The Hypocrisy of AI Commenting and Why We Built It Anyway
Seven stages of AI adoption on social media:
People use AI to search for popular content topics.
People use AI to write hooks and create social media content.
People use AI to generate images or videos to accompany posts.
People use AI to comment on content.
People use AI to generate self-righteous shaming posts that troll those who use AI.
People use AI to comment in support of the trolls.
Platforms use AI to censor posts and comments that are deemed to be AI-generated.
You already knew the first four. Have you noticed the last three?
Yes, the last three are real phenomena.
You see, despite all those influencers telling you AI-generated content and comments are disgusting, the truth is most of them are just hypocrites.
Why should we be surprised by pots calling the kettle black? After all, we're just human and we will adopt the easy path.
One thing I have learnt from building Engage AI is human nature. It's hard to go wrong when you build something desired by humans. In this case, it's the desire and need to:
build and maintain relationships
be seen as a supportive member of the network
hate doing something repetitive over and over again
I reckon we will stop asking if something is generated by AI in about five years. Give or take.
Here are a range of things I uncovered and questions I get asked from building Engage AI.
AI Commenting
Q: What have you built so far?
A: We have built Strategic Commenting, Prospect Feed and Social Signal on LinkedIn. See this short 1-minute video.
Q: This is totally different from what you said above, and AI COMMENTING IS STUPID!
A: Here are my reasons:
I copied the strategy from PayPal and Amazon
embed myself with a bigger platform
AI commenting is more manageable from the LLM perspective
Being a big fish in a small pond to solve a real problem - engagement
It’s controversial, so LinkedIn is less likely to build it
Tide the relationship building process with revenue generation because commenting is a key part of the relationship building game, especially in B2B and on LinkedIn.
Less flashy with no VC backed competitors. 强而避之 - The Art of War by Sun Tzu.
Q: Aren’t you building it for introverts and technical professionals?
A: Yes, it’s the end vision, but we need someone to pay for that vision. Salespeople who rely on relationship building to generate revenue are much more willing to spend than my peers because it directly creates revenue.
Q: Why does commenting work for revenue generation?
A: Compared to email and DMs, commenting has the lowest rate of competition for attention. Unless you’re a mini celebrity or gaming the algorithm, 99% of the posts on LinkedIn have little or zero engagement. This is especially true for your targeted prospects who cannot write well or game the algorithm. When you consistently engage with them, it’s much easier to get their attention and start a conversation in direct messages (DMs). Finally, commenting on social makes it so much easier to stay in touch with your existing contacts.
Q: But AI commenting is stupid.
A: That's a perspective all extroverts and salespeople hold because they’re naturally good at it. However, for many technical business owners, AI is a perfect assistant. Secondly, we don’t automate the comment whilst they are asleep (despite so many requests). We put them in the loop. However, we struggle to get the majority of people to edit their comments before using them. It’s the same problem with any other AI writing product.
Most importantly, it’s more than commenting with AI. Watch the short video to see how it works.
Q: LinkedIn will build AI commenting, and you’re done.
A: Yes, I heard you, but it’s a calculated risk I take. Here is why:
AI commenting is controversial and a sensitive topic
Building it may harm their reputation
It is not part of their core revenue streams (yet)
Q: Why do people want to use AI for commenting?
A: Apart from all the reasons above for introverts, do you have any idea that commenting on LinkedIn is damn time and energy taxing? If you want to avoid saying “Good Post” or “Great insight,” you need 3-5 minutes to read a post and another 3-5 minutes to come with a good comment. It means you can only engage with 6-10 prospects per hour. That volume is still not enough, and do you seriously want to spend that much time on a cold prospect?
Q: I prefer authenticity.
A: Authenticity is 95% BS. Don’t believe me? Just look at those at the top of politics and all the organisations anywhere in the world. Did you see any pure technical experts? All enterprises got bloated and kingdoms went down when the kings started to surround themselves with ass-kissers. Did the kings not know they are ass-kissers? It’s tough to resist people kissing your ass. Let’s be real: tangible financial benefits and emotional needs often take precedence over authenticity on any given day. FYI, Nikola Tesla died alone and penniless in a hotel room. If you think you’re more intelligent than he, good luck.
Q: I can do this with ChatGPT.
A: Yes, you certainly can with 3 comments a day. B2B salespeople need to contact 30-50 prospects per day, which translates to approximately 3-5 hours of work per day. Saving those 4 copy/paste plus prompts is a life changer. Those numbers are before what Prospect Feed and Social can do for them.
Q: How do you differ from All in One AI tools and your competitors?
A: We have Prospect Feed and Social Signal. They don’t.
Prospect Feed
Q: What’s Prospect Feed?
A: Monitor your targeted prospects in Engage AI, and it will compile all their posting activities into a single web page for you to focus on and engage with. No junk, no distractions. Only targeted prospects. See the video.
Q: How is this different from Newsfeed?
A: Newsfeed on any platform is designed to maximise your stay on their platform. The longer you stay, the more money they make. How I guess LinkedIn constructs their Newsfeed is as follows, in the order of priority:
Contents that meet these criteria: Dwell time -> Engagement -> Share
Ads
People with whom you have some sort of interaction in various ways Despite their best intention and efforts, Point 1 tends to end up having this content:
Controversial topics
Celebrities or mini celebrities
People know to game the algorithm. Given that the Newsfeed algorithm surfaces this content, why would you ever see only the posts from your targeted prospects? This is especially when
The content of your targeted prospects is generally unappealing.
Your targeted prospects are not at the top of the social hierarchy
Q: Well, I do want to read and even engage with posts from your point 1.
A: Are you on LinkedIn to make money, be entertained or get triggered? If you want to be entertained, YouTube, Netflix and TikTok are better fits. If you want to be triggered, X does it better. We’re all on LinkedIn to make money whether it’s getting sales or a job.
Q: I can customise the newsfeed with the Bell button.
A: I have been using the Bell buttons and cleaning my notifications. I had never heard of anyone who had seen it working myself.
Q: I can bookmark or save my targeted prospects in a spreadsheet.
A: Sure, you can. That’s why you only check it and engage once a week. Why wouldn't you want the updates on your targeted prospects served to you on a silver platter?
Q: I can do this in Sales Navigator.
A: Yes, you can. The only problem is that you, like many others, are overwhelmed with too many updates from Leads and Accounts in the Sales Navigator. Your brain can’t process it, when 1 million other things are demanding your attention. That’s why you end up ignoring and never engaging with them in Sales Navigator. This is precisely WHY I chose 30, 150 and 1,000 for prospect monitoring in our paid plan.
Q: How is it possible that many leads are not a good thing?
A: Your brain and time capacity can’t keep up with it! In many B2B businesses, most business owners only need 10-20 customers to generate $1-$3 million in annual revenue.
Q: You’re contradicting yourself with the above when your Elite plan monitors 1,000 prospects.
A: There are two kinds of customers who subscribe to an Elite plan.
Their deal size is typically less than $1,000; they need volume, and they have a virtual assistant (VA) managing their LinkedIn profile.
Higher price translates to higher quality, and they only want the best option. Finally, the Elite plan serves as a price anchor, increasing the likelihood that people will opt for the plan in the middle.
Social Signal
Q: What’s Social Signal, and why do I need it?
A: Social Signal tracks and shows you the impacts of your engagement. It can be a reaction or reply to your comment, a visit to your profile, or reactions or comments on your content. Social Signal collates all of them so you know when to send connection requests or DMs to your prospects. See this video.
Q: I already have it on Notification by LinkedIn. Why would I need it?
A: Only if you’re ready to spend 30 - 60 minutes per day going through all the notifications and assessing each of them one by one. See this post on why Social Signal works.
At the end of the day, this is about simple math. How much is your time worth? We cut through the noise with Prospect Feed, tell you when to act with Social Signal, and give you back hours with AI commenting.
This isn't about the philosophy of AI; it's about building a better, more efficient engine for B2B growth. The arguments against it today sound a lot like the arguments against email in the 90s. The backlash is just noise.
The end goal isn't just to comment smarter; it's to fundamentally change how professionals build relationships in a digital world drowning in distractions. The question isn't whether you'll use AI to connect, but whether you'll be leading the change or trying to catch up. We're just giving you the keys.