Why Movements Transcend Marketing in the Age of AI

In 2008, an open source software project was proposed to a small online community.

A savvy founder had a revolutionary idea for a new kind of digital product, powered by a new way to record digital transactions.

It began with a white paper. A technological manifesto designed to spark a movement.

From there, the movement grew, and the proposed peer-to-peer product was launched in 2009. This led more people to join the movement.

To create and spread an idea this revolutionary, capital was required. But instead of seeking VC funding, this founder granted community members digital tokens for their work.

These early “equity participants” were incentivized to invest their time, skills, and even money in both developing and evangelizing the product. As the movement expanded, the tokens slowly gained value… and then eventually skyrocketed in worth.

This strange startup knew no geographical boundaries and operated outside the traditional financial system. It had no employees and, like most open-source projects, was completely community-driven, which blurred the line between developers and customers.

And yet, as of this writing, the product has a market cap of $1.25 trillion (yes, with a T). It’s been valued much higher in the recent past and may again reach new heights.

The founder called himself Satoshi Nakamoto. The product is Bitcoin.

Since no one knows for sure who’s behind that pseudonym, Satoshi Nakamoto may be more than one person. But at most, it’s one to three people, which means Bitcoin satisfies all the criteria for a sovereign startup.

To clarify, I’m not a crypto bro, and I own no Bitcoin. It remains to be seen if the whole thing drops back to zero or solidifies itself as a mainstream currency.

In other words, I’m not part of this movement. I’m not a true believer.

So when I first encountered the Bitcoin-as-startup idea, I scoffed. This is not a startup, I thought.

This is… something else.

I’ve come to see my initial reaction as the entire point. Something was different, and it’s a prime example for those of us building “different” companies ourselves.

Bitcoin didn’t succeed because of clever marketing. It succeeded because it became a movement. And now and going forward, that distinction matters more than ever.

Why Movements Matter More in the Age of AI

Here’s what changed between the launch of Bitcoin in 2009 and today: AI can now do everything we used to call “marketing.”

Claude can write your emails, your ad copy, your social posts, and your landing pages. It can segment audiences, personalize messages, optimize conversions, and analyze performance. It can do A/B testing at scale. It can create content calendars and execute them flawlessly.

Marketing, as a technical skill, has been commoditized. Worse, this push-button marketing is likely to fail precisely because it’s a commodity.

But here’s what AI can’t do. It cannot lead a movement.

• AI can’t embody shared values.

• It can’t have lived experience that makes it “one of us.”

• It can’t inspire people to believe in something bigger than a product.

• It can’t create the sense of belonging that makes people willing to evangelize an idea for free.

This is why movements transcend marketing. Movements are what AI can’t replicate.

When Satoshi published that white paper, he wasn’t doing marketing. He was articulating a vision that aligned with people’s worldview about money, sovereignty, and freedom from centralized control. Those people became believers, then evangelists, then leaders themselves.

We’re not talking about a marketing funnel. Instead we have a group of people who take collective action based on a unifying vision, and that’s infinitely more powerful.

Movements are built on something AI fundamentally lacks: authentic human identity, shared values, and collective purpose. And that’s why you must think in terms of movements, not marketing, to make it in this brave new world.

The Unity Principle: What AI Can’t Do

In 2016, the social psychology researcher who defined the six fundamentals of influence (reciprocity, authority, social proof, liking, commitment and consistency, and scarcity) added a seventh principle.

His name is Dr. Robert Cialdini, and the new principle of influence is unity.

Unity isn’t just “liking” scaled up. It’s the recognition that people trust and follow those they perceive as fundamentally similar to themselves. Not people they admire from a distance, but people who are “us.”

From the prospect’s perspective, it’s, “I trust people like me. People who value what I value.”

Research shows people now trust others who are similar to themselves more than representatives of traditional power centers, and as much as academic or technical experts.

Now and going forward, this principle becomes the difference between what AI can do and what only humans can do.

• AI can fake authority: It has access to all human knowledge and can present it convincingly.

• AI can fake social proof: It can cite studies, quote experts, and imply widespread agreement that may not exist.

• AI can even fake liking: It can be charming, witty, and empathetic in its responses.

But AI cannot fake being “one of us.” It has no lived experience. No scars from failure. No personal story of transformation. No shared struggle. No authentic membership in a tribe.

This is why movements, which are fundamentally about shared identity and collective purpose, are the human moat that AI can’t cross. And this is what the generic advice of “be human” really comes down to.

Movements vs. Marketing: The Critical Distinction

Marketing asks: “How do I get people to buy my product?”

Movements ask: “What do we believe together, and how do we make that belief the new normal?”

Marketing is transactional. Movements are transformational.

Marketing creates customers. Movements create evangelists.

Marketing says, “Here’s why this product solves your problem.”

Movements say, “Here’s who we are and what we stand for… Join us.”

And this is the key insight: People don’t just buy from movements. They become part of them. They contribute to them. They defend them. They recruit others into them.

• They don’t just adopt the shared belief; they identify with it.

• They’ll defend it to skeptics at dinner parties.

• They’ll bring others into the fold.

• They believe in the mission.

Good marketing tries to connect via identity, but more often misses the mark because it lacks credibility. Movements are inherently about identity, so they work better than marketing in just about every case.

Next week, I’ll share with you how I’ve become a leader in various movements across my entire entrepreneurial career, and how this has been the secret of my success.

You’ll discover why this makes audience attraction and business building much easier compared with “me too” mainstream marketing.

Even better, I’ll share how to find your movement. And how going against the status quo makes creating compelling content your moat against AI commodification.