April 23, 2012
Most people using AI chat are exploring ideas and solutions. They’re doodling, not shopping. Or in old timey parlance, they’re looky-loos or tire kickers at best.
Anyone who’s had to justify ad spend in e-commerce can tell you that some sources produce huge traffic with absolutely terrible conversion. Reddit and Pinterest pretty much blow for this reason, with limited exceptions. It’s also why TikTok and other influencer platforms really work.
Conversion requires a mental shift from discovery to demand.
Also, really hate summaries like this without the actual source so here are the main points from the actual source (WIRED https://archive.is/7DuEV):
1. Instant Checkout inside ChatGPT performed poorly, with conversion about one-third of Walmart’s normal site.
2. The experience failed largely because it forced single-item purchases instead of letting users build a cart.
3. Walmart is shifting to embedding its own assistant, Sparky, inside ChatGPT and keeping checkout on its own system.
4. ChatGPT is still valuable because it’s driving significantly more new customer traffic than search.
5. Purchases that did work were mostly practical, problem-solving items like supplements and tools.
6. Fully automated “agentic shopping” is still unlikely in the near term because people want control over purchases.
7. OpenAI is moving away from in-chat checkout and focusing on helping users research while merchants handle transactions.
In short, AI is useful for discovery, but traditional e-commerce flows still outperform it at closing sales.
Spoiler: You are not Paul Graham.
Then I got sick…
I couldn’t eat anything with fat. Just the thought of it made me physically ill. I ended up dropping half my body weight in 18 months.
What I learned is that it is possible to break your body in many ways.
https://wwnorton.com/books/Are-We-Smart-Enough-to-Know-How-S...
That’s not something you’re going to hear from someone in their 20s or 30s, even a few decades ago. This is an attitude that you develop as you get older and become more experienced. It also helps if you’ve already checked a lot of boxes along the way (family, success, and so on).
Sure, Chang was the right person at the right place at the right time, but TSMC could only be built by someone in their 50s. Someone who understood from experience that the work is more important than the accolades because they lived it.
Incredible story end to end.
Highly recommend looking into Louis Bromfield. A very accessible book: The Planter of Modern Life: How an Ohio Farm Boy Conquered Literary Paris, Fed the Lost Generation, and Sowed the Seeds of the Organic Food Movement
Frankly, one of the few times iOS 14.5 has turned up in general ad reporting.
Two years ago it was different and a lot of small companies could compete. CPAs were well below anything I ever saw in the world of print advertising. Very efficient.
Now, it seems we've gone back 10 years in time. Only large brands are bringing in enough gross margin dollars to run poorly targeted campaigns. This is likely to get much, much worse as small companies exit the stage entirely.
The sad thing is that there is really no where else for a small company to go for acquisition marketing. Can't go back to print. The only outlet left is selling in large marketplaces like Amazon where the competition is apt to steal your product (not to mention the insane fees).