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Issue #17
I was scrolling past a serum ad, a resume-writing app, and a grill brand's Instagram bio in the space of about ninety seconds, and all three said some version of the same thing: Powered by.
Powered by AI. Powered by science. Powered by our community of 40,000 home cooks.
None of them told me what the power was actually doing, let alone where it came from.
"Powered by" Is A Spec. On Loan.
Here's what the phrase is built to do: borrow credibility a product hasn't earned yet and let you assume the borrowing as proof. It reads like an engineering detail, like you're getting a peek under the hood, but nobody opens the hood. "Powered by" tells you a source of authority exists somewhere upstream, then asks you to do the trusting on its behalf.
This isn't new. Intel ran this exact play in the '90s with "Intel Inside". There was a sticker on your computer you couldn't see into, promising a chip you couldn't evaluate, and it worked because most people had no way to check. The chip did the same job it would've done without the sticker. The sticker did a different job entirely: it made you feel informed while keeping you exactly as uninformed as before.
Watch It Move Across Categories, Same Trick, Different Hat.
Powered by AI is having its main character moment right now. L'Oréal's Skin Genius app leans on this twice over. It's backed by L'Oréal's research and powered by another company's AI technology, so you're trusting a trust that's trusting a trust. Neutrogena gave its skincare assistant a name, NAIA, so "powered by AI" could sound like a colleague instead of a chip.
Powered by science has been around longer and works the same way. It doesn't tell you which science, whose lab, or what was actually tested. It tells you science exists, generally, somewhere near this product.
Powered by community is the softest version and maybe the sneakiest, because community sounds like the opposite of a marketing claim. A grill brand with a devoted online following isn't lying when it says it's "powered by" 40,000 home cooks. Yet the phrase still does the same job the chip sticker did; it hands you a reason to trust the product that has nothing to do with the product.
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Here's The Line, And It's A Fair One.
The trick isn't inherently dishonest. Skin Genius probably does use ModiFace's technology. The grill brand probably does have 40,000 people who love it. "Powered by" becomes a problem the moment it's asked to replace evidence instead of summarize it — when the badge of power is the whole argument instead of a footnote to one.
There's actually a beauty-tech buyer's guide making this exact case to brands right now, telling them to check for real certifications, published accuracy studies, actual data, "not a 'powered by AI' badge." When the industry itself starts telling brands the phrase isn't proof, that tells you what it's become: the thing you say instead of the proof.
So next time you see it — on a serum, an app, a bag of coffee — ask the boring question the phrase is banking on you skipping: powered by what, specifically, and how would I check?
Most of the time, nobody's built the answer for you to find.
Until Next Wednesday,
~Aliya