Matt threads two stories that look unrelated and aren’t. First, AI is changing how people find you. The Daily Mail is running experiments across the US, UK, and Australia to see whether publishers can help brands show up more often in AI answers, and building a commercial “generative engine optimization” (GEO) offering around it. They map the questions buyers ask AI agents, track which brands and sources get cited, then create material to lift a client’s visibility. One early test reportedly moved an unnamed finance brand’s prompt visibility from about 50% to 75%, though Matt notes that’s encouraging, not proof of causation. The most revealing bit: one brand found Claude drove just 0.1% of its tracked referrals but roughly 11% of its conversions, a reminder that AI’s influence hides in the gap between clicks and outcomes. Forbes is reportedly doing similar advisory work.
Second, Tommy Harper, the producer behind Star Wars and Top Gun: Maverick, is shutting down VeYou, his six-month-old app that aimed to be the HBO of microdramas. His response isn’t to quit the content business, it’s to keep producing and distribute through TikTok, YouTube, and other platforms. The reason: when the big platforms already own the audiences, competing with them for attention is prohibitively expensive. (And the ground is shifting fast, Owl & Co. found that roughly two-thirds of microdramas released outside China last quarter were AI-generated, up from 3% at the start of the year.) He chose to supply the platform rather than fight it. Matt’s link between the two: both are really about story before platform. Getting caught up in platform-versus-content is cart before the horse. There are behemoth platforms you can’t out-fund, but you don’t need a platform to work on the power of your story, you can tell it at the Rotary Club, Toastmasters, your networking group, or for free on YouTube. The more you work the narrative, the more chances you get to tell it, the better it resonates, and only then do you have a real foundation if you ever want your own platform (Oprah started a channel, not a cable company, which is essentially what YouTube gives you for free now). And it’s true for AI visibility too: a clear, credible, compelling story is what the tools crawl for, so Matt would rather sharpen the narrative now than chase every optimization tool. You need both, but if you do one first, it’s the story. A deep enough personal story is unique by definition, because no one else has your exact combination of experiences.
