Attention is marketing’s hottest commodity. Here’s how to get it in the fractured, AI-dominated future

Read the full What the Future: Attention issue

What the Future is not prone to hyperbole nor overly apocalyptic. We didn’t use the word “hellscape” until we did an issue on shopping?!? We’ve never said that X will kill Y. This topic, Attention, might change that.

Now that I have your attention, I’ll acknowledge that I look at this from the perspective of a marketer and also as a parent. In the first role, I value the attention you’re paying by reading these words. As a parent of three teenagers, I know how hard it is to keep attention.

Whatever your thing — cats, cooking or Minecraft speedruns — we will consume limitless content about our favorite topics. And t herein lies the central tension in this issue of What the Future. We keep hearing that attention spans are infinitesimal. We also hear and witness that people will endlessly scroll short-form content or binge eight 30-minute episodes of a streaming show. Both require attention; lots of it.

AI is going to shift this tension even further. It will quickly and tirelessly generate content as fast as data centers can get built, lakes drained and electricity generated. I kid. Kinda. Younger adults, especially, want to connect, give their attention and build community around these increasingly niche fan communities.

Redefining trust and engagement

We talked to Kyle Watson, the chief brand officer for the energy drink Celsius, who said, “What I see as important is brands creating their own ecosystems and connecting the dots between these communities, but also establishing those people in those communities who are going to be the brand's voice because they're so authentically connected to those humans.”

At the same time, there’s a backlash in the form of a cottage industry focused on ... focus. This includes everything from notebooks and energy drinks to wellness retreats, where you can unplug and be mindful and center yourself.

Everything and everyone is vying for your attention and your data, which has been deemed the most-prized commodity by marketers and policymakers and platforms alike. Attention is essentially just a fancy way of saying time. You have finite amount of it and marketers want to grab it to, let’s be honest, sell you things.

AI is just getting started and already we are bombarded by information. We don’t know what to trust, other than ourselves, what we see with our own eyes and hear with our own ears. And one of the only lines in this chart that’s gone up since 2020 has increased — messaging from brands who have leaned into values alignment and authenticity this decade.

Trust and journalism’s evolving role

Attention to news and information, not entertainment, is an especially important focus. There are so many ways for us to get news — and the ones we tend to turn to, social media — aren’t ones we trust.

There’s also a notable increase since 2020 of people saying journalism can take a side, as long as that’s rooted in good reporting. That’s it. That’s the job. But reporters have also been taught for decades that conflict is a way to get attention, maybe even the key way.

In the issue, we talk to Amanda Ripley, journalist and author of “High Conflict.” She teaches journalists how to reduce the conflict in their reporting while still telling good stories. That conflict gains attention but erodes trust and makes communication and cooperation difficult. While AI is going to cause lots of problems for us in disinformation and such, she sees a big positive from AI. She told me:

AI is shockingly good at coaching humans to better communicators in conflict. If we start from the premise that most of us are not well-skilled in intelligent, healthy, smart-conflict skills, we never get that training. We certainly don't see it modeled in our politics or our culture, right? To thrive in the modern age, you're going have to get much better at it, much more quickly. That's the only hope we've got. We have found AI tools to be very, very good at helping humans, for example, get better at listening.”
Amanda Ripley, journalist and author of “High Conflict”

At the outset, I hinted at a death. Is there a world where AI kills email marketing? AI tools are already at a point where they can generate endless, seemingly personalized content tailored just for you. That’s going to happen at scale any moment now. Your email software, meanwhile, is going to be better at figuring out what communications are worthy of your attention and keeping the rest from you.

Looking ahead

So there’s a plausible future, where the only way to break through and get people’s attention — or at least show up in the daily AI summary — is by having something unique and owned, and something the LLMs won’t find on the internet. One solution? Trustworthy data and research. Tell your customers something they don’t know about something they care about, and you’ll get their attention.

Keeping all of this in mind, you’ll note What the Future has evolved and streamlined. Spend your attention as you choose, in whatever order you like. We have content for you to read. We have charts if that’s your thing. We have a new format for the webinar that includes a live conversation with guests who weren’t interviewed for the issue.

Scroll, click, watch, learn away. And we’ve already been picked up for another issue, so stay tuned for What the Future: Success later this summer.

For further reading:

• Insights to Activate: Audience
• What the Future: Reality
• What the Future: Truth