Tech Revolutions & Ads: AI, Innovation, and the Future of Platform Power

Chris LoRusso

Economics, Innovation, & Technology. This is a 5 episode limited series based on my doctoral thesis, with each episode walking through a single chapter. Fittingly, given the subject matter, the audio was generated using AI (specifically NotebookLM) trained exclusively on the thesis itself. This audio series distills a 250-page academic paper into about 85 minutes of approachable conversation. In doing so, I hope listeners more deeply consider the business models, incentives, and capital behind the technology we interact with every day, and where it may be headed next.

Episodes

  1. Jan 19

    Chapter 5 - Discussion

    This episode closes the thesis by synthesizing the findings and explaining what they mean for the future of AI, both in advertising and beyond. It revisits the core themes and shows why modern production capital behaves differently than in past technological eras. The episode then looks ahead to emerging shifts (agentic AI, new models for content monetization) and ends with a clear takeaway: platform power is accelerating, but the outcome of the AI era is still shaped by human, institutional, and policy choices. Episode chapters: 00:00 Why Chapter 5 Is the Synthesis01:09 Revisiting the Two Research Questions01:54 Key Themes Revisited02:47 Convergence of Capital Types 03:23 Appreciating Assets and AI Moats04:33 When Platforms Risk Disrupting Themselves06:55 The Agentic and Post-Screen Future08:06 Content, Compensation, and Control10:03 Why This AI Era Is Fundamentally Different12:24 What This Means for Users, Policy, and Industry

    14 min

  2. Jan 19

    Chapter 4 - Findings

    This episode presents the core findings of the thesis, drawing on a large qualitative analysis to show how power concentrates in modern advertising technology. It explains how the results are organized across automation, user data, and inventory, and distills them into dominant themes, dependency and differentiation, that have reinforced platform dominance over time. The episode then connects these findings to future trajectories, answers the two research questions directly, and introduces three key theoretical extensions about how modern production capital becomes self-reinforcing, appreciating, and increasingly concentrated. Episode chapters: 00:00 Why Chapter 4 Is the Empirical Core02:26 How the Findings Are Organized (Topics + Time Horizons)06:17 The Dominant Theme: Dependency07:31 Dependency Drivers: Concentration, Openness, Transparency10:55 The Counterweight: Differentiation (Data Access + Resilience)13:51 The Trajectories: Automation, User Data, and Inventory19:06 How the Themes Move Together (Spearman Correlations)22:17 Answering the Research Questions (RQ1 + RQ2)25:39 Three Big Extensions and the Closing Tension

    33 min

  3. Jan 19

    Chapter 3 - Methodology

    This episode explains how the research is actually constructed and why the methodology matters. It walks through how the study anchors itself in long-term technological cycles, why it focuses on the modern deployment phase of the internet era, and how production capital drives lasting power in ad tech. It also positions Google, Meta, and Amazon as core examples, explains how automation, user data, and inventory structure the analysis, and introduces “follow the capital” as the guiding lens for interpreting results and projecting future outcomes. Episode chapters: 00:00 Why Methodology Matters for Understanding AI 01:10 What a Methodology Chapter Actually Does 02:13 Anchoring the Study in Long-Term Tech Cycles 03:13 Financial vs Production Capital Explained 04:19 Why the Study Focuses on the Deployment Period 05:17 Why Google, Meta, and Amazon Anchor the Study 05:36 The Three Engines: Automation, Data, and Inventory 06:19 Historical vs Contemporary Case Pairing 10:33 “Follow the Capital” as the Guiding Lens

    13 min

  4. Jan 19

    Chapter 2 - Literature Review

    This episode builds the theoretical foundation of the thesis by walking through key scholarly frameworks in order to better understand AI positioning both within advertising and across the broader economy. It also connects classic innovation theories to modern advertising practices, and explores competing perspectives across technological adoption, data collection, surveillance capitalism, and platform power, setting up the analytical tools used in the chapters that follow. Episode Chapters: 00:00 What is a Literature Review and Why it Matters01:26 Carlota Perez and Long-Wave Technological Revolutions02:43 Installation vs Deployment and the Role of Capital04:03 AI as a General-Purpose Technology05:17 Disruption, Diffusion, and Adoption in Ad Tech07:15 Platforms, Data, and Surveillance Capitalism09:04 Probabilistic Computing, Learning, and Opacity10:25 Extending the Framework for the AI Era

    13 min

  5. Jan 18

    Chapter 1 - Introduction

    This episode sets up the big questions behind this doctoral thesis: how do waves of advertising innovation follow well-established scholarly theories about technological revolutions & financial capital, and what can this history can tell us about where AI is headed next? It lays out the historical backdrop, explains what makes AI different from earlier tech shifts, and makes the case for why advertising is an optimal industry to study these changes as they unfold. 00:00 What This Thesis Is Really About01:14 Carlota Perez and Technological Revolutions02:32 Is AI a Sixth Technological Revolution?03:50 How AI Rewrites Competitive Economics04:21 From Deterministic to Probabilistic Computing06:16 Following the Capital: Why Data and Models Matter07:46 Why Advertising Is the Ideal AI Case Study09:23 Attention, Surveillance, and Algorithmic Identity12:24 The Two Research Questions Going Forward

    14 min
  • 5 Episodes

About

Economics, Innovation, & Technology. This is a 5 episode limited series based on my doctoral thesis, with each episode walking through a single chapter. Fittingly, given the subject matter, the audio was generated using AI (specifically NotebookLM) trained exclusively on the thesis itself. This audio series distills a 250-page academic paper into about 85 minutes of approachable conversation. In doing so, I hope listeners more deeply consider the business models, incentives, and capital behind the technology we interact with every day, and where it may be headed next.

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