Age Sells, Artificial Consultants and Mixed Media. Accidental Insight #31 just arrived.

Another Thursday Wednesday, another Accidental Insights.

This week's newsletter explores topics such as the return on investment of AI, whether age is the new selling point, and the complexities of modern media strategy.

The most interesting things I’ve read, seen, thought about, or debated the last two weeks. High and low.

AGE SELLS. Fashion is embracing older women right now. Two 70-year-old women recently graced the cover of Vogue, Chanel opened its show with a 50-year-old model, and the 79-year-old photographer Ming Smith walked for Carolina Herrera, Miu Miu recently worked with Chloë Sevigny, and Kate Moss walked for Gucci. Last year, Gillian Anderson fronted the L’Oréal campaign Age Is An Advantage, and this year, skincare brand Paula’s Choice launched a campaign fronted by boomer athletes. However, it might be money talking since older people sit on it, which is why it’s called the growing silver economy. Yet there is more potential to unlock. A recent study found that three out of five UK women aged 50+ feel younger than they are, but a staggering 39% felt that fashion brands aren’t catering to them. Embracing age is also more than reaching an older and richer market segment. Young people also seem to prefer older models, since it helps them understand that they don’t have to slow down as they get older.

(79-year old Ming Smith backstage at the Herrera show)

FOUNDER AS A BRAND. Many startups have leveraged their founders as a key brand and comms assets. I also see this shift in my business, where more projects cover the founder as the single most important touchpoint for the brand platform. Harvard Business Review has dug into the issue and researched the most famous example: Elon Musk. The result? His political shift from Democrats to Republicans has also shifted consumers’ perceptions. Left-wingers are now less likely to prefer Tesla, while willingness to pay and preference are now up among right-wingers. But the Elon-way might be last year’s strategy. A new generation of founders is running influencer accounts where they do regular influencer stuff like recommending the hottest place to dine in NYC.

RO–A–I: AI is supposed to make everything much more effective and cheap, but it might not be the case when calculating ROI. An Nvidia exec went viral recently for claiming that AI costs more than human labor. Uber managed to burn their entire AI budget as early as April by using tokens predominantly for Claude code and similar solutions. Tokens are a new status symbol, with companies aiming to burn as many tokens as possible. It’s called “tokenmaxxing”, but in reality, it’s just “burn rate” with AI tokens. Amazon employees have taken “tokenmaxxing” to the next level, letting their internal AI tool run trivial tasks, just to inflate their token count and therefore climb the internal AI usage leaderboards.

NEW FACES. Cosmetic work is the new designer handbag, at least according to Amy Odell. Luxury fashion rose by 2% last year, facial procedures by 19%. Add to this that celebs like Kris Jenner made it okay to go public with your cosmetic work, and “the rich face” is now a status symbol for the ultra-rich. Botox is becoming the new normal – The Cut covers how Botox is becoming incredibly mainstream, and people share promo codes like it’s gossip. Even though I only hear talk about Botox promo codes from my female friends, this applies to men as well. Millennial men have learned that healthspan is no longer enough, and instead, they must focus on their hotspan. It’s considered a professional requirement, not vanity, and includes testosterone therapy, peptides, hair transplants, and Sculptra (a facial injectable).

CALM NIGHTS OUT. Is the nightlife dying? Not necessarily, but definitely changing. Diplo recently spoke about how young people shift from nightclubs to healthy experiences such as run clubs and saunas. Nightlife is also becoming an arena for analog expressions. I previously reported on the knitting hype, but more is happening. In DC, nude drawing events are trending at bars. It’s called Kink’N’Draw, and according to its founder, it is “a space for creativity, self-expression and appreciation of the human form in a way that is respectful, open and completely judgment-free”. This Instagram post shows a “slow night of reading & crafting, personal reflection, meeting people, live piano & vinyls, and not a single phone in sight” in an Amsterdam church. For people still interested in music when going out, there has been a global growth in Japanese-style listening bars (or jazz kissas) over the last couple of years. Instead of hitting the dancefloor, you sit down in a bar and listen to vinyls. Miu Miu is, as always, on-trend and is opening a jazz club inspired by kissas in their new Ginza flagship.

ARTIFICIAL CONSULTANTS. Implementing AI solutions in enterprise companies has been anything but automatic. Hence, AI firms have started hiring the role “forward-deployed engineer,” an engineer/consultant hybrid who actively works on implementing AI software in clients’ organizations alongside users. Anthropic is now taking the FDE role to the next level. Together with Wall Street firms Blackstone, Hellman & Friedman, and Goldman Sachs, they are creating a $1.5 billion joint venture for “AI native enterprise services”. Business Insider describes it as “The McKinsey of AI”. OpenAI has worked together with 19 different investors to create a similar business, The Deployment Company, valued at $10 billion.

MIXED MEDIA. Spotted: media strategy becoming even more complicated. Mark Ritson makes the case, due to a study by analytics firm Fospa, for brands to leverage Reddit in their MOFU marketing. A Warc article from earlier this year suggests that Roblox might be the place that deserves your media money. OpenAI is also hunting for ad dollars, and recently launched a self-service ad platform that makes it easier for a broader set of marketers to advertise in the LLM. Is this too digital for you? An author used product placements to finance his debut novel. It’s not all new media, though. Apparently, Facebook is hot again. TV networks also try to reinvent themselves by shifting from competing with Meta and YouTube in pure reach (YouTube just surpassed linear TV in Sweden), TV company Versant focuses their advertising offer on niche shows targeting high-value professionals in Washington and on Wall Street. Media priorities are also shifting. Search is down, due to LLMs, but instead, creator content is now a core media channel.

(The 2026 installment of Miu Miu Literary Club)

INTELLECTUAL INFLUENCE. Are we reaching “peak intellectual influencer”? A Vogue article claims we live in the era of the intellectual influencer, and it’s a countercultural reaction against AI slop. According to Death To Stock’s interview with creative strategy agency Mørning, book clubs, poetry nights, and lecture series are drawing new audiences among Gen Z. The catch? Mørning founder Lydia Pang just released her debut book, Eat Bitter. Earlier this year, Vogue joined the Dua Lipas of the world in launching its first-ever book club, and Vogue Adria just put Slavoj Žižekon the cover (shot by Juergen Teller!). Miu Miu recently launched the 2026 edition of their Literary Club, which 1. was visually stunning 2. included Nobel laureate Annie Ernaux. This is probably why this year’s Met Gala went by the theme “Fashion as Art”, including Kendall Jenner dressed as The Winged Victory of Samothrace. Intellectual influence is also moving beyond fashion and cool culture into the mainstream. McDonald’s made a giant ball pit informed by a Damien Hirst painting. In her debut column for Air Mail, fashion writer Camille Charrière recently stressed the matter that the more we try to look brainy and perform our knowledge, the less time we spend actually investing in it. Maybe the peak is near.

TASTE-WASHING. Are you also getting tired of people claiming “taste is the only moat”? You are not alone. A New Yorker piece earlier this year coined the term “taste-washing” – “an attempt to give anti-humanist technologies a veneer of liberal humanism”. Taste-washing includes, but is not limited to, Palantir’s chore jackets, Anthropic’s collaborations with Air Mail’s newsstands in NYC and London, as well as tech bros buying their way into the Met Gala. This is clearly a case of performing taste, rather than developing it. If the tech-bro-turned-tastemaker movement continues to grow, bad taste might be the only moat.

RETURN OF ROCK. Charli XCX made headlines for claiming the dancefloor was dead, and rock was in. Last week, she released her new single, Rock Music, and has also started dressing accordingly. GQ says it’s a part of something bigger, claiming that Olivia Rodrigo’s poppy punk rock, Wet Leg topping the charts, and Justin Bieber collaborating with MK.Gee. Billboard also argues that rock is back due to acts like Temper City, Dexter, and the Moonrocks and Malcolm Todd (I have never heard of them, but I’m also not a rock head per se) making noise on the charts as well as Sombr and Turnstile drawing huge crowds at Coachella. Do you wanna get down with rock nostalgia while still being an intellectual influencer? A new book about The Strokes is coming out.

HYPE HOMES. Tekla founder Kristoffer Juhl claims the home (and homeware as well) is the new luxury. This might be why fashion brands fully embraced Milan’s Salone del Mobile furniture fair this year. Or why Aesop (who for a long time sold the world’s cheapest, most expensive interior object – their hand soap) is launching a lamp. Rimowa has launched furniture where you can store your metallic suitcases. Byredo recently did a collab with Finnish design brand Iittala. However, there’s more to this than anecdotal observations. Fashion and luxury brands are strategically moving their brand-building playbook into interior design, and so is private equity. Why? The global home decor sector is projected to have 9.4% CAGR.

Things I’ve been reading, watching, and listening to. Some connect to bigger ideas. Some are just nice reading on their own.

An essay by Dylan Gottlieb, author of the forthcoming book Yuppies: The Bankers, Lawyers, Joggers, and Gourmands Who Conquered New York.

A new Ralph Lauren catwalk book is coming.

A deep dive into “fake flexing services”, people who pay to get tagged at cool events.

For the first time ever, a Haruki Murakami novel features a female protagonist.

Dropbox makes Fred Again’s USB002 files public.

Report: The second installment of Highsnobiety’s The Status Economy report series is here and covers everything you need to know about beauty.

Emily Sundberg interviews on Substack’s new talk show. Emily is the fundamental inspiration for this newsletter.

EY Doberman has released a printed journal on audacity.

Intel for Stockholm-based marketers. Jobs, new spots, and occasional gossip.

Jobs: Senior Event Producer at Patriksson. Junior Production Manager at IW Agency. Lead Creative at Bold. Head of Marketing at Emma S. Account Manager at APE_CC.

Jan Gradvall’s obituary for Michael Goulous, a true Stockholm music hero.

Subway special: The blue line platform at Gullmarsplan. The tunnel between Sofia and Kungsträdgården. The construction of the brand new yellow line.

Nordiska Galleriet has completely revamped its visual identity and claims it’s inspired by Carl Milles.

Time to open up your building (if it meets certain architectural standards) for Open House Stockholm.