High Signal Podcasts Evidence ledger
Method
Browse
← Back to evidence

Evidence receipt / evaluation

Published · transcript-backed

Ben Thompson: evaluation

12 Feb 2026 Cheeky Pint Ben Thompson from Stratechery on AI ads, the end of SaaS, and the future of media

“You get exactly what you asked for. And I think the extent to how powerful this already works, they're just stuck on “50% of my ads work, I don't know which ones.”

— Ben Thompson

Source trail

Everything needed to verify it.

Speaker
Ben Thompson
Attribution
Verified speaker
Claim type
evaluation
Recorded
12 Feb 2026
Publisher
Cheeky Pint

Transcript context

…No, it's very autopilot. Yeah. What you do is you go in and you say, "Acquiring a customer for this is worth $10 to me. I'll spend up to $10 and they will deliver you a customer for $10." Their margin will actually increase because they'll make sure they deliver it at exactly $10 and they can do it for more and they actually make more money. You get exactly what you asked for. And I think the extent to how powerful this already works, they're just stuck on “50% of my ads work, I don't know which ones. ” No, on Facebook, they all work. I feel like a bunch of new, very big successful companies will be created in AI-powered e-commerce. It just feels like a different enough product space.…

Stored transcript either side of the excerpt. The highlighted words are the published quote; the surrounding text is unedited source, never generated.

Search evidence