Call A Friend

April 25, 2025 

A few quick notes from the intersection of AI, marketing, branding, and small business.

Call a friend! Picking up from a post last week about AI friendships. In this article in UnHerd, Tom Rachman puts his thumb on the no side of the scale. The AI-will-be-your-friend companies, he says, are going to make a fortune out of our loneliness. I’ll just editorialize to say that I’m going to stop this typing and call a friend right now. You should do the same.

That said. I highly recommend The Pleasure Model Repairman, a novel from Ruuf Wangersen. Hilarious sci-fi look at the coming world of pleasure models.

Survey the trend. This article in Fe/male Switch covers the rising trend of AI friends and looks toward the future. By the early 2030s, according to the piece, the AI companion market will be somewhere between $24B-$500B. Wide range! But you get the picture. 

A few competitors in the race for friends. These are some of the current aspirants in this heated field.