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Home » AI is Ending the Social Media Era and What Comes Next: Gary Vee (Transcript)

AI is Ending the Social Media Era and What Comes Next: Gary Vee (Transcript)

Editor’s Notes: In this episode of the I’ve Got Questions podcast, futurist Sinead Bovell sits down with entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk (Gary Vee) to discuss the potential end of the social media era as we know it. They explore how AI, voice-first technology, and augmented reality are poised to disrupt current platforms and fundamentally change how humans consume content. Throughout the conversation, Gary Vee offers strategic advice for creators on how to build a resilient brand and “squeeze the living shit” out of today’s opportunities while preparing for an immersive, agentic future. (Feb 5, 2026)

TRANSCRIPT:

The Beginning of the End of Social Media

SINEAD BOVELL: We’re almost two decades into this era of social media and we can feel like it’s a constant because we’re so used to waking up scrolling or talking about social media. But the reality is the industry is a variable. It’s not a constant as all industries that are born of different technologies.

So I’m trying to understand, are we at the beginning of the end of the social media era? And if we are, what’s coming next? Today I’m sitting down with Gary Vee, one of the legendary, earliest creators in the social media economy. He was one of the earliest people to write checks to companies like Facebook and Twitter. He has a notorious track record for understanding what could be coming next and where we’re going.

I’m Sinead Bovell and this is I’ve Got Questions. Okay, so I have a thesis. There’s three parts to it. I’ve teased it out on social media a little bit. I’ve written about it in my Substack, but I’ve never put it together for anyone in its entirety until now. And I think you’re the perfect person to run this through.

GARY VAYNERCHUK: Well, I’m flattered.

The Three-Part Thesis on AI and Social Media

SINEAD BOVELL: So I think we’re at the beginning of the end of the social media era. Okay, part one of the thesis. So I think, and they’re all tied to AI, I think AI cracks the current value proposition of the social media platforms in their current state.

So we post because people watch us, right? Whether I’m signaling that I’m single or taken, that I’m employable, that I was at the beach the other day.

GARY VAYNERCHUK: There’s consumption on the other side.

SINEAD BOVELL: We post for human receipt.

GARY VAYNERCHUK: Yes.

SINEAD BOVELL: If we can’t verify that I’m posting for a bunch of R2D2s or actual people, that psychology of signaling starts to break. So I post. But what is the incentive? Because the feedback is not guaranteed.

GARY VAYNERCHUK: Want to start?

SINEAD BOVELL: Okay, I’m going to build them all and then you can.

GARY VAYNERCHUK: Yeah, no worries.

SINEAD BOVELL: Okay, part two, the better AI gets and the more reliable this technology gets, especially as it transitions towards voice first, the less I’m going to want to pull out my phone and it’s going to start to break that habit that we formed of opening, swiping, watching, viewing, and I’m just going to say “Alexa, Uber, order this thing, do this thing” and I’m not going to open and watch.

And then the third, AI, it’s a general purpose technology like the Internet. And these technologies don’t mean that we do the same thing, just faster or more automated. We do different things. So I think, you know, television, YouTube isn’t automated TV. It was new people that gained influence. So I feel like we’re on the beginning of something entirely new that will have threads to the social media economy, but it’ll be unrecognizable as going from cable to TikTok.

The “And” Not “Or” Environment

GARY VAYNERCHUK: Couple things. So that’s awesome. This is so fun. This is already my favorite podcast ever. I would argue that cable and TikTok are not wildly different. Okay, so that’s put on a shelf.

SINEAD BOVELL: Okay.

GARY VAYNERCHUK: Go back to the beginning.

SINEAD BOVELL: Yep. The value prop.

GARY VAYNERCHUK: Yeah. The reality is it will be “and” not “or.” If you work, if your numbers, let’s just go where I think you’re going. Correct me if I’m wrong. So I don’t believe AI bots or agents consuming content eliminates the reality that humans could also consume that content. So I view it as an “and” environment versus “or.”

To your point, to many people’s points in fake fraud media world pre-social, like bots in digital marketing. You know, if I see 14 million views and I know that that’s actually only 300,000, that creates a new, you know, micro-dynamic.

SINEAD BOVELL: Sure.

GARY VAYNERCHUK: But if the results of what I want to happen happen from the 300,000 people that actually saw it, if I’m now posting and 99% is bots, but 1% is human and all my metrics are 99% fake, but 1% is human or AI or bots or agents or wherever we go, if the results that I want are still grounded in the 1% of human instead of 100% human, I’m still going to be incentivized to do it.

If I say I’m single and the only people that are trying to date me is an AI agent robot, bad, it’s possible. But if it is also going to be people just drowned out metrically and maybe optically by data, robots, agents, well then I’m still going to do it.

If I am going to sell wine or get stopped by 500 people in the street and say, “You changed my life,” even though yesteryear it was 100,000 views and that’s what resulted it and now it’s 40 million views, but it’s really only 100,000 views, I’m still going to do it. So the question becomes, if there is still human consumption, no matter how drowned out in an overall metric and the actions are executed on by those humans, I don’t think we walk away.

SINEAD BOVELL: So you’re saying, okay, if I’m selling makeup and sure, now I maybe have a million views, some of those are going to be synthetic.