While I Was Writing Today’s Signal // Noise:

Let’s start the year off with some DEEP FUNK…

🎧 Want the whole vibe? Here’s the brand-new playlist for 2026.

From sound to signal, let’s get this baby rolling with what’s on my mind…

One big idea, insight, or take - grounded in the real work, not theory.

AI can do just about everything.

And I mean everything: it can write your emails, design your slides, code your MVP, whip up an automated process.

But, you know what it still doesn’t have? Taste.

When everyone has access to the same AI tools, the founders and companies that have an immediate advantage are the ones with the originality, and courage, to actually show some freaking personality.

To take a few creative risks.

To say something that makes people insanely excited or uncomfortable or just something other than glazing over like they're reading a B+ essay.

So far, AI produces technically flawless & regurgitated text, but it’s text that doesn’t say anything new.

The missing ingredient is human taste. The judgment, the perspective, the voice that AI cannot authentically replicate.

Daisy Alioto nailed this in her talk on the taste economy and I briefly talked about taste as a main creator arbitrage during my Creator Spotlight interview.

It’s clear to me that the way you keep your signal high when everyone is drowning in volume, is to have some fking taste.

Translation: Your brand isn't just a logo, a mission statement, a style guide. It’s how you separate yourself, how you create voice that resonates at a time where it’d be cheaper and simpler to just sound like everyone else.

Marketing teams used to have to spend some serious dough - staged photoshoots, perfectly lit product shots, studios and editors and captions that sounded like they went through three rounds of legal review.

But now, AI has reduced the cost to meaningless - so the internet is filling up with content that looks real but isn’t.

All that’s gonna change.

In 2026, "proof of reality" posts are becoming the dominant marketing strategy. Raw footage, screenshots of actual Slack messages, photos that look like you took them on your phone (because you did).

Rachel Karten calls it "proof of life" (kind of awesome); content that proves a human was actually there.

Why do you think LinkedIn has become an endless scroll of portrait shots and founder faces - it’s the ultimate proof of life!

Because when AI can generate perfect pics at scale, the more imperfect content tends to stand out more. Behind-the-scenes (BTS) becomes extra juicy. The stuff that can't be faked.

Translation: Stop trying to look perfect. Make sure someone on the team is good at showing receipts.

Back in 2011-2012, Martech was everything. Devs who could build great marketing tools were gods, quickly gobbled up by the best growth teams because their talents were so rare.

That trend is quickly moving down the funnel.

Today, with profitability mattering more than scale, companies like Clay raising $100M, and improvements from ZoomInfo and Apollo, you don't need more marketing.

You need sales.

And you need people who understand the entire sales tech stack. These are the new gods.

At the same time, large execution teams are being replaced by lean, high-leverage groups, as AI takes over repetitive production work. That means you’ll see the rise of "AI workflow architects", gangsters people who design automations and oversee AI outputs across what used to be multiple jobs.

Heads of Marketing and CMOs across the board are bracing for smaller teams in 2026, but it’s not just a cutback, it’s a reimagining of roles on the team, too. A new model where three people with the right AI tools can do what used to take ten.

Translation: The future belongs to small teams that know how to make AI work for them, not big teams doing manual work.

Going after big customers, trying to fight incumbents for existing clients; ugh, it feels like an absolute slog. So, don’t do it (unless you have to).

Today there’s more and more opportunity to build better products and then maniacally focus on new companies, aka startups, who aren’t already locked in to long contracts with established vendor relationships.

a16z calls this "the greenfield strategy"; serving companies at their formation and growing with them as they find more and more success. Stripe, Deel, Mercury, and Ramp all won this way.

James da Costa says more categories will “go greenfield” as AI means even more startups, forming and focusing across every single vertical.

Remember, many of Stripe's customers didn't exist when Stripe first launched. They built for the companies that were about to be created, not the ones that already had solutions locked in.

Translation: If you're still trying to rip customers away from the big boys, you could be playing the wrong game; instead, go where the new companies are forming.

Smart reads, sharp tools, or internet gems.

Everything from Bitcoin to Robinhood banking to the Death of SEO, Semafor’s fun predictions for 2026 also covers what it got wrong — from 2025. Check it out here.

Digital Native covers it all in the 26 predictions for 2026. Dystopian Instagram feeds, Anthropic, ChatGPT, Stripe acquisitions. Not to mention musical scandals, generative AI, and the absolute monster return to IRL experiences. Check it out here.

Part II is about the death of the CRM, audiences that are breaking into smaller, more opinionated pockets, and the sexy CFO suite. And to my excitement, more and more anti-technology companies like Tin Can. Check it out here.

Was this helpful? Relevant? Totally off-base?

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Hope everyone has a great weekend.

And until next time, thanks for reading.

Jordan

P.S. Wanna work on something? Got a pod or content idea? → Email me | Need 30–60 min of advice? → Book here | Want a coach in your corner? → More info