Back in October 2023, a relatively unremarkable thing happened. A platform called MagicPost launched with a limited amount of fanfare, privately backed by a small group of angel investors.
Now, given the deluge of AI-driven startups arriving in the slipstream of ChatGPT, one could be forgiven for thinking that a platform that auto-generated LinkedIn posts might struggle to emerge from a field of such well-marketed incumbents like Taplio or Hootsuite, both LinkedIn-friendly social posting tools with considerable built-in subscriber bases.
And yet, as we head into Q3 2025, the effects of MagicPost on the very fabric of LinkedIn are indicative of a wider AI trend that should likely give pause for serious thought -- not just for social media platforms, but for the Internet itself more broadly.
Put simply, MagicPost is an automated tool that imports your personal LinkedIn profile, then AI-produces a post in your tone of voice, alongside emojis, market data, and even a dynamic hook (there's a separate field where you can test out sample hooks to decide which is most effective). In essence, it becomes you, posting seven days a week in your voice, about topics you might (if it were really you) care about, at times of the day that are algorithmically timed for optimal performance. And it takes just minutes to set up a week's worth of content.
Why is this such a big deal? Because whereas once LinkedIn prided itself on being a pure business platform built on networking, job opportunities and company announcements (not to mention amassing its billion-plus users by algorithmically punishing anyone who tried to push its tone toward Facebook or, God forbid, Instagram), it is now nothing of the sort.
Instead, one's feed is inundated with photogenic micro-influencers posting vague life advice alongside high-resolution photos of themselves on beaches, or in planes, or at glitzy conferences.
Now, possibly one might argue that this has all the makings of an over-the-hill businessman complaining that the world's moving on, and that nothing's like it was, and that everything used to be better. And besides, wasn't LinkedIn always filled with navel-gazing narcissists? Those same types who have long been lampooned in a variety of Reddit and X (formerly Twitter) sub-channels?
And yet. Something profound has shifted, and one must look at the LinkedIn algorithm to work out why that's important.
The stark fact is that reach, impressions and engagement have dropped off a cliff for the majority of people posting dry (read business-focused) content as opposed to, say, influencer or lifestyle-type content. And it's not just me inside my own feed-bubble noticing it. Reams and reams of long-term Linkers are loudly observing the same phenomenon (or at least they might be if their posts weren't being buried by the algorithm). And God help you if you don't post at least five times a week, or comment at least 20 times a day. You may as well just be giving a handwritten note to the two people sitting next to you in that office you no longer go to.
Back in May, noted LinkedIn algorithm analyst Richard van der Blom released a new report that contained some startling data -- namely that within a trailing six-month window, average platform reach had fallen by no less than 50 percent, while follower growth was down 60 percent. Engagement was, on average, down an eye-popping 75 percent.
And company pages? You remember those, right? Now, company pages are all but lost to the search gods.
I would caution that the same report also described various actions relating specifically to the suppression of AI content on LinkedIn -- limiting reach for suspected AI posts for example, penalizing duplicative content, de-prioritizing posts whose tags are stuffed with AI-generated keywords, and so on.
Yet as we sit here today, it's clear that the average feed is fuller than ever with the familiar, scrolling structure of the MagicPost formula, wedged between the Canva-AI carousels and the ChatGPT-designed graphic cards.
So, what implications can we draw from all this?
It's that last point that takes us to an unhappy-yet-startlingly-real conclusion. Namely, that there's a strong possibility LinkedIn will soon become the social media test case for AI simply talking to itself in real time, a state of affairs that has arrived in a mind-bendingly short space of time. It's what doomsayers might call the social media apocalypse, or the dead Internet theory -- a world where MagicPost writes, Buffer schedules, Taplio comments and other bots interact, all without the warm hand of a human being.
Will it change if there's enough of a backlash? This world where we're effectively passive bystanders watching a content tennis match between competing AI platforms?
Does it even matter to LinkedIn itself?
Well, some part of the answer depends on where the money leads.
For the time being, I would hazard a guess that a record number of Gen Z entrepreneurs and influencers are arriving on LinkedIn with a new, anything-goes attitude -- seasoned social media experts trained from birth on TikTok and Instagram who don't want dusty old goats like me complaining that they can't do any business in the face of industrialized Christmas cracker wisdom and ring-lit authenticity.
With these new users, needless to say, comes significant new commercial opportunities. Ad dollars, in other words.
At the end of the day, perhaps one simply needs to accept that the definition of business itself has changed. Whereas Gen X wanted work on one platform and the frivolity of social media on another, perhaps we need to accept that Gen Z downwards couldn't possibly separate their social personality from their work-selves, or even separate any of that from content that has to be bulk-produced by AI in order to stay one step ahead of an increasingly unforgiving algorithm.
Hell, maybe us dusty old goats should just think up a new business platform and move there. MySpace has a good ring to it. Anyone? Anyone?
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