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The Inside Track: People, Ideas, & Stories shaping how we work, live, and build the future.
Good morning - Michael here, writing from the frontlines of Massif & Kroo: Here's what you need to pay attention to in media today:
THE BIG NUMBER: 4-5x
Three months ago, AI tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity would occasionally pull from LinkedIn when answering a question. Now they're doing it 4-5 times more often.
LinkedIn articles are becoming one of AI's go-to sources — the place it trusts when it needs a credible answer with a real name attached. Meanwhile, Google is sending publishers a third less traffic than last year.
Think of it like this: Google used to be the librarian who pointed people to your book. Now AI is the librarian — and it's picking favorites. Right now, LinkedIn is at the top of the stack.
LinkedIn published a 17-page guide last week about getting your content picked up by AI tools. Not Google — AI. ChatGPT, Perplexity, the places people actually go now instead of searching.
And it makes sense that LinkedIn wrote it, because they're the ones benefiting. AI tools need sources they can trust. They need a real person's name, a clear point of view, and content that's structured well enough to pull a clean answer from.
LinkedIn articles check all of those boxes. A blog post on a random website? Usually doesn't.
Here's what's actually happening on the other side:
Google search traffic to publishers fell by a third last year. Six out of ten Google searches now end without anyone clicking a link. People are getting their answers inside the search itself — or inside an AI tool — and never visiting your site.
So the question isn't really "should I be on LinkedIn" anymore. It's "am I showing up in the places where people are actually getting their information now?"
LinkedIn laid out their own thinking on this in four words:
be seen,
be mentioned,
be considered,
be chosen.
That's their internal framework. It's not about driving clicks. It's about being the source that gets referenced. We're watching this happen with clients at Massif & Kroo right now.
The ones publishing real, structured articles on LinkedIn — not just posts, actual articles with their name on it — are getting cited in AI-generated answers. Perplexity pulls from them. ChatGPT references them. They didn't plan for it. It's just happening because they put credible content in a place where AI knows to look.
Bottom line: the ones who are still just posting quick takes and hoping the algorithm picks it up? They're not showing up at all. In fact, it’s like they’re invisible to to the fastest-growing discovery channel in the world.
ALSO HAPPENING:
Threads just launched "Dear Algo." You can now write a public post on Threads that starts with "Dear Algo" and tell the algorithm what you want to see more or less of — and it actually listens. Your feed adjusts for three days, then resets. Other people can even repost your request to apply it to their own feed. It's live in the US, UK, Australia, and New Zealand. This is the first time a major platform has let users talk to the algorithm in plain English and get a real-time response. If you're a brand or a creator, pay attention — this is a signal that explicit intent is becoming more valuable than passive engagement signals. The platforms that give people control are the ones people stay on.
Meta is building a Snapchat clone called Instants. It's a standalone app for sending disappearing photos — no edits, no filters, mutual followers only. Photos vanish after they're opened or expire in 24 hours. It's been quietly tested inside Instagram under the name "Shots" in select countries, and app researcher Alessandro Paluzzi just found it listed under "Also from Meta" in Instagram's code. Meta says it's still an internal prototype, but the pattern is clear: Instagram is shifting hard toward private, ephemeral sharing over public posting. Instagram head Adam Mosseri has called it a "paradigm shift." If your content strategy still assumes people are posting to the main feed, you're building on a shrinking surface.
TikTok US just launched a Local Feed. It's a new tab on the home screen that surfaces content about nearby restaurants, events, shops, and local creators — powered by your precise GPS location. It's opt-in and off by default, but it's the first new feature since TikTok's ownership transferred to the US joint venture last month. The timing isn't a coincidence. TikTok updated its terms of service to collect precise location data, which freaked people out. This is their answer: "We're using it to show you what's happening near you." For local businesses and creators, this could be a big deal — TikTok says 7.5 million US businesses already use the platform. For everyone else, the question is whether hyperlocal discovery is worth the trade-off in data.
YOUR NEXT MOVE: Publish a LinkedIn article this week. Not a post — an actual article. Put your real name on it, use clear headers, and write about something you genuinely know. Not something you think will perform. Something you can speak to from experience.
The people who start publishing real, structured content on LinkedIn now are going to be the ones these tools cite six months from now. And once AI starts associating your name with a topic, that's hard for someone else to take from you.
You don't need to write a masterpiece. You need to be useful, specific, and real. That's what the models are looking for — and frankly, that's what readers are looking for too. Don't wait for your competitors to figure this out first.
If your content strategy still starts and ends with "post and pray," consider this your signal.
Thanks for reading! I’ll see you tomorrow.
Feedback, thoughts, suggestions? Hit the reply!
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This is The Inside Track: Media — short daily notes (Mon-Fri) on where attention is actually going, from the front lines at Massif & Kroo.
If you're into this, you might also like the other stuff I write:
The Weekend Essay (Saturdays) — One idea worth thinking about. Business, decision-making, building things that last.
☐ Business (M/W/F) — What happened, why it matters, what to do.
☐ Aviation (Thursdays) — Straight talk from an actual pilot.
☐ Impact (Periodically) — Doing good in education and healthcare.
You're already set for the media. Add any of those if you want deeper, more frequent updates in areas that matter to you.
— Michael
About Michael Wildes
Michael Wildes is the founder and CEO of Drive Phase Holding Company, a permanent-capital firm focused on building category-defining companies across business, media (owner of Massif & Kroo), aviation, and impact. After leaving a career as a professional pilot, he spent a year as Business Editor at FLYING Magazine writing 330+ articles on aviation's transformation. Now he builds permanent-capital companies focused on long-term trends that compound over decades. Based in Arlington, Virginia.
Connect: mikewildes.com | [email protected]
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