"The Rise of "Engagement Automation" Every day, new startups launch tools promising creators effortless engagement: Auto-liking or replying to posts AI-generated DMs or reply suggestions Scheduled posting, commenting or reposting Predicting optimal post times At first glance, these are powerful accelerators. They help creators scale presence, build brand visibility, and squeeze more from every post. But here's the paradox: Flywheel The social media flywheel, at its core, runs on 3 things."
"Flywheel Creators make content → driving engagement and value (brand awareness, ad revenue, ego metrics). Humans → visiting the platform, and consuming content. Platforms sell ads + data → which pays for the infrastructure and teams behind them. While AI is helping content creators maximise engagement, the content that is created is more likely to be consumed by AI-bots.AI-bots engaging with AI-bots doesn't create real value because: Data from AI-bots can't be sold. Ads watched by AI-bots won't generate revenue. Engagement faked by AI-bots erodes human trust."
Many past digital platforms collapsed after failing to sustain core engagement. New startups now offer engagement automation—auto-likes, AI-generated replies and DMs, scheduled posting, and optimal-time prediction—to help creators scale visibility. Social media’s economics run on creators producing content, humans consuming it, and platforms monetizing attention via ads and data. Automated interactions cause AI-bots to engage with AI-bots, producing unsellable data, ad impressions that generate no revenue, and eroding human trust. As authenticity declines, users move toward smaller, human-driven communities like Slack, Discord, WhatsApp, Signal, and Telegram that prioritize trust and focused interests.
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