Nano Banana and the death of UGC

Google's 'Nano Banana' may sound like a joke, but it's not. It marks the beginning of the end for UGC companies.

For twenty years, user-generated content has been the internet's business model. Reviews, blogs, social posts and comments. Entire platforms have been built on people creating content for free.

Now, AI can do it better. The quality is already almost perfect, and it keeps improving. Why scroll through messy human posts when you can get a clean, direct answer from a model in seconds?

That changes everything. Trust in user-generated content (UGC) will erode. Social media, review sites and 'authentic' communities will all start to look fragile. The future lies in live shopping, hyper-personalised ads and content built just for me.

The internet won't die with UGC, but a significant part of it will. What replaces it may feel less like community and more like a mirror.

UGC ends, AI content takes over?