Nick Kyrgios' New Smoothie, Substack Mergers, AI Design, and Betrayal
Lots to talk about...
In Today’s Newsletter—
Consulting Firms Are Making a Ton of $$$ on AI
Nick Kyrgios Launches a Smoothie at Joe & the Juice
Figma Announced New Design Features
Newsletters are Merging
Betrayal
NEWS
The biggest winners of the AI revolution so far? Consultants. The NYT reports just two years ago, when OpenAI’s ChatGPT launched, Boston Consulting Group made $0 from AI consulting. Today, it accounts for 20% of their revenues. As more companies begin to realize to potential operational efficiency (a phrase which is being thrown around on investor calls at an all time high) they can derive from using AI tools, they are turning to big consulting firms to help them figure it out. IBM has made $1B+ from AI consulting, KPMG has made $650M in the last 6 months alone, and McKinsey expects to attribute 40% of its revenue this year to AI services. In an era where capital is expensive, and investors want to see performance gains, the AI buzzword has been a hot commodity for CEOs who want to pitch how their company is advancing to shareholders. I am honestly curious to see if AI ends up being another tech that juices the market for a period of time, but slowly fades away in significance. I can’t help but think some of the output (like the AI generated Toys “R” Us ad I wrote about yesterday) are just a bit gimmicky. We’ll see!
Nick Kyrgios is partnering with Joe & the Juice on a protein smoothie. The often angry pro tennis player is the latest celebrity to partner with Joe & the Juice for a campaign. This strategy reminds me of similar celeb partnerships other food & bev companies have done in recent years (a la Erewhon’s partnerships, or McDonald’s x Travis Scott)
The rollout is just starting, and there will be more to watch as it gets unveiled. Kudos to the team at Potion PR on this rollout! They are one of the best PR & communications companies here in the city, and you can read my interview with their founder, Juliana Goldman, here.
Figma announced a ton of new design features at their annual Config conference. Everyone’s favorite design tool is adding in the ability to make presentations (I already do this for strategy docs but now it will be wayyy easier), upgrades to their developer mode, and AI features that can generate draft designs and even rename layers. I personally love Figma, its my go to tool for design work, moodboards, decks, website mockups, etc. and they’ve done a great job over the years at engaging with the broader design community and consistently adding desired features.
I have seen some of the community toil over the new AI design component, but the reality is AI is here, and you can either adapt or make your work so good without it that it beats AI every time. There’s no putting the genie back in the bottle here, and while tons of bad content and design work is going to be made with AI, look at this as an opportunity to rise above it and make the best work possible.
Substack mergers are starting to happen. My friend Nikole has been writing an excellent newsletter on the hottest nightlife events happening in NYC, and after just a few months, she is merging with
’s Medium Rare newsletter, offering her recommendations as a column within his newsletter called ‘Hot Piss’ First of all, congratulations to Nikole!People often talk about newsletter fatigue, and question whether or not people want to pay $5 a month for 10 different Substacks. Which begs the question, should writers consolidate and bundle together under one roof, just like the traditional media industry. Lauren Sherman spoke about this on Fashion People, and mentioned the idea Substack could bundle publications together, or writers themselves could do the heavy lifting and launch something like Puck but on Substack. She specifically mentioned writers like
and could offer their content under a combined model. I do think this could make sense, and I am curious to see how this plays out as Substack, newsletters, and longform content evolves.Like anything in the media industry, there is some cyclical nature at play. Writers get fed up with large bureaucracy, and go independent, shifting the dynamic, and audiences read for the writer, not the publication. But then writers team up again… and form a publication. And on and on till the end of time.
Personally, I like to keep Who Do You Know? free. I want as many eyeballs on it as possible, and would rather look for an opportunity for a paid sponsorship, merch, or other revenue stream in the future to help monetize this fledgling media empire. Maybe that will change, I’m not sure.
I will say, if you’re a brand who wants to talk about sponsorships, email me: jake@jb.studio
When asked why Eric Adams wanted to become NYC’s mayor, he said one word: “Betrayal” This guy is so funny. We love a little betrayal to motivate us to lock tf in.
Okay gotta go! Have a great day :)
Jake Bell is a content marketing, creative strategist, and designer based in NYC. He specializes in brand building, content creation, branding, art direction, creative strategy, and making things cool.
Want to chat? Email me: jake@jb.studio
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