Algofluence: Feeling the Urge to Unplug?
Platforms like TikTok and Meta are playing a dangerous game: becoming influencers themselves and reducing us to mere data cows.
Tuesday night on Earth—welcome to all new subscribers! I’m writing to you from Milan, where the coffee is strong enough to help me finish these last lines… Feel free to share this newsletter.
Last week, during the Meta Marketing Summit 2025, one key phrase stood out—a strong signal announcing a new era in the very concept of influence:
“In the age of AI, when it comes to audiences, it’s not the targeting that dictates who sees the content, it’s how relevant the machine thinks the content may be for these audiences (…) Creative as the new targeting: it’s the creative that finds your audience rather than the other way around” - Zehra Chatoo, Head of Connection Planning, NEMEA, Meta
In other words, the advertising targeting we once knew is over. According to Meta, artificial intelligence will soon be powerful enough to distribute content to the most relevant audiences, eliminating the need to select a channel or an intermediary (read: influencers and communities). It’s an enticing prospect for advertisers, who see it as the promise of an optimized, almost automatic reach.
But this shift is much more than just a new advertising strategy:
The platform becomes the sole arbiter of who sees what, when, and how.
Content reaches its audience not through active search but through predictive algorithmic logic and its ability to capture our attention.
Influencers lose their role as intermediaries, replaced by a model where Instagram and TikTok become meta-influencers, makers and breakers of trends.
We are entering the era of algo-fluence (algorithmic influence), where content distribution is no longer controlled by creators but by the platform itself. As if we were becoming, in a way… data cows?
From Intention to Imposition: How Content Discovery Has Changed
In the early 2000s, blogs and forums ruled the web. Creating content meant optimizing for Google and SEO. Internet users arrived on a blog with intention—typing a search query, looking for specific information, navigating from page to page.
It was a decision-driven process: discovery was an exploration, where the user was the driving force in accessing content.
Today, discovery is more passive and algorithmic.
Algorithms no longer respond to intention; they anticipate and impose content into feeds, independent of any conscious user action—except for their browsing history and behavior.
Influencers are no longer the gatekeepers. They no longer build communities as naturally as before. Instead, their role has shifted to content producers feeding TikTok or Instagram.
The platform is now the ultimate influencer: it decides who sees what, based on its own criteria.
The Algo-Influencer: The Ultimate Business Opportunity
This shift is no small matter. Social media is now the primary gateway to new brands and products, far surpassing search engines.
What Meta proposes is a world where platforms favor certain topics by controlling access to feeds.
Example: Instagram gradually phased out chronological order in favor of algorithmic distribution.
Users no longer follow influencers but instead consume content according to the platform’s algorithmic logic.
Instagram and TikTok are becoming meta-TV channels, where the source of content matters less than its algorithmic performance.
An Unexpected Consequence: True Discovery Becomes a Challenge
If everything is algorithmic, then how do we explore on our own?
Google recently revealed that 15% of all daily search queries have never been typed before. This number has remained stable for a decade, reflecting the richness of human curiosity.
In high-end, niche industries, this is even more pronounced: in luxury, nearly 60% of searches now include 7 or more keywords—a sign that the way we formulate queries is evolving alongside the complexity of our expectations. If Google has shaped how we ask questions, TikTok and Instagram are now shaping how we discover the world.
But this raises a critical question: are we heading toward content uniformity? What happens to individual choice when a machine decides on our behalf? Who really holds influence today: creators or platforms?
Algofluence marks a cultural turning point. Indeed, previous generations had to learn how to connect to the web and formulate search queries (remember those middle school library lessons?). The new generation will need to learn how to interact with AI effectively—without letting it take full control over their lives.
Google already miniaturized our choices through integrated recommendations on search result pages. Under the guise of simplifying access, many niche web pages were pushed into obscurity, barely indexed.
Yet, escape was still possible—with tools like Google Scholar, which offers a rich corpus of academic papers and theses.
On TikTok and Instagram, however, escaping default miniaturization is incredibly difficult. The only way to break free from these platforms’ feeds is to reset your entire account, or even buy separate devices dedicated to research.
What was once an open and exploratory web is now a closed and prescriptive one, where getting lost feels like an act of resistance.
A Digital Divide is Emerging
A divide is already forming between:
Highly skilled users who can break free from algorithmic constraints, and
Everyone else, who may lack the skills to navigate beyond the algorithm but will increasingly resent social media.
Alternatives and counterforces are emerging. But that’s a story for another time.
The stat of the week: 2.4x
According to Meta, Gen Z doesn’t click on ads before making a purchase. They are 2.4 times more likely to buy without clicking after seeing an ad.
This is why algo-fluence matters.
Amazing links
La vie après l’influence (Substack,
)How to prepare for your digital afterlife? (New York Times)
Have a great week! This newsletter is written with love, passion, and (Italian) coffee.
Feel free to share this newsletter, like, comment, or keep sending me emails: these notifications are a joy. I’ll slow down a bit the pace as I’m now preparing my second book…
My book “Alive In Social Media” is available on Amazon.
"I’m writing to you from Milan, where the coffee is strong enough to help me finish these last lines" this is one of my favorite opening sentences I've read on here.