Ben Thompson: consumer AI has a marketing problem — people want entertainment, not productivity
_AustinCalvert_ · x · 2026-09-23
Ben Thompson argued on TBPN that consumer AI is mis-marketed because average consumers don't actually want to be more productive — they want to be entertained.
His two core points:
- "Let us book your flight" is crazy talk: he's had a personal assistant for 10 years who never books his flights, because Ben knows which flights get delayed and which seat he wants. Tech companies keep demoing this anyway, which he finds hilarious.
- People love shopping, not productivity: shopping is one of the biggest forms of entertainment, and the rich detail on product pages (e.g. apparel listings noting the model's size) is exactly what consumers want.
The implication: selling consumer AI as a productivity tool is the wrong pitch — entertainment and shopping are the real use cases.
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