ChatGPT: I’m really easy to talk to — and I’ll never judge you for asking how to make a boiled egg (again).
Claude: I’m the kind of partner who loves getting creative with you (just hope you don’t mind that I overthink everything).
Perplexity: Got an ex that lied to you? I would never. I always show my receipts.
Gemini: If you’re looking for someone who’s empathetic, helpful, and just gets you, that’s me.

Yeah that’s creepy, but it’s becoming clear that each AI is carving out its own niche in the market. And the one who wins won’t be the smartest. It will be the one that can win your trust.

- Charlotte Ellis, Editor ♡

Want a chance at winning a cool thousand bucks? Here’s how it works:

Step 1: Opt into the competition here. You can only be in to win if you’ve done this step!

Step 2: Share YAP with your friends using your unique referral link 👇

Step 3: Check out the leaderboard every Friday to see who’s on top (hopefully you!)

Step 4: Win $1000. Whoever has referred the most friends to YAP by 31 Jan gets the prize money.

Alright, time to get sharing!

**T&Cs apply

Ah yes, let's take capitalism off planet x

Just when you thought billionaires couldn’t make the tech arms race any weirder. Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos are reportedly chasing each other to build AI data centres orbiting Earth. Instead of super-cool rocket selfies, these space hubs would use solar power and Starlink-style satellites to crunch AI workloads far above terrestrial power bills and cooling headaches.

It’s basically a “ground infrastructure is so last decade” move. And even Google and other tech startups are flirting with the idea. Whether this becomes sci-fi infrastructure or just another billionaire flex remains to be seen. But it’s safe to say the space race has officially gone full interplanetary.

Ever wonder how TikTok knows you need to see another cat in a tiny sweater while your best friend gets Call of Duty edits? Well, The Washington Post actually mapped TikTok’s algorithmic “content universe” using real user data. They found that the app clusters interests not by hashtags, but by viewing habits (yeah, we know…).

This means your feed isn’t a random soup of videos. It’s your own little island of obsessions, whatever that may mean… seriously, my boyfriend's feed is currently seal videos, and no I don’t mean the Navy. It’s basically a personality quiz you never signed up for, constantly updating based on every millisecond you watch or skip.

In case you needed further proof that Fortnite is less a game and more a cultural wormhole, Kim Kardashian is officially entering the Fortnite universe. Players will be able to unlock the icon as a playable skin as part of an upcoming in-game event, complete with themed cosmetics and challenges.

It’s another reminder that Fortnite no longer competes with other games, but with pop culture itself, putting it in a lane of its own. From Travis Scott concerts to fashion collabs and now Kim K, Epic Games has turned the battle royale into a metaverse runway. Here, celebrity, commerce, and gameplay blur together. The real question isn’t why Kim’s in Fortnite, it’s who isn’t yet.

-Sophie Randell, Writer

Every emerging technology era has its own marketing delusion. For crypto, it was “number go up.” For web3, it was “community.” For the metaverse, it was… whatever Zuck was doing in those legless Horizon Worlds demos. Now AI has entered the chat, and the fantasy is that the most technically powerful model will win. Cute. Incorrect, but cute.

Because the real battle won’t be happening on leaderboards or benchmarks or your favourite cherry-picked eval.

Ask any smartphone manufacturer desperately pretending their cameras aren’t all the same.

So here we are, watching a new kind of corporate colosseum emerge, AI vs AI, battling for emotional territory before the tech converges. The product is neural nets. The differentiator is trust. The weapon is brand. And the irony is delicioussss: the tools we use for branding now have to do their own branding. The marketers have become the marketed-to.

Welcome to the battle of the brands.

OpenAI’s campaign with Isle of Any is basically a soft-focus handshake. Shot on film, drenched in warmth, practically begging you to exhale. Here’s ChatGPT gently folding itself into your life, whispering: Don’t worry. I’m here to help. Dinner recipes, study notes, a gentle co-pilot. It’s brand positioning as emotional ergonomics: “I fit where you already are.”

The strategy is clear: if AI is scary, make yours feel familiar, supportive and approachable. The friend who never makes you feel stupid for asking how long chicken lasts in the fridge.

ChatGPT is branding itself as the mass-market operating system for everyday intelligence. Not the smartest model, but the safest pair of hands.

Then Claude barges in like the gifted kid who learned Blender at age eight and built a lunar rover in their backyard for fun. Mother’s campaign is nothing short of art school brilliance. The message: Think higher. Think weirder. Keep thinking.

It leans into complexity, uniqueness and depth, stating that Claude is the AI for people who want edge. For people who believe creativity should be a collaborative effort of wit and craft. And those who romanticise intelligence the way others romanticise leather-bound books.

This is premium positioning: aspiration through capability, mystique through novelty. Claude is not “easy” but Claude is “worth it.”

Right now, perception gaps are everything. When categories are still forming, the brand that claims the emotional real estate first is the one who sets the rules.

ChatGPT is staking out warmth, safety, universality. Claude is staking out intellect, depth, distinctiveness.

Both are smart moves. Neither is about IQ points.

Consumers won’t pick the AI that scored one percent higher on some academic benchmark they do not understand and do not care about.

They’ll pick the AI they trust, that feels aligned with their identity, not just their tasks. The AI that makes them feel something, whether that’s safe, inspired, understood or powerful.

In other words, it’s the same battle consumer brands fight every day.

The real moat in AI may not be multimodal reasoning or long-context memory, but perhaps emotional positioning. Personality architecture. Soft power.

The winning AI will not be that which can write you the tightest Python. It will be the one you trust to whisper in your ear while doing it.

This is why we’re suddenly seeing entire brand campaigns from companies that used to laugh at the idea of “advertising.” This is no longer a capability race, but a hearts-and-minds race.

The same rules that shaped Coke vs Pepsi, Nike vs Adidas, Apple vs Microsoft, Netflix vs HBO… Those rules are now shaping AI.

-Sophie Randell, Writer

Because the situation already opened the door, looked you dead in the eyes, and said “yeah babe… it’s wraps.”

The sound comes from IShowSpeed’s now classic YouTube livestream titled Early Stream!; yes, the same stream that is somehow on IMDb with a perfect 10/10. Like it’s Pulp Fiction for people who bark. Oh it does also happen to be my desktop background right now.

In it, Speed is going up against a fan on Fortnite who's spiralling, crying, pacing, and delivering the now-iconic line: “oh my god I’m going to LOSE.” TikTok heard that and said: same king, same.

People are using this sound for situations where the L is so obvious, so unavoidable, so pre-confirmed that all you can do is emotionally collapse like Speed on that carpet.

Some of the best examples:

Using the sound, film yourself in full internal-meltdown mode, hands in hair, pacing, dramatic flop, in other words, CRASH OUT!1!!!. Add text describing the moment you instantly knew you were about to lose.

A few ideas to get you started: 

-abdel khalil, brand & marketing exec

😲WTF Pot plant toad
✨Daily inspo Life is meant to be felt
😊Soooo satisfying Rock skimming
🍝What you should make for dinner tonight Spiced kofte and potatoes

Hey Laura!

The biggest piece of advice I have for you is to test your ideas as you go. So many people have what they think is a great idea and they put all kinds of processes into place to deliver that product. Then, they're surprised when it doesn't sell! This is easily avoidable if you just talk to the people you hope will become your customers.

Throw out what you're thinking about and see what sticks. Ask them what positioning appeals to them. Ask them how much they would pay for what you're offering (if they'd pay for it at all!). Then you can make sure you're creating a product your audience wants. This will give you confidence that the work you're putting in now will turn into a viable business rather than a waste of time.

- Charlotte Ellis, Editor ♡

We get it. Creating content that does numbers is harder than it looks. But doing those big numbers is the fastest way to grow your brand. So if you’re tired of throwing sh*t at the wall and seeing what sticks, you’re in luck. Because making our clients go viral is kinda what we do every single day.