Stephane Zermatten

Entrepreneur. Repeat offender. Writing about what matters when AI does the boring stuff. Off Script lands every Tuesday.

[Stephane Zermatten @szermatten]

Everyone's asking what AI can do.
That's the wrong question.
The right one: what makes a difference when AI can do everything?
Taste. Conviction. Knowing which question is even worth asking.
That's the human side. And it just became the edge.

[Stephane Zermatten @szermatten]

Switching costs aren't loyalty. They're a tax on leaving.

AI Agents are about to make the tax zero.

[Stephane Zermatten @szermatten]

Most brand loyalty is just inertia in a nicer coat. An AI agent that switches you in one sentence strips the coat off, and shows what's actually underneath.

[Stephane Zermatten @szermatten]

The brands worth your attention have something real under the surface. The rest just have the surface.

[Stephane Zermatten @szermatten]

Think about the last brand that actually stopped you. Not one your industry was talking about. One that caught you while you were doing something else.

[Stephane Zermatten @szermatten]

So polish stopped being proof of anything. The thing that stopped you was never the polish. It was whatever the polish was pointing at.

[Stephane Zermatten @szermatten]

AI isn't the indictment. It's the receipt. This week's Off Script: https://t.co/MsSfBdUMEJ

[Stephane Zermatten @szermatten]

AI didn't make these brands authentic. It just revealed the ones that already were.

[Stephane Zermatten @szermatten]

Same moment, opposite outcomes. One brand had something real under the polish. The other only ever had the polish.

[Stephane Zermatten @szermatten]

The "made by humans" badge is a confession. Find out more about my take on this on this week's Off Script: https://t.co/MsSfBdUMEJ

[Stephane Zermatten @szermatten]

AI didn't kill marketing. It exposed it.

[Stephane Zermatten @szermatten]

The stock photos. The cast "real customers." The retouched everything. AI's only crime was making the trick cheap enough that anyone could finally see it.

[Stephane Zermatten @szermatten]

The questions you ask when nobody is watching are the truest answer to what you have been feeding it.

[Stephane Zermatten @szermatten]

Your AI chat history is the most honest record you have of how you think.

[Stephane Zermatten @szermatten]

The tool gave back exactly what each one deserved. It always does. It cannot supply the curiosity. It can only multiply whatever curiosity, or laziness, was already there.