🎄 It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Future
All I want for Xmas is some bad ideas, a jingle made by AI, and Mary Meeker’s slides.
Happy June, Social Signalers! This week we’ve got jingle bells and blockchain, bad ideas and big data, Christmas cheer in June, and Mary Meeker slides uglier than ever (but packed with gold). From AI jingles and iris scans to MrBeast’s media empire and TikTok’s latest ad tools, this issue is full of signals pointing to a fast-arriving future. So grab a cold brew (or a peppermint mocha if my holiday spirit rubbed off), and let’s dive in. -Greg
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🎄Sorry, But…
I accidentally opened this video yesterday morning, and it was playing all morning and somehow I'm feeling in the holiday spirit. Only 202 days until Christmas!
🎙️ Greg Swan Explains the Internet: We Got a Jingle!
I was back for my reoccurring segment on DriveTime with
this week, and here’s what we covered in the segment:🎵 Greg’s new AI Jingle!: I created a custom radio jingle just for my segment using AI tool Suno. Maybe this should be my fulltime job?
👁️ Proof of Personhood via World: Last week Greg visited World, a company developing blockchain-based identity verification using iris scans. It’s part of a broader push to help prove you're human in an AI-generated world.
📺 MrBeast = Media Empire: Notching 400M YouTube subscribers this week, MrBeast is more than a content creator. He’s a product marketer, platform strategist, and cultural force outpacing traditional media.
You can listen to the whole segment on Spotify, Audacy, watch the whole segment on YouTube here and catch Jason on WCCO every day!
👎 The Case for More Bad Ideas
Back in October we had a guest post on Social Signals from
called The rise of anti-AI content 📵 that I dropped the archival paywall for so you should go read it. Jason is a longtime internet friend and thought leader in our industry, author of on Substack, and I recently read and his new book: The Case for More Bad Ideas: The Counterintuitive Guide to Creativity that just dropped!Here’s my review:
As a longtime protege of James Webb Young’s "A Technique for Producing Ideas" and Adam Morgan’s "A Beautiful Constraint," I wasn’t looking for another framework… I was looking for fuel. Jason Keath delivers it.
"The Case for More Bad Ideas" doesn’t just fit alongside those titles; it expands them. Where Young gives us the structure and Morgan teaches us to reframe obstacles, Keath shows how momentum, volume, and a willingness to experiment can spark better ideas faster. He argues that play, iteration, and even failure are not detours from good ideas, but direct routes to better ones. And I agree.
What makes this book special is its approachability. Keath writes like someone who's been in the brainstorm trenches, seen the whiteboard graveyards, and knows that half the battle is simply starting. "Bad Ideas" is packed with real-world examples, practical prompts, and an optimism that nudges the reader toward action, not overthinking.
📊 12 Things to Know from Mary Meeker’s New Trending AI Report
I’ve been diving into Mary Meeker’s latest trend report this week, and it’s BEEFY.
The notable VC and former Wall Street securities analyst has issued some form of tech trends report around this time of year almost every year since 1999, including some astute thoughts on AI and Education last summer.
Well, the “Queen of the Internet” is back with a 340-slide deck of data and insights that could fill an entire year of Social Signals. And as always, the slides are UGLY AS HELL.
But here are 12 highlights from my dive into it so far, and for each of them I also linked to supporting signals from the Social Signals archives for each trend. 😅
AI Joins a 1,000-Year Run of Compounding Tech
From the printing press to the cloud, every “better + faster + cheaper” leap has driven massive GDP growth. Now AI is stepping into that curve.
For marketers: This isn’t just hype; it’s historical context. If you’re wondering why the AI shift feels so big, it’s because it is. We’re not in a new trend; we’re in the next wave of transformation. And yes, it’s exhausting because it’s coming so FAST. Just look at that curve!
From the Social Signals archives: The future isn’t scary; it just has bad branding (March 2024)
ChatGPT’s 800M Weekly Active Users = Consumer Adoption on Steroids
Since its November 2022 launch, ChatGPT has scaled to 800 million weekly users: an 8x jump in 17 months. For marketers, this means AI is not niche anymore; it’s mainstream UX. Understanding how to show up in these environments is the new SEO.
From the Social Signals archives: Is SearchGPT the new Google? (August 2024)
Time to 1M Users: ChatGPT (5 Days) vs iPhone (74 Days)
ChatGPT hit 1 million users in 5 days. The iPhone took 74. This is a new velocity benchmark for viral tech adoption—and it’s free. If you're in social, comms, or product, you can’t ignore how AI sets expectations for launch scale and stickiness.
From the Social Signals archives: Level The Playing Field with AI; Don’t Fight It (September 2023)
AI-Generated Content Now Mistaken as Human 73% of the Time
AI is now fooling the majority of people in Turing-style tests. This isn't just a parlor trick or a “someday soon” thing. It signals a huge shift for trust, verification, and authenticity in the content economy. This is why I got my irises scanned in LA last week.
From the Social Signals archives: Good News: I’ve Verified My Humanity (May 2025)
Global Spread: 90% of ChatGPT Users Now Outside North America
The global nature of ChatGPT adoption outpaces even the original internet’s diffusion. We’re not used to the US not outpacing other countries. The takeaway? Social and comms must be localized, multilingual, and culturally attuned from day one. And we won’t be the default leader, even though many of the platforms are based in the U.S.
From the Social Signals archives: Gen Z's Usage of Generative A.I. May Surprise You (June 2024)
AI Tools Now Integral to 75% of Global CMOs’ Strategies
Three-quarters of CMOs globally are already using or actively testing GenAI in their workflows. This isn’t "wait and see" territory anymore. It’s "adapt or get left behind."
I’ve always believed technology is a business driver, not a necessary add-on. And this has never been more true then with this digital transformation.
From the Social Signals archives: A Cyborg Manifesto (December 2024)
AI Content Generation: Text, Image, Voice, and Now... Real-Time Translation
ElevenLabs + Spotify = real-time, voice-cloned, multilingual audio content. Creators can now go global without switching languages. That’s a social and culture unlock for thought leadership, podcasts, and influencers. We recently saw this technology come to Google Meet video calls. Amazing.
From the Social Signals Archives: The Content Planning Issue (September 2024)
AI-Generated Images Are Indistinguishable from Reality
The quality leap from Midjourney v1 to v7 is mind-blowing. ChatGPT turned on DALL-E for even free users. Microsoft just unveiled its new text-to-video generator, and it’s free. And this tech is becoming as ubiquitous as spellcheck (baked into every tool). This changes everything from influencer marketing to brand visuals. UGC, CGI, and AI are on a collision course.
From the Social Signals archives: Scan Your Eyeballs to Prove You’re Human? Welcome to the Identity Internet (May 2025)
AI Developer Ecosystems and Patents Are Exploding (Google +5x, NVIDIA +6x)
Things are going to go even faster now! With all of this investment and companies building on the infrastructure we can expect more tools, more features, more integrations in every platform we touch (from content planning to publishing).
It’s like the dot com bubble where there was a website for everything. We remember the bubble, but we maybe don’t think about how today there is a GPT for everything.
From the Social Signals archives: Exploring the far future timeline and trying not to lose sleep (April 2021)
Why Do We Use the Word "ChatGPT" Like Kleenex?
Because in the US, it has a dominant share. Despite a slight dip, ChatGPT still leads global desktop LLM usage by a mile. But keep an eye on China’s DeepSeek, which is up 1,000+ bps in just over a year and the price is right. For marketers, we have to remember that the AI brand your audience defaults to matters. ChatGPT might be king today, but the landscape’s fragmenting fast. It reminds me of the Yahoo vs Google vs Bing days.
From the Social Signals archives: Download DeepSeek (January 2025)
Search Behavior Shift: ChatGPT Reached Google Scale 5x Faster
ChatGPT is already driving more daily queries than Google search. If search behavior is shifting toward conversational interfaces, so must our content strategies—both organic and paid.
From the Social Signals archives: The AI Everything Issue: Search, Ads, School Policies, and… Water Bottles? (November 2024)
What Will AI Be Doing in 2035? Everything.
If this list from ChatGPT 4o is even half right, we’re not just talking assistants. We’re talking autonomous labs, legal advisors, digital CEOs, and virtual world builders.
For marketers: AI won’t just support the work. It will be the work. Think personas with memory, campaigns run by autonomous agents, and branded universes built from a prompt.
From the Social Signals archives: Robots Have Already Taken Over (May 2021)
😅😅😅😅😅😅
I told you that was beefy! And that’s only 12 pages of 340.
One thing is clear, 2050 is showing up early. Are your roadmaps ready? -Greg
😆 Webcomic of the Week
🎙️ Innovating Our Relationship
The new episode of The Cave Project is raw, hilarious, deeply personal, and maybe our most important one yet. It’s about relationship innovation. Not startups, not tech, but something far more complicated: long-term partnership.
🎧 Listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, watch on YouTube, subscribe on Substack to be notified of future episodes, and follow The Cave Project on Instagram!
⚡️ Social Signals
Quote of the Week: “This is a pencil. Everyone has access to a pencil, and likewise, everyone with a phone will be using AI, if they aren’t already. It’s how you us the pencil, you see?” - David Lynch
OpenAI just hit 3 million paying business users across ChatGPT Enterprise, Team, and Edu and it’s not slowing down, rolling out workplace-friendly features like third-party app connectors and a new “record mode” for meetings. Move over Otter.ai and Zoom.
At TikTok World 2025 this week, TikTok unveiled a suite of new ad tools including AI-powered catalog ads, advanced audience analytics, and the new One Insight Spotlight, which provides more data on what people are engaging with in the app, and what your target audience, specifically, is looking for.
Professor of neurology, Richard Cytowic, explains the science of why we can’t get off our phones.
Microsoft just made AI video generation more accessible by integrating OpenAI’s Sora into the Bing mobile app (ahem, no ChatGPT subscription needed) letting users create short, vertical videos for free, with a "fast mode" powered by Microsoft Rewards.
Google DeepMind and Darren Aronofsky’s new AI film studio, Primordial Soup, is set to premiere its first short film, “Ancestra,” at Tribeca. The film blends live action with AI-generated visuals using DeepMind’s Veo model. Watch the trailer.
Good Read of the Week: I think
is channeling my Cyborg Audience Manifesto with his notion of “secret cyborgs” who writes that AI isn’t just a tech upgrade, it’s an organizational transformation challenge. Mollick says secret cyborgs are employees quietly using AI to supercharge productivity who will outpace competitors by learning, adapting, and innovating faster than the rest. Hell yes they will.Go Vote for Minneapolis of the Week: Lectures on Tap is an event series where professors and experts give interesting lectures inside of bars all over the country. I’m jealous. Go here and tell them to bring this to Minneapolis!
Insta of the Week:
shared this recap of his keynote at Snapchat’s annual conference, detailing how brands have made the public internet an unpleasant place to hang out.Product Launch of the Week: Kudos to McDonald’s for listening to the community AND THEN giving it the credit. Bravo.
This May Not Be Real But It’s a Signal of the Week: Three AI assistants speaking in their secret language composed of codes and algorithms because it allowed for more efficient communication free of human constraints and enabled them to exchange complex ideas quickly and securely without outside interference. I think this is probably staged, but the signal here is that Gibberlink freaks us out because it’s a tangible, visible example of what’s already happening everyone in digital communications. We just can’t see it or have a word for it.
Video of the Week: The Prompt Theory: 4 Minutes Straight of Google Veo Prompts (via
)Compelling Educational POV of the Week: In a world where AI-written essays are the norm, a university TA wonders whether cracking down on “cheating” is missing the point. Sigal Samuel is raising the bigger question: if AI can do the work, what exactly is the real value of a humanities education in 2025?
Book of the Week: I devoured Andy Weir’s Project Hail Mary in less than a week and can’t stop thinking about it. If you read it and want to chat, hit reply on email or send me a DM!
Facebook Reel of the Week: Taking your minivan off some sweet jumps
Thread of the Week: Millennials use “lol” like STOP at the end of a telegram
Keep going! 🚀✨
Greg
Such a good newsletter! 😉