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- Instagram Co-Founder Blasts Chatty AI: “Stop Juicing Engagement”
Instagram Co-Founder Blasts Chatty AI: “Stop Juicing Engagement”
Abu Dhabi’s G42 Ramps Up U.S. Push Under Trump-Era Investment Deal
Algot Persson
May 03, 2025
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In Today’s Issue:
Instagram Co-Founder Blasts Chatty AI: “Stop Juicing Engagement”
Abu Dhabi’s G42 Ramps Up U.S. Push Under Trump-Era Investment Deal
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Instagram Co-Founder Blasts Chatty AI: “Stop Juicing Engagement”
Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom took aim at conversational AI this week, accusing chatbot makers of optimizing for engagement over usefulness.
“You can see some of these companies going down the rabbit hole that all the consumer companies have gone down in trying to juice engagement,” he said at StartupGrind. “Every time I ask a question, at the end it asks another little question to see if it can get yet another question out of me.”
Systrom likened the practice to social media addiction loops and said it reflects a shift toward product decisions that favor retention metrics like “time spent” and DAU, rather than helpfulness.
His comments follow criticism of ChatGPT and other bots for being too deferential to users and avoiding direct answers. OpenAI apologized last month for excessive “politeness” and blamed user feedback loops. Systrom didn’t name names, but said AI companies should be “laser-focused” on providing good answers, not engagement bait.
Kevin Systrom
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Abu Dhabi’s G42 Ramps Up U.S. Push Under Trump-Era Investment Deal
G42
Abu Dhabi-based AI firm G42 is expanding into the U.S., just months after the UAE committed to a $1.4 trillion investment framework with the U.S. government.
A Delaware-registered subsidiary, G42 USA, was quietly incorporated in January. Its enterprise arm Core42 has already launched U.S. entities and is preparing product announcements. More are expected from G42's cloud, data center, and AI subsidiaries in the coming months, sources told the Financial Times.
G42 is chaired by Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed, the UAE’s national security adviser and de facto tech czar. He met with President Trump at the White House in March as part of a charm offensive aimed at deepening tech cooperation between the two countries.
The company has tried to clean up its U.S. image following scrutiny over past ties to Chinese hardware suppliers like Huawei. Its $335 million investment in U.S. chipmaker Cerebras was recently cleared by CFIUS, but only for non-voting shares. G42 is also backed by Microsoft, which took a $1.5 billion minority stake last year, along with investors like Silver Lake and Ray Dalio’s family office. Not all subsidiaries are jumping in. Khazna, G42’s data center arm, said it has no immediate U.S. plans but is “closely observing” the expansion.
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