Even three years after the generative AI boom started, most AI startups are still making money by selling to businesses, not individual consumers.
Although consumers quickly adopted general-purpose LLMs like ChatGPT, most specialized consumer GenAI applications have yet to resonate.
“A lot of early AI applications around video, audio, and photo were super cool,” said Chi-Hua Chien, co-founder and managing partner at Goodwater Capital, onstage at TechCrunch’s StrictlyVC event in early December. “But then Sora and Nano Banana came out, and the Chinese open sourced their video models. And so, a lot of those opportunities disappeared.”
Chien compares some of those applications to the simple flashlight, which was initially a popular third-party download after the iPhone launched in 2008 but was quickly integrated into iOS itself.
He argued that, just as it took a few years for the smartphone platform to solidify before game-changing consumer apps emerged, AI platforms need a similar period of “stabilization” for lasting AI consumer products to flourish.
“I think we’re right on the cusp of the equivalent to mobile of the 2009-2010 era,” Chien said. That period was the birth of massive mobile-first consumer businesses like Uber and Airbnb.
We could be seeing inklings of that stabilization with Google’s Gemini reaching technological parity with ChatGPT, Chien said.
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Elizabeth Weil, founder and partner at Scribble Ventures, echoed Chien’s sentiment about the early days of GenAI, describing the current state of consumer AI applications as being in an “awkward teenage middle ground.”
What will it take for consumer AI startups to grow up? Possibly a new device beyond the smartphone.
“It’s unlikely that a device that you pick up 500 times a day but only sees 3% to 5% of what you see is going to be what ultimately introduces the use cases that take full advantage of AI’s capabilities,” Chien said.
Weil agreed that a smartphone may be too limiting for reimagining consumer AI products in large part because it is not ambient. “I don’t think we’re going to be building for this in five years,” she said, indicating her iPhone as she showed it to the audience.
Startups and incumbent tech companies have been racing to build a new personal device that can supplant smartphones.
OpenAI and Apple’s former design chief, Jony Ive, are working on what’s rumored to be a “screenless,” pocket-sized device. Meta’s Ray-Ban smart glasses are controlled by a wristband that detects subtle gestures. Meanwhile, a number of startups are trying, with often disappointing results, to introduce a pin, pendant, or ring that uses AI in a way different from how smartphones do.
However, not every AI consumer product will be dependent on a new device. Chien suggested that one such offering could be a personal AI financial adviser customized to the user’s specific needs. Similarly, Weil anticipates that a personalized, “always-on” tutor will become ubiquitous, with its specialized tutelage delivered directly from a smartphone.
Though excited by AI’s potential, Weil and Chien expressed skepticism about the emergence of several, still-stealthy AI-powered social network startups. Chien said these companies are building networks where thousands of AI bots are interacting with the user’s content.
“It turns social into a single-player game. I’m not sure that it works,” he said. “The reason that people enjoy social networking is the understanding that there are real humans on the other side.”
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#VCs #discuss #consumer #startups #lack #staying #power #TechCrunch
![Here’s Your First Look at The Riddler, Mad Hatter, Scarecrow, and Roxy Rocket in ‘Caped Crusader’ Season Two
Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey gets an “R” rating. Eli Roth’s Ice Cream Man turns children into bloodsucking ghouls. Spider-Man: Brand New Day has a longer running time than John Boorman’s Excalibur. Come fly the teeth of the wind, share my wings. It’s Morning Spoilers! The Guide Deadline reports James Badge Dale, Abigail Cowen, and Edouard Philipponnat will star in The Guide, a “psychological thriller” concerning psychotropic mushrooms from directors Inon and Natalie Shampanier. The film stars Cowen as “a young woman who enters a psilocybin mushroom retreat in an effort to heal past traumas, surrendering herself to the care of a psychedelic therapy guide (Badge Dale). As the guide’s motives come under suspicion, the past bleeds into the present and the session unravels into a psychedelic nightmare.” Spider-Man: Brand New Day According to Shaw Theaters, Spider-Man: Brand New Day runs an impressive two hours and twenty-five minutes long.
The Odyssey TLC Chinese Theaters suggests Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey has been rated “R” and runs two-hours and fifty two-minutes long. As the film is budgeted at 0 million, World of Reel states this would officially make it the most expensive R-rated movie of all time.
Ray Gunn Empire Magazine has a new image from Brad Bird’s animated sci-fi noir, Ray Gunn, starring the voice of Sam Rockwell as a Chris Pine-esque detective. Ice Cream Man Demonically-tainted ice cream turns children into cannibalistic deviants in the “red band” (and very gory!) trailer for Eli Roth’s latest, Ice Cream Man. [embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JeUjIqK_4c[/embed] Fall 2: Deadpoint Two young women are trapped on a plank instead of a pole in the first trailer for the horizontal sequel to Fall.
[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rsztt5qDj_A[/embed] Ice Age: Boiling Point Elsewhere, the Ice Age cast is shot skyward by a volcanic geyser in the first teaser for Boiling Point. [embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWY_wCPfIIM[/embed] The Littlest Hobo According to Deadline, a live-action reboot of The Littlest Hobo is now in development at Lionsgate Canada from Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg’s production company, Point Grey, in partnership with franchise rights holders New Hobo Productions, Inc. As always, the new series will follow a crime-fighting German Shepherd who wanders from town-to-town doing everything from solving domestic disputes to foiling jewel heists. A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms During a recent interview with The Playlist, director Owen Harris provided a positive update on the troubled second season of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms.
I’m in Belfast. We are halfway through season 2, slugging away. We are about to go off to Gran Canaria to shoot a part of it, and we have been shooting. We started shooting in November, I think, end of November. We’ve shot it in chunks. Another six episodes, and I’m doing four of them. Batman: Caped Crusader Amazon and Warner Bros. Animation shared several new images from the second season of Batman: Caped Crusader, including our first looks at all-new incarnations of The Riddler, Scarecrow, The Mad Hatter, and Roxy Rocket. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds During her recent appearance at FedCon ’26 in Germany (via Instagram), Christina Chong teased the ninth episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds‘ fourth season was “the hardest episode I’ve ever had to do,” because “someone I love very, very much is in it.”
Rick and Morty Finally, Rick tests the limits of the “Five Point Exploding Heart Technique” in a new clip from this week’s episode of Rick and Morty. [embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxuqiI6mAIo[/embed] Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who. #Heres #Riddler #Mad #Hatter #Scarecrow #Roxy #Rocket #Caped #Crusader #SeasonBatman: Caped Crusader,Morning Spoilers,Rick and Morty,Spider-Man: Brand New Day,The Odyssey](https://i2.wp.com/gizmodo.com/app/uploads/2026/06/Morning-Spoilers-June-5-Caped-Crusader-1280x853.jpg?ssl=1 "Here’s Your First Look at The Riddler, Mad Hatter, Scarecrow, and Roxy Rocket in ‘Caped Crusader’ Season Two
Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey gets an “R” rating. Eli Roth’s Ice Cream Man turns children into bloodsucking ghouls. Spider-Man: Brand New Day has a longer running time than John Boorman’s Excalibur. Come fly the teeth of the wind, share my wings. It’s Morning Spoilers! The Guide Deadline reports James Badge Dale, Abigail Cowen, and Edouard Philipponnat will star in The Guide, a “psychological thriller” concerning psychotropic mushrooms from directors Inon and Natalie Shampanier. The film stars Cowen as “a young woman who enters a psilocybin mushroom retreat in an effort to heal past traumas, surrendering herself to the care of a psychedelic therapy guide (Badge Dale). As the guide’s motives come under suspicion, the past bleeds into the present and the session unravels into a psychedelic nightmare.” Spider-Man: Brand New Day According to Shaw Theaters, Spider-Man: Brand New Day runs an impressive two hours and twenty-five minutes long.
The Odyssey TLC Chinese Theaters suggests Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey has been rated “R” and runs two-hours and fifty two-minutes long. As the film is budgeted at 0 million, World of Reel states this would officially make it the most expensive R-rated movie of all time.
Ray Gunn Empire Magazine has a new image from Brad Bird’s animated sci-fi noir, Ray Gunn, starring the voice of Sam Rockwell as a Chris Pine-esque detective. Ice Cream Man Demonically-tainted ice cream turns children into cannibalistic deviants in the “red band” (and very gory!) trailer for Eli Roth’s latest, Ice Cream Man. [embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JeUjIqK_4c[/embed] Fall 2: Deadpoint Two young women are trapped on a plank instead of a pole in the first trailer for the horizontal sequel to Fall.
[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rsztt5qDj_A[/embed] Ice Age: Boiling Point Elsewhere, the Ice Age cast is shot skyward by a volcanic geyser in the first teaser for Boiling Point. [embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWY_wCPfIIM[/embed] The Littlest Hobo According to Deadline, a live-action reboot of The Littlest Hobo is now in development at Lionsgate Canada from Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg’s production company, Point Grey, in partnership with franchise rights holders New Hobo Productions, Inc. As always, the new series will follow a crime-fighting German Shepherd who wanders from town-to-town doing everything from solving domestic disputes to foiling jewel heists. A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms During a recent interview with The Playlist, director Owen Harris provided a positive update on the troubled second season of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms.
I’m in Belfast. We are halfway through season 2, slugging away. We are about to go off to Gran Canaria to shoot a part of it, and we have been shooting. We started shooting in November, I think, end of November. We’ve shot it in chunks. Another six episodes, and I’m doing four of them. Batman: Caped Crusader Amazon and Warner Bros. Animation shared several new images from the second season of Batman: Caped Crusader, including our first looks at all-new incarnations of The Riddler, Scarecrow, The Mad Hatter, and Roxy Rocket. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds During her recent appearance at FedCon ’26 in Germany (via Instagram), Christina Chong teased the ninth episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds‘ fourth season was “the hardest episode I’ve ever had to do,” because “someone I love very, very much is in it.”
Rick and Morty Finally, Rick tests the limits of the “Five Point Exploding Heart Technique” in a new clip from this week’s episode of Rick and Morty. [embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxuqiI6mAIo[/embed] Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who. #Heres #Riddler #Mad #Hatter #Scarecrow #Roxy #Rocket #Caped #Crusader #SeasonBatman: Caped Crusader,Morning Spoilers,Rick and Morty,Spider-Man: Brand New Day,The Odyssey")
![Here’s Your First Look at The Riddler, Mad Hatter, Scarecrow, and Roxy Rocket in ‘Caped Crusader’ Season Two
Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey gets an “R” rating. Eli Roth’s Ice Cream Man turns children into bloodsucking ghouls. Spider-Man: Brand New Day has a longer running time than John Boorman’s Excalibur. Come fly the teeth of the wind, share my wings. It’s Morning Spoilers! The Guide Deadline reports James Badge Dale, Abigail Cowen, and Edouard Philipponnat will star in The Guide, a “psychological thriller” concerning psychotropic mushrooms from directors Inon and Natalie Shampanier. The film stars Cowen as “a young woman who enters a psilocybin mushroom retreat in an effort to heal past traumas, surrendering herself to the care of a psychedelic therapy guide (Badge Dale). As the guide’s motives come under suspicion, the past bleeds into the present and the session unravels into a psychedelic nightmare.” Spider-Man: Brand New Day According to Shaw Theaters, Spider-Man: Brand New Day runs an impressive two hours and twenty-five minutes long.
The Odyssey TLC Chinese Theaters suggests Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey has been rated “R” and runs two-hours and fifty two-minutes long. As the film is budgeted at $250 million, World of Reel states this would officially make it the most expensive R-rated movie of all time.
Ray Gunn Empire Magazine has a new image from Brad Bird’s animated sci-fi noir, Ray Gunn, starring the voice of Sam Rockwell as a Chris Pine-esque detective. Ice Cream Man Demonically-tainted ice cream turns children into cannibalistic deviants in the “red band” (and very gory!) trailer for Eli Roth’s latest, Ice Cream Man. [embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JeUjIqK_4c[/embed] Fall 2: Deadpoint Two young women are trapped on a plank instead of a pole in the first trailer for the horizontal sequel to Fall.
[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rsztt5qDj_A[/embed] Ice Age: Boiling Point Elsewhere, the Ice Age cast is shot skyward by a volcanic geyser in the first teaser for Boiling Point. [embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWY_wCPfIIM[/embed] The Littlest Hobo According to Deadline, a live-action reboot of The Littlest Hobo is now in development at Lionsgate Canada from Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg’s production company, Point Grey, in partnership with franchise rights holders New Hobo Productions, Inc. As always, the new series will follow a crime-fighting German Shepherd who wanders from town-to-town doing everything from solving domestic disputes to foiling jewel heists. A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms During a recent interview with The Playlist, director Owen Harris provided a positive update on the troubled second season of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms.
I’m in Belfast. We are halfway through season 2, slugging away. We are about to go off to Gran Canaria to shoot a part of it, and we have been shooting. We started shooting in November, I think, end of November. We’ve shot it in chunks. Another six episodes, and I’m doing four of them. Batman: Caped Crusader Amazon and Warner Bros. Animation shared several new images from the second season of Batman: Caped Crusader, including our first looks at all-new incarnations of The Riddler, Scarecrow, The Mad Hatter, and Roxy Rocket. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds During her recent appearance at FedCon ’26 in Germany (via Instagram), Christina Chong teased the ninth episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds‘ fourth season was “the hardest episode I’ve ever had to do,” because “someone I love very, very much is in it.”
Rick and Morty Finally, Rick tests the limits of the “Five Point Exploding Heart Technique” in a new clip from this week’s episode of Rick and Morty. [embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxuqiI6mAIo[/embed] Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who. #Heres #Riddler #Mad #Hatter #Scarecrow #Roxy #Rocket #Caped #Crusader #SeasonBatman: Caped Crusader,Morning Spoilers,Rick and Morty,Spider-Man: Brand New Day,The Odyssey](https://gizmodo.com/app/uploads/2026/06/Morning-Spoilers-June-5-Caped-Crusader-1280x853.jpg "Here’s Your First Look at The Riddler, Mad Hatter, Scarecrow, and Roxy Rocket in ‘Caped Crusader’ Season Two
Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey gets an “R” rating. Eli Roth’s Ice Cream Man turns children into bloodsucking ghouls. Spider-Man: Brand New Day has a longer running time than John Boorman’s Excalibur. Come fly the teeth of the wind, share my wings. It’s Morning Spoilers! The Guide Deadline reports James Badge Dale, Abigail Cowen, and Edouard Philipponnat will star in The Guide, a “psychological thriller” concerning psychotropic mushrooms from directors Inon and Natalie Shampanier. The film stars Cowen as “a young woman who enters a psilocybin mushroom retreat in an effort to heal past traumas, surrendering herself to the care of a psychedelic therapy guide (Badge Dale). As the guide’s motives come under suspicion, the past bleeds into the present and the session unravels into a psychedelic nightmare.” Spider-Man: Brand New Day According to Shaw Theaters, Spider-Man: Brand New Day runs an impressive two hours and twenty-five minutes long.
The Odyssey TLC Chinese Theaters suggests Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey has been rated “R” and runs two-hours and fifty two-minutes long. As the film is budgeted at $250 million, World of Reel states this would officially make it the most expensive R-rated movie of all time.
Ray Gunn Empire Magazine has a new image from Brad Bird’s animated sci-fi noir, Ray Gunn, starring the voice of Sam Rockwell as a Chris Pine-esque detective. Ice Cream Man Demonically-tainted ice cream turns children into cannibalistic deviants in the “red band” (and very gory!) trailer for Eli Roth’s latest, Ice Cream Man. [embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JeUjIqK_4c[/embed] Fall 2: Deadpoint Two young women are trapped on a plank instead of a pole in the first trailer for the horizontal sequel to Fall.
[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rsztt5qDj_A[/embed] Ice Age: Boiling Point Elsewhere, the Ice Age cast is shot skyward by a volcanic geyser in the first teaser for Boiling Point. [embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWY_wCPfIIM[/embed] The Littlest Hobo According to Deadline, a live-action reboot of The Littlest Hobo is now in development at Lionsgate Canada from Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg’s production company, Point Grey, in partnership with franchise rights holders New Hobo Productions, Inc. As always, the new series will follow a crime-fighting German Shepherd who wanders from town-to-town doing everything from solving domestic disputes to foiling jewel heists. A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms During a recent interview with The Playlist, director Owen Harris provided a positive update on the troubled second season of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms.
I’m in Belfast. We are halfway through season 2, slugging away. We are about to go off to Gran Canaria to shoot a part of it, and we have been shooting. We started shooting in November, I think, end of November. We’ve shot it in chunks. Another six episodes, and I’m doing four of them. Batman: Caped Crusader Amazon and Warner Bros. Animation shared several new images from the second season of Batman: Caped Crusader, including our first looks at all-new incarnations of The Riddler, Scarecrow, The Mad Hatter, and Roxy Rocket. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds During her recent appearance at FedCon ’26 in Germany (via Instagram), Christina Chong teased the ninth episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds‘ fourth season was “the hardest episode I’ve ever had to do,” because “someone I love very, very much is in it.”
Rick and Morty Finally, Rick tests the limits of the “Five Point Exploding Heart Technique” in a new clip from this week’s episode of Rick and Morty. [embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxuqiI6mAIo[/embed] Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who. #Heres #Riddler #Mad #Hatter #Scarecrow #Roxy #Rocket #Caped #Crusader #SeasonBatman: Caped Crusader,Morning Spoilers,Rick and Morty,Spider-Man: Brand New Day,The Odyssey")
![AI Has Come for Serif FontsAs public backlash to the seeming omnipresence of artificial intelligence intensifies, the collective quest to weed out—and reject—telltale signs of its use continues.One of the first casualties, to my dismay, was em dashes—which are a great, and very human form of punctuation, by the way! There’s also the “rule of threes,” which is meant to scan as rhythmic, but often comes across predictable, hackish, and stale. And, of course, there are the clunky grammatical constructions of the “not X, but Y” variety.Now certain fonts and typefaces—specifically serifs—seem to be defining (and giving away) AI, both in actual software, and in vibe-coded design boilerplates. Some are calling it “tasteslop,” the results of the effort to make generative AI designs seem superficially sophisticated or distinguished.The shift away from slicker, more conspicuously computerized typefaces is something the San Francisco Bay Area writer, designer, and type practitioner Keya Vadgama has termed “the serif renaissance.” In a recent newsletter, published on her Substack, Vadgama suggests the move is a bid for companies to project more “personality and warmth.”“It’s not that difficult to discern why AI-native companies in particular are being drawn to serif fonts: AI is inherently cold and without opinion,” she writes. “[Using serifs] signals ‘We’re AI! But real humans use (and made) our product! We swear!’”“Serifs have an origin in calligraphy,” Vadgama tells WIRED. “It connotes a very human, fluid way of making letterforms.” Vadgama has noticed that Anthropic’s Claude was defaulting to serifs. Other AI companies—Runway, Perplexity, Manus—had also adopted similar typefaces in their UX and branding.Reached for comment, Perplexity chief communications officer Jesse Dwyer tells WIRED: “Why wouldn’t we have human design? Perplexity is for people.”Vadgama believes the use of serifs is as much about aesthetics as building confidence between users and brands. Certain font choices signal, even at some preconscious psychological level, trust. Sans serifs (your Arials, Calibiris, Helviticas) are too clean, too computer-y. Good old Times New Roman, and similar typographic designs, can feel a bit more dignified. Recently, Vadgama was doing some branding work with a (since-shuttered) AI startup, which favored the serif text. “A big part of it,” she says, “is, ‘How do we position ourselves in a way that people are not afraid of us?’”Serifs can help build that conviction, or at least the illusion of it. Times New Roman itself was commissioned in the 1930s by Britain’s Times newspaper. The typeface carries a certain authoritative heft. Books and newspapers are printed using it. It was all but standardized in the decades before screen reading. Perhaps most famously, the Encyclopedia Brittanica—arguably the authoritative compendium of human knowledge, at least pre-World Wide Web—was set in Times.“In the broad public, a serif carries connotations of scholarship,” says Ali S. Qadeer, chair of graphic design at the Ontario College of Art and Design in Toronto. “Claude is interesting. It’s using this slightly brown background to mirror a book page. It’s sort of emulating the feeling of reading print. And print has deeper associations with trust.”As reported by The New York Times, even the US State Department has returned to using Times New Roman after Secretary of State Marco Rubio decried Calibri as “informal,” pegging the department’s adoption of the sans serif typeface on some wider, Biden-era DEI initiative.Both Qadeer and Vadgama see the trend toward serifs as a rejoinder to AI’s perceived (and, indeed, literal) lack of soul, and the wider public suspicion of the technology. They’re not the only ones. Alongside the “tasteslop” discourse, people online have criticized the serification of AI aesthetics as “generic” and “very ugly.”#Serif #Fontsartificial intelligence,design,ux/ui,art,typography,fonts,chatbots,claude,chatgpt](https://i3.wp.com/media.wired.com/photos/6a20d5436a7879400ec4323c/191:100/w_1280,c_limit/culture_ai_serif_font.jpg?ssl=1 "AI Has Come for Serif FontsAs public backlash to the seeming omnipresence of artificial intelligence intensifies, the collective quest to weed out—and reject—telltale signs of its use continues.One of the first casualties, to my dismay, was em dashes—which are a great, and very human form of punctuation, by the way! There’s also the “rule of threes,” which is meant to scan as rhythmic, but often comes across predictable, hackish, and stale. And, of course, there are the clunky grammatical constructions of the “not X, but Y” variety.Now certain fonts and typefaces—specifically serifs—seem to be defining (and giving away) AI, both in actual software, and in vibe-coded design boilerplates. Some are calling it “tasteslop,” the results of the effort to make generative AI designs seem superficially sophisticated or distinguished.The shift away from slicker, more conspicuously computerized typefaces is something the San Francisco Bay Area writer, designer, and type practitioner Keya Vadgama has termed “the serif renaissance.” In a recent newsletter, published on her Substack, Vadgama suggests the move is a bid for companies to project more “personality and warmth.”“It’s not that difficult to discern why AI-native companies in particular are being drawn to serif fonts: AI is inherently cold and without opinion,” she writes. “[Using serifs] signals ‘We’re AI! But real humans use (and made) our product! We swear!’”“Serifs have an origin in calligraphy,” Vadgama tells WIRED. “It connotes a very human, fluid way of making letterforms.” Vadgama has noticed that Anthropic’s Claude was defaulting to serifs. Other AI companies—Runway, Perplexity, Manus—had also adopted similar typefaces in their UX and branding.Reached for comment, Perplexity chief communications officer Jesse Dwyer tells WIRED: “Why wouldn’t we have human design? Perplexity is for people.”Vadgama believes the use of serifs is as much about aesthetics as building confidence between users and brands. Certain font choices signal, even at some preconscious psychological level, trust. Sans serifs (your Arials, Calibiris, Helviticas) are too clean, too computer-y. Good old Times New Roman, and similar typographic designs, can feel a bit more dignified. Recently, Vadgama was doing some branding work with a (since-shuttered) AI startup, which favored the serif text. “A big part of it,” she says, “is, ‘How do we position ourselves in a way that people are not afraid of us?’”Serifs can help build that conviction, or at least the illusion of it. Times New Roman itself was commissioned in the 1930s by Britain’s Times newspaper. The typeface carries a certain authoritative heft. Books and newspapers are printed using it. It was all but standardized in the decades before screen reading. Perhaps most famously, the Encyclopedia Brittanica—arguably the authoritative compendium of human knowledge, at least pre-World Wide Web—was set in Times.“In the broad public, a serif carries connotations of scholarship,” says Ali S. Qadeer, chair of graphic design at the Ontario College of Art and Design in Toronto. “Claude is interesting. It’s using this slightly brown background to mirror a book page. It’s sort of emulating the feeling of reading print. And print has deeper associations with trust.”As reported by The New York Times, even the US State Department has returned to using Times New Roman after Secretary of State Marco Rubio decried Calibri as “informal,” pegging the department’s adoption of the sans serif typeface on some wider, Biden-era DEI initiative.Both Qadeer and Vadgama see the trend toward serifs as a rejoinder to AI’s perceived (and, indeed, literal) lack of soul, and the wider public suspicion of the technology. They’re not the only ones. Alongside the “tasteslop” discourse, people online have criticized the serification of AI aesthetics as “generic” and “very ugly.”#Serif #Fontsartificial intelligence,design,ux/ui,art,typography,fonts,chatbots,claude,chatgpt")
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