{"id":8152,"date":"2026-06-17T10:30:52","date_gmt":"2026-06-17T05:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sketharaman.com\/blog\/?p=8152"},"modified":"2026-06-13T19:17:22","modified_gmt":"2026-06-13T13:47:22","slug":"circular-deals-dont-fake-revenue-they-distort-demand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sketharaman.com\/blog\/2026\/06\/17\/circular-deals-dont-fake-revenue-they-distort-demand\/","title":{"rendered":"Circular Deals Don\u2019t Fake Revenue – They Distort Demand"},"content":{"rendered":"

In her article entitled\u00a0AI moved forward, marketing did not<\/strong><\/a>,\u00a0Melissa Reeve, Co-Founder, Agile Marketing Alliance<\/em>, makes a valid point:<\/p>\n

Marketers were early adopters of AI, but while it has evolved most teams are still stuck using it like a smarter autocomplete.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

According to Reeve, the key reason for marketing to miss the AI race is erosion of trust with the early LLM models.<\/p>\n

Marketers used ChatGPT to write something and it came up with hallucinations. As a result, they learned to keep genAI on a tight leash and used it for low-stakes drafts. That was rational at the time. The problem is that the lesson calcified into a habit<\/em>. (If only they’d read my “what me worry” takes on hallucination<\/a> instead!)<\/p>\n

As a result, marketers failed to realize that the LLMs that they were skeptical about evolved over time. From drafting and summarizing in the fall of 2023 (GPT-4), LLMs are now capable of autonomously executing complex, multi-step tasks for hours three years later (Claude Sonnet 4.5). Most marketers have missed the evolution.<\/p>\n

To appreciate just how far genAI has come, the author asked ChatGPT to do a fairly complex task:
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I asked a current-generation model to take a published blog post, research three competitive angles I hadn\u2019t covered, draft a follow-up piece with a different argument.<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n

I used the same prompt on my recent blog post.<\/p>\n

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Take my published blog post https:\/\/gtm360.com\/blog\/2026\/03\/04\/ai-didnt-invent-circular-deals\/, research additional angles I haven’t covered, and draft a follow-up piece with an orthogonal argument.<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n

Here’s what I got back from ChatGPT seconds later.
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Circular Deals Don\u2019t Fake Revenue – They Distort Demand<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

In my previous post entitled AI Didn\u2019t Invent Circular Deals<\/a> , I argued that circular deals are not new. I averred that<\/p>\n