If I were to look into the future and choose an industry that I think would be a good one to get into as AI begins to take over the world, something like the manufacturing and selling of bikes comes to mind.

I think there’ll be a return to this kind of analog life where AI is looking after everything else for you, but there are things in life that you still enjoy like surfing or mountain biking, possibly even analog instruments will come back into being popular as people start to appreciate the imperfection of truly human-created things.

And while you may have a mountain bike with some AI-assisted computer, the core function of that bike is to be human and physical as opposed to restricted to a digital-based life.

Why this matters

• People will increasingly value tactile, human experiences as AI handles more of the background work.
• Examples include surfing, mountain biking, and analog musical instruments.
• Products can include AI-assisted components without losing their fundamentally human purpose.

So if you are thinking of developing anything for the future that isn’t going to be highly impacted or diminished by the evolution of AI, that’s the kind of thing I’d be thinking of.

I had a half-decent play with NanoBanana Pro yesterday. I’m not sure whether it’s Pro 3 or just NanoBanana Pro, but it was released around the same time as Gemini Pro 3.

I have to say that I think we’ve probably arrived at the 95% mark in terms of realism. If you prompt it right, it hits 100%. There’s no way you’d distinguish it from any other photo taken, especially if you mimic slightly older devices in the prompt so that there are imperfections in the photos.

I also had a play with the second generation of Google’s video generator, and while it made some epic mistakes, the basic quality of the video and audio was remarkable. See Google AI for more on Google’s work in this area.

So, in another year, when another 50% of marketing agencies have adopted AI instead of using videographers, editors, set crew, and lighting crew, what happens to those jobs? Are we ready?

Observations:

• Image generation: realism feels like it’s reached the 95% mark—100% with the right prompt and deliberate imperfections.
• Video generation (2nd gen): impressive base quality for both video and audio, but still capable of large, noticeable mistakes.
• Implication: rapid AI adoption in marketing could displace many production roles—videographers, editors, set and lighting crew—within a short timeframe.

Being in marketing, e-commerce, and digital for as long as I have, I feel like I’ve looked into the future and have an idea of the ultimate solution for companies—especially those in e-commerce.

Currently, everybody uses individual pieces of software for ad analysis, analytics, tracking and strategy, creatives, and more. I think where we’re heading (and I include operations and customer care functions here) is that people will ingest large amounts of data into their data warehouses and data lakes, and then layer on intelligent LLM models.

You can already see this direction starting to emerge with platforms like BigQuery and Snowflake. The idea is that AI will be so capable that we will simply build conversational layers on top of centralized data, allowing:

Conversational analytics and automation

• Dashboards and reports built through conversation.
• Answers to any business question via conversational interfaces—whether through specialized agents or a single versatile LLM.

Practical examples of what this would enable

• Analyze a marketing campaign end-to-end.
• See how website activity impacted your Amazon marketplace performance and test correlations between ad spend and Amazon purchases.
• Generate creative for campaigns.
• Check inventory levels to determine whether you have enough stock to run a campaign.

There really is no limit to what you’ll be able to do, as long as your data is in the right place. This is why I’m an advocate for taking all of your data, putting it into a data warehouse, and managing and querying it in the future via AI.

There’s little doubt in my mind that, in the future, the term “AI” will be a negative term to use — unlike today, where everybody has an “AI-powered” something.

I think sentiment will shift from “AI-powered” meaning “it’s really great” to “AI-powered” meaning one of the following:

• “It stole my job.”
• “It’s just a robot.”
• “Something similar.”

I’m continually concerned that people are unaware of how severe the AI transformation of the workforce is going to be. Even today, with the launch and rapid uptake of Opus 4.5, we’ve seen a huge jump in AI’s ability to craft, code, and design incredible experiences.

Yesterday I spent some time with Nano Banana Pro and can clearly see that we are right on the cusp of a mass proliferation of AI-generated images that few — if any — can tell are AI-generated. Combine this with AI’s ability to handle:

• mass legal work and contract research
• HR management
• marketing strategy and copywriting
• and many other tasks

Short of being able to use hands to do anything (which will eventually also be taken over by robots), there is no doubt that policymakers and governments need to start crafting a universal income package now before there is mass unemployment.

For more context on the policy side, see universal basic income, and for the technology trend driving image and content creation, see generative AI.

What I’m using AI for at this time.

I was going to make a list of all the interesting ways I’m using AI at the moment, but when I look through my day it’s clear that AI touches literally everything I do. Below are the main things I use it for:

• If someone sends me designs to check over, I run them through AI.
• If someone sends me marketing concepts, I run them through AI.
• If I’m building something, I’m pair-coding it, or at least running it through AI.
• If I want design ideas, it’s AI.
• If I want conversion-rate ideas, it’s AI.
• If I want to summarize meeting notes, it’s AI.
• If I want to compare vendors’ software, it’s AI.
• If I want to generate images for marketing ideas, it’s AI.
• If I want to write catchy marketing copy, it’s AI.
• If I want to check contracts, it’s AI.
• If I want to analyze some financial information, it’s AI.
• If I want to get deep insights on data, it’s AI.

I think this list could go on and on, but clearly the transformation is happening for many people — and for me, it is actively happening right now.

The question is: where do we go from here?