OpenAI is Walmart

When everyone runs their work through the same model, the output converges. Everything starts to sound the same.

I don't shop at Walmart. I'm a designer in Venice, California, and I have a certain curated vibe. Walmart is the antithesis of that. So why would I use the Walmart of AI to do my creative thinking?

The market is wide open for the boutique. Not a better general model — a model tuned to a specific sensibility, domain, and taste. One that generates work that sounds like it came from someone who has an opinion.

Picture this: you're in a meeting, your team needs creative direction. Instead of pulling up ChatGPT and getting the same output your competitor got ten minutes ago, you pull in a model trained on twenty years of Thought Merchants' work. Our taste. Our instinct. That's not AI — it's a creative partner with a point of view.

Commoditization always creates a premium tier. You can buy a $12 bottle of wine at Costco or a $1,200 bottle from a vineyard in Napa. Both are wine. They are not the same thing.

AI is heading the same direction. The commodity layer gets cheaper and more universal…the more universal it gets, the more sameness it produces. The more sameness there is, the more valuable differentiation becomes.

I don't shop at Walmart because I have style. Your brand shouldn't either.