Many may remember MarketWise $MKTW from pay-to-play drama over the past few years but if you haven't, here's the TLDR:
- Feds charged employees of a (former) subsidiary for accepting payments to recommend specific shitco stocks.
- MarketWise wound down that entire operational arm, cutting 18% of its workforce.
- In the midst of all that, founder Porter Stansberry came back as Chairman/CEO to presumably sort everything out and realign the business.
Got it? There's more there but it's confusing and not super relevant anyway.
MarketWise is a pretty classic stock/finance/investing media company – think Seeking Alpha, Motley Fool, etc, except MarketWise owns a bunch of properties that generally exist to provide free investment content to funnel readers to pay for “premium” tiered stuff.
One of MarketWise's most well-known properties is InvestorPlace, which is a veritable content factory – Google any stock, investing phrase, or whatever and you'll probably see an InvestorPlace article near the top of the list as a news item. I just tested it with “Stocks to Buy” and InvestorPlace had 3 items in the news feed right up top. Clearly influential and pointing to a possible reversal of fortunes, right?
Maybe not. It's pretty clear from even a little digging that InvestorPlace's “authors” (if they exist) are using AI to churn out the same stuff regurgitated across multiple articles and it's all landing at the top of Google search results.
Why does that matter? It's well known by now that Google algorithm updates punish AI content. Sports Illustrated had to shut down last year after they got busted using AI to write their content en masse which, I think is clear, is exactly how InvestorPlace and MarketWise by extension are getting the results that they are.
In other words – MarketWise's main property is using AI-generated content to keep free stories at the top of search results and funnel readers to paid options. Google's last update tanked AI content, which means that InvestorPlace just escaped the wider banhammer – but if their entire business model depends on churn-and-burn AI content, it isn't sustainable.
Now for the “proof,” which, of course, isn't totally without a doubt accurate, but paints a pretty damning picture.
This guy is one of InvestorPlace's most prolific authors, publishing 7 articles in the last day alone. That's surprising, given the guy's bio says he operates a research platform of his own (pure quantity was one variable that led to the Sports Illustrated bust, but I digress).
This article is on the front page of InvestorPlace's trending topics, and is as good an example as any to use. Just give it a quick read on your own and see if you detect the clear AI patterning. Here's the basic structure across all of his posts that point to obvious AI. See how it carries over to the quoted text, then compare that across other articles:
- Intro paragraph: “SEO phrase” is more critical/crucial/key/paramount to doing X. This is followed by sequenced, generic listing of each stock's traits. Each sentence has a lead-in transition word like meanwhile, indeed, here, finally, etc.
Identifying high-potential stocks is more critical than ever to gain an edge on the volatility of the second half of the year. Here, the focus is on three standout companies making waves with solid fundamentals and impressive growth metrics.
Indeed, these stocks hold the potential to maximize returns in today’s adverse conditions and fluctuating markets. The first company has sustained profitability with an expanding customer base, which highlights its strong unit economics and operational edge.
- Stock sections: Each of these stock sections are basically AI regurgitated articles from other sources or directly fed by SEC filings/press releases – they're just restating primary source material and, again, using plenty of transition phrases before closing with a generic summation.
Moreover, net dollar retention increased 111%, up 3% sequentially. This reflects substantial customer expansion and the continued success of Palantir’s solutions in driving additional value for existing customers. Palantir’s deal momentum and revenue metrics underscore its growth trajectory.
The first quarter saw a remarkable $904 million in total contract value (TCV) booked, a 128% increase annually, reflecting the strong demand for Palantir’s solutions across its customer base. U.S. commercial TCV was $286 million, up 131% annually, highlighting the significant uptake of the Artificial Intelligence Platform (AIP).
Another nail in the coffin – all the text is written in the passive voice, which is a common tell for AI-genned content. In reality, passive voice is generally a grammatical no-no and pretty hard to do as consistently across all sentences as this guy's work.
It's very clear that the articles are just AI spitting out reworded pressers and filings – just check it out yourself. At this point, it isn't a matter of if MarketWise gets search results tanked, but when.
Position – none. I went long shares when Stansberry came back as I thought it might be a good opportunity to bounce back under the guidance of the founder, even if MKTW itself is clearly not a great biz model. I went back this weekend to see if anything across the properties had changed and found this clear AI gamesmanship, so I sold my entire holdings at open this week.
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