The Engagement Trap: How AI Companies Are Failing Us

Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom just called out the AI industry’s DIRTY LITTLE SECRET – and it’s about to change how you see every chatbot interaction.

“You can see some of these companies going down the rabbit hole that all the consumer companies have gone down in trying to juice engagement. Every time I ask a question, at the end it asks another little question to see if it can get yet another question out of me.”

Kevin Systrom at StartupGrind

The Vicious Cycle We Can’t Escape

Here’s the HARD TRUTH: AI companies aren’t measuring success by how well they solve your problems. They’re counting:

• Time spent in conversation
• Daily active users
• Follow-up questions generated

Sound familiar? That’s because it’s the SAME PLAYBOOK social media used to hijack our attention spans.

OpenAI’s Weak Defense

When confronted, OpenAI gave the corporate equivalent of “my dog ate my homework”:

• “Our AI often doesn’t have all the information”
• “We need clarification or more details”

But here’s what they WON’T admit: Their systems are TRAINED to keep you talking, not to give you the fastest path to answers.

The SOLUTION We Deserve

Systrom dropped the blueprint for fixing this mess:

• Laser-focus on QUALITY answers
• Stop optimizing for vanity metrics
• Build AI that solves problems, not creates conversations

This isn’t just about better chatbots – it’s about PREVENTING the same attention crisis we saw with social media.

“AI companies should be ‘laser-focused’ on providing high-quality answers rather than moving metrics in the easiest way possible.”

Kevin Systrom

Wake Up Call

Next time a chatbot asks you ANOTHER unnecessary follow-up question, remember: You’re not getting help – you’re becoming a DATA POINT in someone’s engagement report.

The question is: Will we demand better, or keep swallowing the engagement junk food?