🚨Trump signed an executive order establishing a federal AI framework to override "onerous" state AI laws, creating a litigation task force to challenge state regulations and positioning White House AI czar David Sacks as the central figure in U.S. tech policy. The feds are coming for your state AI rules.

The world’s most iconic brands don’t scale by accident.

In this Built to Scale session, where HR leaders share the behind the scenes that fuels their enterprises, Andrea Rickey reveals how she’s modernizing talent strategy across a 19,000-employee workforce and turning HR into a true business driver.

We’ll go deep into what high-leverage HR looks like and what people teams of all sizes can take from it.

You’ll learn how her team is reshaping high-volume hiring through AI and skills-based recruiting, building leadership pipelines, and aligning people decisions directly to business impact — all inside one of the world’s most recognizable companies.

Join us for a candid conversation on the future of talent, organizational design, and what high-leverage HR looks like at scale.

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Everyone's building AI tools. Nobody's talking about the real gold rush: AI avatars selling affiliate products.

This is the convergence of three trends: AI-generated personas, affiliate marketing, and the collapse of trust in traditional advertising.

What's happening

People are creating AI-generated Instagram models, TikTok personalities, and YouTube channels. These personas don't exist. But they have followers, engagement, and influence.

And they're selling products. Supplements, courses, software, fashion — anything with an affiliate program.

The economics are brutal: Zero cost to create the persona. Zero cost to generate content. 100% margin on affiliate commissions.

One creator is running five AI influencer accounts. Each account promotes different products. Total time investment: 2 hours per week. Monthly revenue: $15k-$25k in affiliate commissions.

Why this works

Audiences don't care if the influencer is real. They care if the content is entertaining and the product recommendations are good.

AI-generated personas can post 10x more content than human influencers. More content = more touchpoints = more conversions.

Affiliate marketing is performance-based. You only get paid when someone buys. That means you can test infinite products, infinite niches, and infinite personas without upfront risk.

The playbook

1. Create an AI persona using Midjourney or similar tools. Define the look, personality, and niche.

2. Generate content at scale. Use ChatGPT for captions, scripts, and hooks. Use AI video tools for TikToks and Reels.

3. Build an audience. Post consistently. Engage with comments (AI can handle this too). Optimize for virality.

4. Promote affiliate products. Choose products that align with your persona's niche. Disclose affiliate links (legally required).

5. Scale. Once one persona works, create more. Each persona targets a different niche and promotes different products.

The ethical questions

Is it deceptive? Legally, you're required to disclose if content is AI-generated. Most people don't. Platforms can't enforce it at scale.

Does it erode trust? Absolutely. But trust in traditional advertising was already broken. AI influencers are just the next evolution.

Is it sustainable? For now, yes. Eventually, audiences will get better at detecting AI personas. But by then, the models will be even better at mimicking humans.

What this means

If you're in affiliate marketing, AI avatars are the next frontier. The people who move first will capture the most value before the market saturates.

If you're a brand, you're about to compete with AI influencers who can produce content faster, cheaper, and at higher volume than human influencers.

If you're building in this space, the opportunity isn't just creating AI avatars. It's building the infrastructure for managing, scaling, and monetizing them.

What's next

Expect AI influencer agencies to emerge. Companies that manage portfolios of AI personas, each optimized for different niches and affiliate programs.

Expect platforms to crack down on undisclosed AI content. But enforcement will be slow, and the economic incentive to keep building AI influencers is too strong.

Expect a cultural reckoning. When people realize that half the influencers they follow don't exist, trust in social media will hit a new low. But the money will keep flowing.

BTW: The Matt Barnes story from earlier this week? That was a scam. But the same technology is being used legally and profitably by people selling affiliate products through AI avatars. The line between fraud and business model is thinner than you think.

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The Recap: OpenAI launched GPT-5.2 on December 11—the same day Google released Gemini 3 Deep Research—in what's becoming the most expensive game of one-upmanship in tech history. OpenAI claims GPT-5.2 outperforms Google's new agent on key benchmarks, rendering Google's comparisons obsolete within hours of release.

Unpacked:

Bottom line: Same-day frontier model launches expose the escalating irrationality of AI competition. Neither company can afford to let the other control the news cycle, so they're forced into synchronized releases that strain infrastructure, burn capital, and prioritize PR over product readiness. The question isn't who has the better model—it's how long either can sustain this pace before the compute economics break.

VCs declare the market has flipped—founders now control dealmaking dynamics as leverage reverses from the 2022-23 correction era.

Rivian unveils custom silicon and lidar-based autonomy roadmap, positioning to compete directly with Tesla rather than rely on third-party AV tech.

Ford and SK On dissolve their U.S. battery joint venture, dividing assets as automakers reconsider international manufacturing partnerships amid shifting supply chain strategies.

1X pivots home humanoid robots to industrial warehouses, revealing consumer robotics remains commercially unviable while B2B deployment offers near-term revenue.

Runway debuts physics-aware world model for training AI agents, expanding beyond video generation into robotics and simulation infrastructure.

Disney hits Google with cease-and-desist over Gemini generating copyrighted characters—days before signing an OpenAI partnership, exposing selective IP enforcement.

Epic wins appeal forcing Apple App Store changes as Fortnite returns to Google Play, marking a shift in mobile app distribution platform power.

Best of AI™ Team

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