In 1984, researchers gave novice chess players a computer assistant. The novices got slaughtered. The machine amplified their bad instincts. Masters didn't need it—they had taste. Now a $5B legal AI proves the point: generic intelligence is a trap. The opportunity? Taste engines for the obsessed.
Ambient content is exploding, but the infrastructure behind 24/7 AI worlds doesn’t exist yet. From Nothing, Forever to Lofi Girl to DogPack’s WME deal, the pattern is clear: persistence is the new content—and someone is about to build its Shopify.
Nabisco built a flavor skunkworks. Hired lunatics. Shipped wasabi Oreos. The boardroom panicked. Twitter went nuclear. Sales exploded. Because novelty isn't a tactic — it's the entire strategy.
A 1928 lighting experiment revealed a simple truth: people don’t change in private — they change when someone’s watching. TikTok’s Winter Arc is rediscovering that insight at scale, unlocking a $7.3B accountability market hiding in plain sight.
Coca-Cola didn’t just market Santa—they built him. Today, brands are repeating the pattern with AI-native talent: owned characters, controlled narratives, measurable influence. The next wave isn’t human. It’s infrastructure.
The next $10M CPG brand won’t come from flavor labs or influencer hype. It’ll come from scanner data revealing what shoppers can’t find. FlavCity proved it: own the rulebook, own the shelf.
TikTok operators turned sensory physics into a six-figure arbitrage window. The chocolate is just the vehicle. The real play is distribution.
