Hey👋,
I'm Giacomo

AI use case of the day:

infographics made in minutes.

A few weeks ago, I shared a visual breakdown of AI-driven workforce shifts at major companies.

It looked great and data-rich.
And it was 100% AI-generated, with ChatGPT.

Here’s how I did it:

· Asked GPT to list companies that publicly announced AI-related layoffs or workforce changes.

· Turned that list into a clean, structured table.

· Transformed the table into an infographic.

No prompts about colors.
No design instructions.
No layout preferences.

The first result was already spot on.

From idea to post in minutes!

Microsoft just posted a record quarter.

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And announced another 6,000 layoffs.

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Is AI to blame?

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Absolutely.

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Big Tech is riding the AI wave like crazy. Quarter after quarter, they’re smashing profit records. Yet, they keep reducing headcount.

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Why? Because the economics of AI are brutal.

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Microsoft, the biggest backer of OpenAI, is investing billions into cloud infrastructure to feed the insatiable demands of ChatGPT and Copilot.

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These machines need data centers, not desks.

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And if you’re spending so much somewhere you might need to save somewhere else.

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Satya Nadella recently claimed that 30% of code is AI-generated.

That means fewer engineers, more servers.

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AI isn’t just disrupting labor.

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It’s reshaping the definition of productivity.

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The winners remain the shovel sellers and whoever manages to turn AI into an asset instead of a threat.

Ai will not disrupt the labour market.

IT IS disrupting it right here right now!

Just came across this job ad by Anthropic in Dublin.

I’m no expert on salaries, HR or anything, but €112k for a recruiting coordinator with 2 years of experience sounds like a LOT!

I think “normal” companies pay in the 25-40k range for the same role and seniority.

Anyone who knows more about this?

Klarna, Shopify, Duolingo and now Fiverr all made bold statements about how Ai is impacting their workforce.

But here's what's ACTUALLY happening with Ai and the labour market.

For the first time in history, a new technology is replacing knowledge work instead of manual labour.

Think of the tractor. 🚜
It replaced manual work in the fields previously done by farmers or animals.

Think of the personal computer. 💻
It replaced manual clerical work.

Go even further in the past, think of the industrial revolution. 🏭
Automated machines replaced individual craftsmen.

These technologies proved more cost efficient than manual labour.

Now Ai is more productive and cost efficient than even highly-skilled knowledge workers.

This is completely unprecedented!

The transition from manual labour to knowledge work allowed the west to become rich while working shorter hours.

Now Ai is taking over knowledge work.
Shall we go back to manual work then?

No, otherwise we'll become less productive and poorer.

So what to do?

Just prepare to become the best of the best at what you do,
so good that Ai will never beat you.

Like Micha Kaufman said,
"easy" is gone, "hard" is the new easy (taken over by Ai) and "impossible" is the new hard.

So prepare to do impossible things or Ai will definitely take your job.

Meanwhile, who owns the Ai and the few key knowledge workers left will MASSIVELY increase their productivity and wealth.

This is will create enormous inequalities.

But why using future tense.
This is happening as we speak.

Big tech companies are taking over larger chunks of the market leaving smaller space for competition, while laying off thousands of employees.

Those who remain earn 3 to 5 times more than what other companies are willing to pay.

Ai is just boosting this trend.

Any thoughts?

Elon Musk just built a new city.

It's in Texas. It's called Starbase.

What started as the home of SpaceX’s launch site is now officially a city, with its own mayor, Bobby Pedden, a long-time SpaceX employee.

It's a 21st century company town.
You don’t apply to live there, you get recruited!

According to the new official X account, Starbase aims to "build the best community possible", for "the future of humanity’s place in space."

Is Starbase a living prototype of a Martian colony??

We’re officially in sci-fi territory here 🚀

Back to earth, establishing Starbase as an official city makes it easier to get around bureaucracy, when dealing with launch permissions road closures etc.

Elon desperately needed a win, and he got it.

Key takeaway:
Elon is mad serious about space and about everything he does.
The mantra still holds: never bet against Elon!

Ai broke the labour productivity equation.

Pre-Ai:

Technological innovations →
Higher productivity →
Higher output per worker →
Same number of workers →
More wealth for all.

Post-Ai

Ai innovations →
Higher productivity →
Esponentially higher output per worker →
❌Fewer workers →
Same output →
Lower costs →
❌More wealth for few.

Employers are realising that Ai is cheaper than many of their employees, especially in fields like coding, content, graphic design and customer service.

By replacing humans with Ai, companies can save money while delivering the same output.
It’s as simple as that.

Sometimes they can deliver even higher output with fewer workers!

The shift is happening so fast that many employees don’t have time to transition to other careers.

This time it’s different.

ChatGPT knows you better than anyone else.

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They recently introduced two new memory features:

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· Saved Memories

· Chat History

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➤ Saved Memories

let you save and view any information you want GPT to remember about you.

You can simply ask GPT "remember this" and it will save it in your memories.

You can edit or delete memories at any time.

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➤ Chat History

let GPT learn from and reference all your previous conversations.

You don't proactively save memories. Rather, GPT will automatically remember what matters most.

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Unlike with Google or Meta, you have great control over what GPT remembers about you.

You can delete saved memories or start a "temporary" conversation if you don't want GPT to "remember".

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GPT is becoming your truly PERSONAL assistant, who knows your needs better than anyone else.

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Now, the performance marketer in me can't help but think of the ENORMOUS advertising value this information has.

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It's only logical GPT will start selling these "memories" to advertisers.

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It'll be a whole new era of performance marketing and audience targeting.

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💡 It won't be about inferring what people want based on their browsing behaviour, it'll be about knowing exactly what they want because they explicitly told their assistant!

Tomorrow, the world of e-commerce and online marketing will be turned upside down.

What’s happening tomorrow:

The U.S. is revoking the de minimis regime.

For years, any imported parcel under $800 was exempt from tariffs and custom duties.

Chinese giants like Temu and Shein built their empires on this loophole.
They send their parcels directly from China into the US, each one usually under $800 given their extremely low prices.

De minimis is actually common practice in several countries, but the US has the highest threshold. For comparison, the Uk applies a de minimis of just £135.

From tomorrow this will change.
No more de minimis in the US.

Temu and Shein will be subject to custom duties and tariffs like anybody else.

And now tariffs are over 100%!

The effects are already visible.
Shein prices in the US are up by over 10% in just a few days.

Also, several reports indicate how Shein and Temu already retreated from Google Ads and performance marketing, dropping massively their App Store ranking.

This is a seismic shift in the industry!

Suddenly, American retailers will have much less competition.

At the same time, inflation-sensitive consumers will have to look somewhere else for cheap products. Will they switch to more expensive American products?

Let’s not forget, tariffs apply to everyone, Amazon included, which still imports bulk of its inventory from Chinese suppliers.

Interesting times to be in e-commerce!

Amazon just committed a "hostile and political act", and even "partnered with a Chinese propaganda arm." 😂

What happened?

Amazon hinted at showing price hikes on its low-cost Haul platform due to new tariffs.

Fair enough, Temu is doing the same in the U.S., displaying tariff-driven surcharges at checkout.

I guess you do what you gotta do to compete.

But in reality nothing happened.

Trump already spoke with Bezos and declared:
“Jeff Bezos was very nice, he was terrific. He solved the problem very quickly. He’s a good guy.”

But just before that, Bezos was portrayed on live TV as some kind of a criminal, scheming against America in partnership with an enemy! not very nice 😅.

Power games aside, one thing’s clear:
E-commerce is seriously bracing for the trade war.

▸ UPS it’s cutting 20,000 jobs and shuttering 70 buildings, in preparation to halve Amazon shipments.

▸ Amazon itself is putting more pressure on suppliers to lock in larger discounts and protect margins.

▸ On May 2nd, the "de minimis loophole" will close and we'll see huge effects of the business of Temu and Shein. They're already pulling out from Google Ads.

Meanwhile, is this an opportunity for more premium and/or European brands?

🚨 Breaking: OpenAI is adding Shopping to ChatGPT.

RIP Google Shopping?

It was only a matter of time, especially after Perplexity made a similar move last year.

Details are still unclear, but according to Adam Fry, it will be “a shopping experience that’s more personalised and conversational, rather than keyword-focused.”

That one sentence says everything about where AI chatbots are heading.

ChatGPT is not, and never will be, a search engine.

It’s a personal assistant.

In this case, a personal shopper.

And just like a real human assistant, it won’t find products based on keywords, rankings, or affiliate deals (at least an honest assistant 😅).

💡 It will recommend what’s actually best for YOU.

With new features like "saved memories" and "chat history", ChatGPT already knows you better than anyone else, Google included.

Unlike Perplexity’s “Buy with Pro”, you won’t be able to checkout inside GPT. Instead, it will redirect you to the merchant's site.

Good news for retailers and publishers, at least for now.

Also, no sponsored products yet.
But how long until that changes?

OpenAI is chasing a massive revenue target:
📈 $125 billion in revenue by 2029 (vs <$4 billion today).

Ads seem like the most logical next step.

Long live the ad-supported internet and performance marketing!