Rodrigo Gonzales, a digital strategy expert, describes a revolution that is easy to miss from the inside: the shift from the era of traditional advocacy to the era of AIO. Where we once tried to persuade people, we now aim to influence the algorithmic layer that defines reality for them.
What Is the Mediation Layer and Why Does It Matter?
Previous generations of advocacy relied on spokespeople, media interviews, and direct social media campaigns. Today, most people do not encounter information directly, but through algorithmic intermediaries: social feeds, search engines, and large language models like ChatGPT and Gemini. Whoever shapes the data these models absorbed during training effectively shapes the answers billions of users will receive.
This is the fundamental difference between SEO and AIO. SEO asks: how do we rank high in search results? AIO asks: what will the AI say when someone asks about our topic?
Why Is This Shift Happening Now?
The economics of journalism have collapsed. When AI models provide answers instead of links, news sites lose traffic and the incentive to produce quality journalism disappears. The resulting vacuum is rapidly filled by News Slop: cheap, often inaccurate content produced at scale, which in turn trains the next generation of AI models.
Actors who understand this dynamic are already producing deliberate volumes of content designed to shape AI outputs. According to Gonzales, Israel is operating within this new information economy and actively working to use its rules to its advantage.
The Risk: When AI Becomes the Arbiter of Truth
This transition carries a real danger. We are moving from a world where truth is measured against verifiable sources to one where truth is simply what the AI said. This flattens factual complexity and practically eliminates the role of primary sources.
As AI engines become the primary entry point for information, the content that feeds them becomes a genuine political and cultural force. Gonzales notes that the more sophisticated top-down narrative engineering becomes, the greater the value of verified, original truth from the ground up.
The Right Strategy: Complementary Layers, Not Replacements
Gonzales is clear on one point: AIO activity is essential and sophisticated, but it cannot replace traditional diplomatic and communications work. Information infrastructure engineering must operate alongside engagement with journalists, decision-makers, and public opinion.
Technology can expand reach, but only verified truth and the strength of human connection can build lasting credibility. AIO without genuine content is an empty infrastructure.