LinkedIn AI Hype Is Becoming the New MLM : Apple, Beware So-Called AI Thought Leaders Are “Whoring For Hits.”
LinkedIn’s AI “thought leaders” are multiplying like MLM recruits - all hype, zero insight frantic self-promotion. While they chase dopamine metrics, Apple sits silent, plotting 2026. This is what happens when the loudest voices in AI sell fiction instead of understanding.
“LinkedIn AI Hype Is the New MLM”
I read some “wisdom” on LinkedIn today. As people who know me, will know, I am immersed neck-deep in AI in both an applied and developmental way, and have been highly critical of Apple’s AI failures for 15 years (especially the last 3 years, and its future opaque plans).
Thought-leaders with job titles that sound like startups (“Chief AI Officer, Evangelist, Catalyst”) are now recycling vapourware as inevitability, feeding the dopamine machine with corporate certainty. The real innovators are quietly wondering how to stop AI from eating privacy, not bragging about eating markets and also wondering how to live up to the hype when their current products are already broadly under-appreciated and misunderstood by a large part of the public, who won’t believe that the other large part of the public are using GPT daily.
Frankly, it reminds me of the phrase “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus.”
Many industry AI commentators, generally seem to come from Uranus (playground humour never gets old does it). Men would never believe what women carry around in their handbags - and if women knew what men really talked about when they go down the pub with their mates, they’d never get married. Ignorance is bliss, and each to their own.
In spite of my mocking, I’ve remained excited about Jony Ive and OpenAI and what they might pull off together. Given recent announcements and distinct signs OpenAI is pulling an Apple by slowly ensuring it owns its own stack (or at least its supply chain), I wouldn’t bet against OpenAI. People have been gleefully anticipating its downfall for years (just as they did with Apple), and look where they are now.
Tommo_UK
And as for Ive?
He has his crash after burnout at Apple.
A bit like Steve Jobs did after he left Apple the first time.
When Jobs came back a changed man, he changed Apple.
And then he changed the world with a legacy for the principle of “it just works” even if in practice, Apple have slipped in their delivery of this mantra, rather a lot, in the last few years.
The jury is out on when and if they recover their ability to wow with a ”One More Thing,” without Mark-bloody-Gurman spoiling all the fun by spreading rumours a year ahead of time, so by the time anything ships, AppleInsider is already MacRumouring about what’s being released the year after the year after.
No wonder Apple launches aren’t fun any more. Thanks for ruining the fun, Gurman.
Anyway, back to the point, and surprises, ecosystems, and disruptions, and a return from a long and winding road to self-rediscovery, who is to say Jony Ive and OpenAI won’t do the same?
Who’s to say they won’t redefine a market segment, and dominate by momentum and surprise by capturing the essence and use case of AI in a manner not yet achieved - just as Jobs would famously do with new product, such as the iPod and iPhone, and even the iPad?
Remember, the commoditised wrist watch/wearable was dead in the water until Apple re-launched the idea of what a Watch is, with the Apple Watch, suddenly outselling more than the entire watch market worldwide combined (a position and dominance now utterly squandered, for now, sadly).
Back to LinkedIn and “Whoring for Hits” though.
Here’s the classic example of the FUD Apple are facing (even if the mess they’re in, is totally their own fault). The LinkedIn poster, supposedly an AI expert and CIO of 10 years and a thought leader in the space writes the following “PowerPoint Machismo.” “It’s CV theatre in PowerPoint prose, metrics without meaning that sound impressive but tell you nothing about actual outcomes or strategic depth, just hanging a thesis-as-truth off a Financial Times headlines and calling it insight.
Please note to skim-readers, the following are his points, NOT MINE. [my comments are in square brackets]
“Mr XYZ AI Expert” on Linked wrote:
OpenAI just revealed their $1 trillion hardware bet. Sam Altman told employees this will be "the biggest thing we've ever done.
"The company plans to ship 100 million AI "companions" by 2027.
“No screen. Just cameras and microphones that understand your world. This changes everything about AI interaction.”
The Reality Behind The Headlines [he goes on to write - T]
- A wearable device launching 2027 💰[gee - that‘s.. two years away! Safe for a rumour monger post to attract attention - T]
- Always-on sensing without activation words ⚡ [remind you of “spyware? - T]
- Worn around your neck for ambient intelligence 👁️ [see above remark about spyware, plus if you thought Google Glass made you look like an ass, well - T]
- Connects wirelessly to your existing devices 🧠 [well, duh of course.. but to do what - get a hitch on the cell converting? I can see Apple just giving that away happily - T]
[he excitedly proceeds to continue, - T]
Remember when voice assistants needed "Hey Alexa?” This device just knows when to help. It's ambient computing made real. Context-aware AI that lives with you. [ok I’m on board with this idea, but not with it hanging around my neck making me look like I’m an octogenarian wearing a fall detector Here’s the image he proposes. “The Eye Of Sauron Is Everywhere”].
How I see the opportunity [he continues with deep authority]: While others debate privacy, the winners are already prototyping use cases. [well, ok, they’re a-plenty, but there hasn’t been a compelling one easily narrated yet, for all of the incredible almost 1-Billion GPT active installed user base, yet, other than what people discover they can use it for… it hasn’t been “One More Thing’d yet.” - T]
Your competitors will have AI that remembers every meeting.Every conversation. Every decision point. The question isn't whether this technology works it's whether your competition is ready for it [he goes on to say, then linking to his news letter - T]
/END OF HOT AIR
As I said, none of this is “case of fact,“ and all assembled from several years of rumours and statements at different times by OpenAI, using their announcement of how they intend to allocate $1tn of spending over 5 years, as a spring to somehow suggest the “product” featured and described above is the final and true iteration of OpenAI+ Johny Ive’s project.
Excuse me, but riffing of recent articles, I call this the “enshittification” of LinkedIn.
My POV on this:
Hyperbolic and unnecessary stretching the truth beyond belief by mashing together more news reports and macro-deals by OpenAI and their recent announcement of a spending roadmap for $1tn over the next 5 years, but no product road map to hang around their neck yet, is nothing more than snake oil selling, and misleading your followers in the process. It’s not journalism. It’s mine expertise. It’s The National Enquirer.
Frankly it’s this kind of 2+2 =10.65 that makes me sigh and sets back the real debate about AI and assistive devices like the one rumoured.
Someone commented:
Pre-GenZ generations will probably find it scary due to privacy risks and will think back and appreciate the ‘Hey Alexa’ more. While GenZ and following generations will embrace this as part of their lives due to the convenience of having their own ‘Jarvis’.
Really? My thoughts in reply:
I continued:
… and ended with
I did rather a lot of research on Gen-Z and I think they’d prefer to hide in a cupboard than expose themselves to this device.
Tommo_UK
It’s not a generational divide, it’s a philosophical one:
between those who curate their exposure, and those who want to monetise it. Gen-Z are not going to fall for this nobody any older than them will do either, (but who the hell knows if Gen-Über will).
I wrote this reflection just to show how deepfake and how disruptive much of the discussion about AI is, can be, and is often self-serving.
That doesn’t mean dismissing it is right, or that Apple have it right (or wrong - though they’ve been on the wrong side of this for a decade and half now without question).
It means you have to suspend belief, and disbelief and just go out and do your own research which means ditching your cognitive bias against AI, as I know so many readers have, and exploring it without blinkers on.
It’s out there, and the installed user base of GPT is now exponentially rising and by next year will match Apple’s famed, and only slowly rising 1.5bn.
As AI itself becomes an agentic OS, the hardware won’t matter so much as the cross platform availability of all your information, everywhere, all the time, regulated and privacy guarded by an AI. Maybe around your neck, possibly on your wrist, or maybe as a ring.
And as for those saying AI is a bubble, sure, it is, but weren’t the railroads, the telephone, the dot com boom and bust, the laying of fibre.. and yet.. all that infrastructure bubble, and build out burst, only to be absorbed into profitable companies for cents on the Dollar. AI will pull through, it’s not long anywhere. The game of musical chairs, about who owns what when the musical chairs game stops and the valuations go pop, well, that’s another matter.
Tommo_UK
But one thing is for sure.
Siri unboxed running on an overpriced HomePod as an answering machine (delayed two years because Apple couldn’t get Siri and AI working), and a “table robot” in 2027/2028, really, really doesn’t excite me much. And that’s not an anti-Apple rant but a sad reflection of how delayed Apple’s product launches are (as I wrote about, over a year ago, as linked to AI delays) and the opportunity cost of missing the boat and now struggling to catch up.
Just a few thoughts. Nobody has this quite right yet, but Apple certainly down seem in Pole Position to be the first to, from anything I’ve seen.
— Tommo_UK, London. Wednesday 16th October 2025.
X: @tommo_uk | Linkedin: Tommo UK
AI NB:
By the way, if you’re interested in another play on the “agentic browser” iteration, there’s a new one in town: Strawberry.
Give it a try, they’re offering absurd high level LLM integration at the moment on the beta version which outperforms Perplexity Labs on many functions and works as a browser, and an LLM, running natively on macOS. I’ve played with it and it’s pretty interesting! Apple could probably buy the whole outfit from the very young founders for a few million, but are still fiddling with iterative answering machines, it seems.
I’m curious to hear any comments on it if you try it.
Give it a go, and do first watch the demos, if you want to understand agentic AI and how useful it is, already can be for your work and personal life, and where the conversion of “answering machine” and “thinking companion” converge.
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