NEWS YOU CAN’T MISS

Forget Google—Brands Now Battle to Impress ChatGPT

Brands are waking up to a weird new reality: it’s not just people they need to impress. It’s AI.

What’s happening: instead of googling or scrolling through endless product pages, more people are just asking ChatGPT or Alexa what to buy. “What’s a good laptop under $1,000?” or “Which skincare routine actually works?”

An interesting article from MIT Technology Review by Scott J Mulligan explores how brands are adapting to this shift:

• Turns out, how a product is described online, the clarity of its category, and even the consistency of the messaging can affect whether an AI model recommends it or not.

• To tackle this, companies are using new marketing metrics like Share of Model, that tracks how prominently and positively your brand shows up in the minds of Large Language Models like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Llama.

• Marketers could one day check how AI models decide to recommend products like Dove. If the reasoning shows fragrance matters most, marketers know exactly what to highlight.

Why it matters: Traditional SEO (search engine optimization) is how businesses make sure their websites show up when people search for something online. If you Google “best running shoes,” the brands that appear at the top likely spent time writing helpful content and using the right words.

But that’s not how everyone shops anymore. More people are now delegating the research to AI assistants and chatbots. As this behavior grows, a new kind of SEO is emerging: where brands are trying to figure out how AI models ‘think,‘ so that they can present their products in ways that AI is more likely to recommend.

Africa Joins the AI Race with its First "AI Factory"

Will the next AI breakthrough come from Lagos or Nairobi instead of Silicon Valley?

Strive Masiyiwa, the Zimbabwean billionaire behind Cassava Technologies, thinks it’s possible. And he’s backing that belief with action.

His company just announced plans to build Africa’s first “AI factory” in partnership with Nvidia. Their supercomputers will start arriving in South Africa by June, rolling out across Kenya, Egypt, Morocco, and Nigeria.

Why this matters:

• Right now, only 5% of AI developers in Africa have access to the computing power needed to train modern models.

• This initiative gives local startups, researchers, and businesses the hardware they need—without relying on costly foreign cloud services.

• It opens the door for homegrown innovation: AI trained in African languages, tools built for local farming and healthcare, and banking solutions that actually reflect how people live and work on the continent.

And there’s real momentum to build on. Africa is already home to over 2,400 AI companies, and 41% of them are startups. McKinsey estimates that AI could contribute up to $1.3 trillion to Africa’s GDP by 2030.

With the right tools in place, the continent is positioned to not just catch up, but lead in areas that reflect its own priorities. 😊

Would You Let AI Teach You the Art of Flirting?

Tinder is testing a new feature called The Game Game that helps users practice flirting through short, voice-based chats with AI characters.

How it works: You’re placed in a casual scenario—like a party or a grocery store—and speak your responses out loud. The AI listens, reacts in real time, and nudges you toward keeping the conversation going. If it goes well, you “win” a virtual phone number at the end.

It’s meant to be playful and low-pressure, giving people a chance to try out conversations before dating in real life. The feature is currently available to iPhone users in the US, limited to five plays a day.