3.2.1. Can AI create your next Whale

AI vs Human: are you measuring the wrong thing?

Most businesses ask: can AI serve customers better and cheaper than humans? Fewer ask: can AI build more valuable customer relationships over time?

In gaming and creator businesses, fans are often grouped by spending: minnows, dolphins and whales. Today’s minnows could become tomorrow’s whales. Human attention has helped that progression. Can AI do it better?

Working on Artificial Emotional Intelligence in one of my startups has convinced me we need to measure AI vs humans on two clocks: performance today and customer growth over time.

THREE IDEAS:

I. PRODUCT: Make the comparison fair

Compare AI and humans serving similar customers on revenue per fan, retention, cost to serve and customer experience. Measure comparable amounts of actual service time: AI may be switched off during certain periods or for certain fans, especially whales. Calendar time alone can hide that difference.

Randomly assign comparable fans where possible. If humans get the whales and AI gets the minnows, total revenue tells you little about who performs better.

II. BUSINESS: Measure who creates future whales

Compare customers at the same stage of their journey. Your AI may not yet have 180 days of customer history. Compare the timeframes you have, then test your directional bet: can AI earn the loyalty and trust that grow customer value?

III. MARKETING: Measure beyond acquisition

Track which campaigns + AI or human experience produce stronger retention and returns over time. Compare whales with whales, too. If AI serves minnows while humans serve whales, AI could appear to generate less revenue per message simply because of whom it serves.

TWO QUOTES

"In a balanced freemium model, minnows represent 65 percent of your volume and generate 20 percent of your revenue. Dolphins, or your average users, represent 30 percent of your volume and around 40 percent of your revenue. Whales might represent only 5 percent of your volume but 40 percent of your total revenue." - Ludovic Bodin, Founder of Atomic Scaling

"By adopting free to play, audience size goes up by 10x. Gross revenue typically goes up by 3x." - Gabe Newell, Founder of Valve

ONE ACTION

Make your AI vs Human dashboard answer:

Who serves minnows, dolphins and whales better today?
Who grows customer value more effectively over time?

If AI wins, let your people go surfing ;-)

Ludovic

3× Entrepreneur, 2× Unicorn Investor, 1× IPO — Founder of BOBIC Generational Wealth, Author of Atomic Scaling

PS: Want access to my AI vs Human Dashboard? Reply DASHBOARD.