The Complete Playbook to AI Platform Dynamics
The rules of platform competition have fundamentally changed. For two decades, we optimized for attention, engagement, and connection density. The playbook was clear: acquire users broadly, maximize time-on-platform, monetize through ads or subscriptions, defend through network effects.
That playbook is obsolete.
A new mechanism is emerging that inverts nearly everything we understood about platform power: memory networks.
Not as a feature. It is the foundational architecture of value creation, competitive defense, and compound growth in the AI economy.
This is the unified framework for understanding how AI platforms win.
The Memory Wars — Why Memory Creates Moats
The Fundamental Shift
In the attention economy, engagement metrics ruled. Time-on-site, DAU/MAU ratios, viral coefficients—these were the north stars.
In the AI economy, memory depth creates moats.
This isn’t about recommendation algorithms or behavioral tracking—the old platform tricks. This represents a fundamental shift in how value compounds. The new platforms don’t just respond to users. They remember, reason, and evolve with them.
The switching cost isn’t an inconvenience. It’s the loss of accumulated intelligence.
