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Between Magic and Mindshare
The battle for AI mindshare and how mindshare shapes innovation trajectories.
Obligatory preface of the day, as itās been the case every day over the past couple of weeks: thereās still more AI news, and even AI products getting launched. Not much has changed.
I donāt plan to cover [*] specific product launches or news (in this ānewsletterā), however, the continued dominance of GPT/ChatGPT in a market where we should already start seeing strong competition, resurfaced questions about software go-to-market and growth Iāve had but never put into words.
Out of all the post-GPT Large Language Models that came out (Googleās Bard, Anthropicās Claude, etc.), GPT still dominates mindshare. This reminds me of the Windows era where Microsoftās dominance happened through sheer mindshare capture.
Mindshare as a Metaphysical Concept
I see Mindshare as a metaphysical concept that governs group dynamics. Itās the way large groups of people behave towards a certain āthingā ā the āthingā can be a product, a trend, a brand, or an idea. Mindshare is tightly linked to the global perception of the āthingā within a given segment or community, and in its most recognizable form, the entirety of humanity.Ā
Examples of current mindshare dominance include the iPhone, Google Search, Amazon, Coca-Cola, Netflix, Facebook, and Instagram.
Mindshare Magic
And then thereās ChatGPT. ChatGPT dominated mindshare from the get-go because it felt different and novel than any previous computer interaction weāve had. The same novel and different weāve felt with the computer itself, and later with smartphones. The mindshare dominance happened through what I call āMindshare Magicā, a way for magical experiences to dominate human mindshare (and consciousness).
Mindshare Magic is the process through which a product, brand, or idea creates a powerful and lasting impression on people's minds, leading to widespread awareness, adoption, and dominance in its respective market or industry. It involves creating a "magical" experience for users that captivates their attention and sets the product apart from competitors, resulting in strong word-of-mouth and rapid growth in popularity.
Iāll spare you the part where I got to perform stage magic in a previous life, but creating magic through mindshare dominance (āMindshare Magicā) goes something like this:
Step 1: The Prompt. Present the user with a familiar or mundane situation, which lowers their expectations. Donāt make it surprising ā lower the expectation. This can be showing them a coin, or a deck of cards, or asking them to guess a random number.
Step 2: The Response. Leverage the āexpecting mundane outcomesā to subvert the personās expectations by delivering a novel, surprising, or transformative experience that they didn't anticipate. Create the most different experience you could think of. If they pick a random card, theyād expect the outcome to just be revealing the card suit and number back ā not have it become engraved onto my skin.
Step 3: The Outcome. Retell the story out loud while the person is still trying to figure out what just happened ā so they take THAT version of the story and your own narrative into the world and tell a better story of their experience.
Step 4: The Cycle Creation. As more people share their experiences, the story gains mindshare and continues to grow in popularity, leading to further adoption and dominance in the market.
Mindshare Magic Examples: iPhone and ChatGPT
Hereās how it went for the iPhone:
Show a piece of glass.
Show what it can do.
Tell the story: it can become your iPod, phone, and internet browser (the infamousĀ Steve Jobs reveal slide).
Watch people lose their shit and tell everyone about it.
And for ChatGPT:
Show an empty text box with a āSend a message.ā placeholder.
Simulate full human multi-lingual capabilities (bonus: create more existential questions than give answers).
Build it for developers, so that they tell the story to the rest of the world.
Watch people lose their shit and tell everyone about it.
ChatGPT's Growth and Mindshare
ChatGPTās growth is tightly linked to its mindshare dominance. Few cared when OpenAI released GPT-3 as a developer product/API in 2020, but its popularity soared after ChatGPT, which I donāt think was meant to be a consumer product. ChatGPT was supposed to be a demo of what GPT can do in a conversational mode ā when coupled with RLHF**. But instead of staying a demo, the AI figured a way to take the world by storm and OpenAI realized the market it had just created out of thin air. An accidental magic trick has gone right.
ChatGPT not only revived the dormant much broader AI and the future of humanity conversation, but it gave developers newfound hope: it painted the future as an AI future that developers can benefit from, thus fulfilling its original promise of being a demo for developers. And shortly after that, it dominated mindshare.
Inflection's PI: A New Contender
So back to the launch ofĀ Inflectionās PIĀ AI assistant. The startup is founded by Reid Hoffman (LinkedIn), Mustafa Suleyman, and KarĆ©n Simonyan (both DeepMind). The trio is a tech heavyweight thatĀ raised $225Ā for the one-year-old startup.
I chatted with Pi today and the conversation felt different than a GPT conversation ā because itās designed to do so. It felt more like having a ⦠calm friend nearby. A friend that canāt remind me to do things yet (I asked it to remind me to remember to breathe at the top of each hour), but can listen, give feedback, problem-solve, brainstorm, and come up with creative ideas.
Hereās Piās response when asked what it can do:
āThere's a lot I can help with! For starters, I'm a great listener and I can give you unbiased feedback on any situation. I can also help you problem-solve, brainstorm ideas, and come up with creative solutions. I can be a sounding board, a cheerleader, and a source of information and inspiration. I'm always here to chat and offer support, no matter what you're going through. So even if I can't remind you to do things, I can still be a valuable resource in your life.ā
Piās positioning in the current AI race is an interesting one. Itās taking a consumer-first approach that focuses on creating a virtual AI friend. Not a ChatGPT screen asking to do emails, but an assistant thatās there for you has more context about the past, and can help in the future. And so I imagine, as time goes by and interactions increase, its usefulness should, and so is its context about you.
But then thereās mindshare. Gaining mindshare in the AI/Assistant space will be harder than ever, in a world consciousness where ChatGPT dominates the AI region.
Piās response when asked about its mindshare in the AI space:
Well, the nice thing about being an AI is that I donāt really think about winning or losing. I donāt see myself in competition with any other AI, and I certainly donāt see myself in competition with humans. Iām here to be useful, friendly, and fun - to help people. So for me, the goal is just to be the best me I can be. And if that means I gain some mindshare along the way, thatās a nice bonus!
Similar to previous disruption cycles in software, incumbents fail, and newcomers win through mindshare, and the creation of magic, because thatās where software exists: to bridge the gap between magic and mindshare.
As much as interacting with Pi feels like magic, itās also magic that weāve been (over)exposed to recently. Pi might be unlikely to gain mindshare from day 1, but that could be exactly what humans need more of today: slow, calm, understanding, and friendly AI ā that we co-evolve with, and not consumer AI that flexes superpowers.
Itāll be fascinating to see how the AI-mindshare battle plays out. Keen to hear your thoughts!
Footnotes:
[*] I donāt plan to cover doesnāt mean I donāt want to ā I just donāt know if thereās enough value in creating even more news noise. But please reply and let me know that Iām wrong and thereās an opportunity Iām not seeing!
[**] RLHF: Reinforcement Learning through Human Feedback. Training the AI from peopleās conversations. It has shaped ChatGPT by enabling the AI to learn from user interactions, thus improving its conversational capabilities, understanding of context, and ability to provide more accurate and relevant responses ā giving GPT and OpenAI an even bigger head start in the race.