AI正在让每一个消费品牌都变成媒体公司

This article’s core argument is that AI will restructure the entire consumer industry and drive all consumer brands to transform into media companies. General readers can gain insights into the key changes reshaping the consumer sector over the next decade, as well as emerging trends in how people will interact with brands going forward.

1. Core logic of change: AI has driven content production costs toward zero. Where brands once relied on media outlets to handle content creation and distribution, AI now allows brands to produce content at scale in-house, breaking down the century-old division of labor between brands and media.

2. The future shape of brands: Where brands once existed primarily as static product symbols, they will evolve into interactive personas with distinct personalities. Consumers will be able to access on-demand service from AI brand assistants, turning brands into interactive, emotionally engaging companions.

3. Implications for consumers: Going forward, consumers will choose brands based not just on product quality, but also on whether a brand can deliver long-term companion value. Brands that consistently produce content and offer companionable service will gain an edge with consumers.

This article argues that AI is bringing about the third media revolution in the consumer industry, which will restructure all brand forms, clarify the future development direction for brand owners, and map out the shift in core competitive logic.

1. Shifting industry trends: Brands have long relied on external media and internet platforms to purchase traffic, essentially paying "traffic rent" to platforms. AI enables brands to produce large volumes of content independently, allowing them to reclaim control of distribution and reduce overreliance on third parties.

2. Changing competitive logic: Historically, brand competition centered on channel access—control of retail shelf space drove growth. Going forward, the core of competition will shift to content capability, and core assets will transition from shelf space to content assets. Brands must prioritize building out in-house content teams.

3. Brand transformation roadmap: Brands need to shift their focus from selling products via advertising to providing long-term companionship for users. They can leverage AI to build custom personas aligned with their brand positioning—for example, a fitness brand can launch an AI coach, while a baby care brand can become an AI parenting partner. Building long-term user relationships delivers compounding long-term value, and early movers will capture first-mover advantage.

This article outlines the new growth opportunities AI unlocks for all types of consumer sellers, while highlighting new competitive risks ahead, offering actionable guidance for sellers adjusting their business strategies.

1. New opportunities: AI drastically lowers the barrier and cost of content production. Where marketing campaigns once required collaboration between ad agencies, design firms and MCNs, small teams of a dozen people can now deliver the same work end-to-end. Small and medium-sized sellers can run continuous marketing campaigns at low cost, eliminating the need for expensive partnerships with major media outlets and top influencers.

2. Shifting competitive dynamics: Historically, seller growth relied primarily on capturing channel resources. Going forward, growth will center on content capability. Sellers should build AI-powered content production capabilities early, accumulate their own content assets, and capture consumers’ limited attention through consistent high-quality content.

3. Business model transformation: AI allows sellers to build companionable brands, turning one-off transactions into long-term interactive relationships with users that generate compounding long-term user value, laying the foundation for sustainable long-term growth. At the same time, sellers that fail to adapt and build content capabilities will be squeezed out of future competition.

This article puts forward the core thesis that AI will restructure consumer brands, offering new insights for factory transformation and growth, and clarifying new directions for business opportunity.

1. New business opportunities: As brand competitiveness shifts from channel resources to content capability, and AI drastically lowers the barrier to content marketing, factories that have traditionally focused only on manufacturing now have a clear path to building their own branded businesses. No longer fully reliant on the marketing capabilities of distributors or brand clients, they can use AI to create and distribute content independently to build their own brands.

2. Insights for digital transformation: When advancing digital and e-commerce transformation, factories should not only focus on production efficiency and channel sales. They also need to build AI content production capabilities early, to prepare for a future transition to owned-brand business and direct-to-consumer engagement.

3. Product upgrading direction: As consumers increasingly seek branded products that come with companionable services, factories can integrate AI-powered complementary services into product design and development. For example, baby products can pair with an AI parenting assistant, and pet products can pair with an AI pet care assistant, boosting product added value and market competitiveness.

This article analyzes the massive transformation AI is bringing to the brand service industry, clarifies new industry trends, and helps service providers identify new client pain points and transformation directions.

1. New industry trends: AI allows brands to complete in-house work that once required service providers to deliver, from bulk ad production and content creation to marketing material development. The traditional market for mass-produced content services will contract, and the entire service industry is set for restructuring.

2. Evolving client pain points: Brands’ core priority has shifted to creating high-quality content that captures consumer attention and builds long-term companionable user relationships. Traditional bulk content production services no longer meet these new brand needs.

3. Path to transformation: Service providers need to shift their business focus away from low-end bulk content production, toward high-value-added services such as content strategy planning, AI content system building, and user companionship relationship operation. They can help brands build content assets fit for the AI era and capture new industry opportunities.

This article advances the core thesis that AI will turn all brands into media companies, outlines the new challenges facing current platform business models, and clarifies a direction for platforms to adjust their operating strategies.

1. Shifting brand needs: Historically, brands were heavily reliant on platforms for access to traffic and distribution, operating essentially as content suppliers for platforms and paying traffic rent. AI now enables brands to produce content at scale independently, so brands’ reliance on platform traffic will gradually decline, while demand for independent in-house operation will rise.

2. New challenges for platforms: The traditional platform revenue model built on traffic rent will face growing pressure. As brands gain more autonomy, they carry an increased risk of moving off-platform, forcing platforms to adjust their profit and operating models.

3. Strategic adjustments for platforms: Platforms can offer brands more supporting tools for AI content production and user operation services, replacing traditional traffic rent revenue with service fees. They should also build a more open, brand-friendly ecosystem to meet brands’ demand for independent operation and reduce the risk of brand churn. Additionally, they can target recruitment to attract new brands seeking transformation to boost platform vitality.

This article presents a new core framework for understanding consumer industry transformation in the AI era, summarizes a new logic for industrial change, and offers new directions and research agendas for industrial research.

1. Emerging industrial trends: China’s consumer industry has already undergone two major transformations: the channel revolution and the e-commerce revolution. AI is now driving a third revolution—the media revolution. Its core impact is driving content production costs close to zero, breaking down the century-old division of labor between brands and media, and pushing all consumer brands toward becoming media companies.

2. Underlying logic of transformation: AI does not simply improve marketing efficiency for the consumer industry—it triggers a redistribution of distribution power. Brands are gradually reclaiming autonomy over content production and distribution from media and platforms, fundamentally reshaping the four-way relationship between brands, media, platforms and consumers.

3. New research directions for business models: A brand-new brand business model will emerge going forward. Instead of focusing on selling products, advertising or traffic, brands will shift to selling companionship, building long-term interactive companion relationships with users through AI. Brands will act both as product providers and content providers, and this entirely new brand form merits in-depth future research.