THINGS GOT WEIRD by Johan Ronnestam. Week 39

What a week...once again :D

Kylian changed boots before the boots exist. Apple finally shipped the Siri we have waited a decade for... just not to us. An advert learned to answer back. A factory in China plans to finish a robot every ten minutes. And a toaster learned to see.

Five stories. One pattern. Everything arrived a little before we were ready for it.

Let's get weird.

1. Mbappé Swaps Nike for a Brand That Doesn't Sell Boots Yet

I think On is one of the coolest brands on the planet right now. So when this popped up in my feeds on Friday, I read it three times.

Kylian's Nike deal ran out in July. On 18 September he signed with On instead. Not just to wear the shoes. He takes a stake in the company and gets to work with On's innovation lab. Thierry is the new director of football. And the boots? A robot arm sprays the whole upper in one go, in about three minutes. You can buy them in 2027.

Talent first. Boot later.

For as long as I can remember, football boots have meant Nike or adidas. Nobody got in. On didn't try to outspend them. It offered the biggest name in the game a piece of the company, not just a sponsorship. Which leaves me with a question I can't shake... what if the next great brand launches with a shareholder instead of a product?

Bold? Very. Right? I think so.

Would you buy a football boot from a running brand?

2. Apple Ships Its Smartest Siri and Leaves European iPhones Out

I have been waiting for this Siri for about ten years. So have you. (and as a Swede we have to wait some more...)

On 14 September Apple released Siri AI. It knows your stuff, sees what is on your screen and gets things done across your apps. Then the small print. In Apple's own words, "Siri AI will not be available initially in the EU on iOS, iPadOS, and watchOS." Apple points at the EU's big tech rules. No date.

Here is the funny bit. It works on the Mac. In Sweden. Today.

Same phone. Same day. Less phone.

Apple says this is about protecting our privacy. Maybe. But when it runs fine on a Mac in Stockholm, I can't help wondering how much of this is regulation and how much is negotiation. Either way, Europeans now carry an iPhone that does less than the American one. So when a product gets worse in your market through no fault of your own... whose opportunity is that?

Awkward for Apple. Interesting for everyone else.

Which assistant will you be talking to by Christmas?

3. OpenAI Turns the Advert Into an Agent You Can Argue With

This one made my old advertising heart skip a beat. Not only in a good way.

On 16 September OpenAI launched Sponsored Agents. You click an ad inside ChatGPT and, instead of landing on a website, you find yourself chatting with the brand's own agent. Ask it anything about the product. It answers, right there in the conversation. Shopify merchants are first in line.

The banner learned to talk.

For thirty years an ad has been a rectangle. Now it is a salesperson that never sleeps and never goes off script... until it does. OpenAI says these chats are kept separate from ChatGPT's own answers. I believe them. I also think that line gets blurrier every year. So who writes your brand's personality when your brand can answer back?

Embedded media (opens on LinkedIn)

Exciting? Absolutely. Ready? Not even close.

What is the first thing a customer would ask your brand's agent?

4. UBTECH Opens a Factory Built for a Robot Every Ten Minutes

I watched the clip twice. Robots building robots. It still feels like a film I saw as a kid.

On 12 September UBTECH opened a factory in Liuzhou, in southern China, designed to finish a humanoid robot every ten minutes. That is around 10,000 a year. And robots on the line help build the next ones.

You read that right. Robots building robots. Terminator 2 style, with Arnold as the good guy. Hasta la vista, production bottleneck.

Then the other number. UBTECH delivered 921 of them in the first half of this year.

Hmm.

That gap is not a mistake. It is a plan. Build the capacity first, wait for the world to catch up, then be the only one who can deliver. We have seen this film before, with solar panels and batteries. So what happens to your business the day a humanoid robot costs less than a new hire?

Too early? Probably. Too early to ignore? Definitely not.

Which job in your company would you hand to a robot first?

5. Sage Builds a Toaster That Watches the Bread, Not the Clock

Okay. I did not expect a toaster to be the smartest thing I read all week. But here we are.

Sage has just launched the Eye Q toaster in the UK. No timer. Little sensors watch your bread change colour and pop it up when it hits the shade you picked. There is even a crumpet setting. Very British. Very correct. And the line from Sage's head of research is going on my wall: "Time is the wrong metric. Every toaster in the world relies on time."

Measure the toast, not the time.

That dial has sat on every toaster forever, and nobody knows what the numbers mean. Sage didn't add technology for the sake of it. It changed what gets measured. Which is a question for all of us... how much of your business still sells the time instead of the toast?

Do I need a +€250 toaster? No. Am I tempted? Hmm... yes.

What is the dial in your business that nobody understands?

THINGS NOT TOO WEIRD, BUT STILL WORTH READING

• Pinterest says 96 per cent of its searches never mention a brand. Your name is not a search strategy any more.
• Bolt wants 25,000 robotaxis in Europe. The EU rulebook approves 1,500 a year per vehicle type. That is about seventeen years.
• Stanford built a virtual biotech run by 37,000 AI agents, and it came up with a lung cancer drug idea. Not tested in a lab yet.
• Anthropic says Claude now leads 26 per cent of the work of building Claude. In February it was under one per cent.
• Porsche licensed an 80 per cent scale electric 550 Spyder. Only 250 will exist, at £69,500 each. I'm definitely not getting one. Probably.

Five uncomfortable questions for Monday

• Who carries the attention in your category, and what would it cost a challenger to offer them shares instead of a sponsorship?
• Which of your digital services quietly assume features your European customers no longer have?
• When your brand can finally talk back, what are the five things it must never say?
• How many of your twenty biggest search terms contain your own name?
• Where are you still selling the time instead of the toast?

Last week the future walked onto a catwalk and into a classroom in Nairobi. This week it started building its own siblings, got stuck at the EU border and learned to make perfect toast. Next week it probably asks for a pension.

I'll be in the kitchen. Watching bread. Very closely.

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With love

Johan

ps. To get in touch or hire Johan for branding, innovation, product development or keynote events – Send me a message or an email (google Johan Ronnestam Creative Studio)