Rory Sutherland Interview with Re:signal's CEO Kevin Gibbons at Re:commerce 2026

He argues that the easiest internal pitch for AI is headcount reduction, and that large-company incentives (especially in finance, compliance, procurement, and HR) prioritize measurable savings over harder-to-measure lost opportunity. In his view, this can lead to lower quality, long-term value destruction, and a demoralized workforce.

He likens AI-driven cost optimization to self-checkout: short-term payroll savings were rewarded, while downstream effects like increased shoplifting weren’t owned by the people who pushed the change. His broader point is that businesses often reward short-term, siloed optimization while the overall system deteriorates.

He describes search ads and auction dynamics as favoring dishonest actors and high-margin, high-attribution sellers, which distorts what people see online relative to what they actually buy. He also recounts being scammed by a lookalike “official” site despite long internet experience, framing it as a trust problem affecting everyone.

He argues subscription models often rely on inertia and deliberately hard cancellation, which makes consumers suspicious of all subscriptions and harms honest providers too. He proposes that recurring payments should be clearly separated and easily cancelable via card/credit interfaces, predicting that easier cancellation could rapidly reduce valuations built on inertia.

He contrasts older agency compensation (commission over the life of a campaign) with hourly billing, claiming the former rewarded enduring value while the latter creates a “tight fitness function” that discourages unsolicited creativity. He predicts production companies may increasingly create ads proactively and sell them like TV formats, rather than waiting for briefs.