Ashley Striblet

I talk about consumer trends in AI and explain why they matter.
TikTok: ashleystriblet | Substack: Early Insights Club
Ex-Google | UChicago PhD.

[Ashley Striblet @AshleyStriblet]

@ishverduzco @NotionHQ Would love to!

[Ashley Striblet @AshleyStriblet]

1. AI's negative effect on the entry-level job market
2. AI's negative effects on the environment
3. Unnecessary AI features that have been forced into their favorite apps
4. The belief that AI will make them (and their peers) dumber & lazier
5. The lack of perceived utility of AI
6. The implication that AI slop can replace real creative efforts
7. Their distrust in AI-generated work.

[Ashley Striblet @AshleyStriblet]

@rileybrown If you are genuinely looking into this, I regularly talk about this on my substack there's been a ton of public research on the topic - https://t.co/2eODx03Gbu

[Ashley Striblet @AshleyStriblet]

There was research done by Gallup w/ Gen Z, who absolutely know how AI is showing up in their lives, & the questions were framed around the utility of specific use cases. No one wants to hear this, but they see it as mildly useful and honestly most consumer ai is that-mildly useful.

[Ashley Striblet @AshleyStriblet]

@gailcweiner People don't think of things in their personal life as a "workflow".

[Ashley Striblet @AshleyStriblet]

@emollick While I generally agree, there is also research asking about the perceived value of AI as a product for specific use cases, that show a good fraction of people don't think its useful.

[Ashley Striblet @AshleyStriblet]

@quepaso_daniel More broadly, AI use among consumers is broad but shallow. Only 18% of people are using it daily

[Ashley Striblet @AshleyStriblet]

@quepaso_daniel For Gen Z , their use has essentially flatlined over the last year--they don't actually think its that's useful, they are worried about its effects on their creativity and critical thinking, and are obviously very concerned about jobs & the environment.

[Ashley Striblet @AshleyStriblet]

If anyone is planning to a do a commencement speech anytime soon, please feel to reach out to me as your resident Gen Z whisperer.

Friends don’t let friends get boo’d on stage.

[Ashley Striblet @AshleyStriblet]

@thinkwithmark I'm actually very bullish on AI products that deepen peoples offline hobbies, given 'going analog' has been a growing trend over the last year.

[Ashley Striblet @AshleyStriblet]

The story of AI is that it’s largely found product-market-fit with engineers, some white collar workers and entrepreneurs.

Each of these groups have had a high incentive to learn how to use AI, so they focus on the capabilities and take time to create workarounds for its deficiencies, because their job/career/business depends on it.

While other tech consumers are increasingly being exposed to the worse parts of AI (AI slop, unnecessary use cases in consumer apps, media coverage of societal risks).

The next couple months (and moves by Apple, Meta, & Google given their distribution and reach to the average consumer) will be critical to whether AI’s brand settles into “hyper useful technology that leads us to human flourishing” or “useless/wasteful slop that, will ruin our job market and environment”.

[Ashley Striblet @AshleyStriblet]

@AnjneyMidha hard agree. one of the reasons I started my newsletter-- folks are deeply out of touch with the consumer market https://t.co/F7kfxWKMav

[Ashley Striblet @AshleyStriblet]

@NirZicherman @oboelabs Love this! I'm feel like I've been advocating for something like this for a while, excited to check it out.

[Ashley Striblet @AshleyStriblet]

In January, I predicted that supply was going to outpace demand because everyone was going to be using AI to build solutions to known existing problems. The real opportunity to pay attention to the new problems are emerging and build for that.

[Ashley Striblet @AshleyStriblet]

I believe voice input is going to be one of the most meaningful behavioral shifts we are going to witness over the next 2-3 years.

I don’t typically make predictions this explicitly, but there are some very specific markers of this trend that set it apart from others that have really stood out to me.

[Ashley Striblet @AshleyStriblet]

The lack of ‘killer’ consumer AI use cases is playing a role in the "AI populism".

If the everyday person were feeling the same ‘magic’ of AI as the average engineer, the general disposition towards AI would be closer to curiosity, than anger.

People don’t need a technology that makes cute photos, they need one that can lead to the ‘human flourishing’ AI leaders have been talking about.

[GREG ISENBERG @gregisenberg]

I actually think the whole "permanent underclass" narrative is wrong.

I think we're about to see the largest EXPLOSION of entrepreneurship in human history.

I get why the fear exists. Jobs are getting cut. AI researchers are privately saying most people are screwed. The models are getting ridiculously better and faster than anyone expected. Project that forward linearly and yeah, it looks BLEAK.

But linear projections are usually wrong during platform shifts. Nobody projected that the internet would create 50 million small businesses. They projected Walmart would eat everything. Nobody projected that mobile would create a million app developers. They projected phones were just phones.

What actually happens is intelligence gets cheap and a flood of new builders enter the market with domain knowledge the incumbents never had. Millions will get laid off or just never hired over the next 24-36 months. Those jobs are not coming back. So they become entrepreneurs. Out of necessity at first. Then out of opportunity.

The underclass idea is VIRAL because it confirms something people have been feeling for a decade. That the ground is shifting and nobody at the top is reaching down. And they're right.

But the interesting thing about this particular technology is that it doesn't check your resume or your zip code. The same tool that eliminates your position hands you the ability to build the thing that replaces it. The weapon and the escape hatch are the same object.

We're about to see more new companies started in the next 5 years than in the previous 50.

And I think we're going to look back at this moment the way we look back at 1995.

Everyone was scared. Everyone was right to be. And the people who built anyway became the next generation of owners.

I know you might be reading about the permanent underclass and it's scary. Who wants to "get stuck in the permanent underclass no one.

My POV is the permanent underclass isn't a foregone conclusion. I know some people are genuinely struggling right now and "just go build" sounds tone deaf when you're worried about rent. I get that.

But the reason I'm optimistic is that the cost to start something just dropped to nearly zero, intelligence on tap, and eveyr category/industry you can think of is getting reshuffled.

The explosion of entrepreneurship is just beginning.

[Ashley Striblet @AshleyStriblet]

And agree that some of the most interesting questions are about how people are using Claude in high stakes situations when they have no other resources. (There was a recent report from Pew showing non-insured people use AI slightly more for health guidance than those w/ insurance.

[Ashley Striblet @AshleyStriblet]

@judyhshen @esindurmusnlp Nice work! Something I appreciate in this report was acknowledging this was about Claude (not AI) given the demographic makeup of Claude doesn't seem to be representative of "AI users".

[Ashley Striblet @AshleyStriblet]

@astnkennedy Unfortunately, this doesn't surprise me. But you shouldn't blame yourself. These experiences are poorly designed and make it easy to be left feeling this way. https://t.co/KExNQsue56