Web3 is AI, not crypto.

From "Read, Write, Own." to "Access, Distribute, Create."

The future isn't about who owns data but who creates it, and AI is rewriting those rules. At its core, the internet has always been about democratizing information, evolving through waves—Web 1, Web 2, and now Web 3. For years, we've been told that Web3 was about democratizing the ownership of information through crypto. But that's a flawed narrative. The real shift with Web3 is about democratizing the creation of information with (Gen) AI. Therefore, the old paradigm of "Read, Write, Own" is fading, replaced by a new framework: "Access, Distribute, Create."

Access, Distribute, Create:

• Web 1: Access (1989—2004): Before the internet, information was mostly gated physically (books, university, libraries), and gated organically in people’s brains. Web1 brought institutional knowledge (science, history, etc) and personal knowledge (cooking, reviews, etc) onto a giant free marketplace. Netscape, Google, Yahoo, Amazon, Wikipedia—Web1 primarily democratized access to information through static pages: Anyone can learn.

• Web2: Distribute (2004—2022): Then, information began to organize itself into new networks, centered around pockets of interests, connecting the right people with the right content at the right time. Facebook with students, YouTube with video, Twitter with news, Spotify with music—Web2 democratized the distribution of information through dynamic feeds: Anyone can reach.

• Web 3: Create (2022—): Recently, thanks to the quasi-infinite amount of data provided by Web1 and 2, LLMs have started abstracting the creation of information, increasingly in any format. What happened to access and distribution is now happening to creation: OpenAI, Midjourney, ElevenLabs, Suno—Web3 is democratizing the creation of information through natural language: Anyone can create.

But we know how the story ends: the more leveraged we become, the more self-sufficient we are—and the lonelier we feel. AI takes this paradox to the extreme, offering the ultimate leverage by democratizing creation and fueling an endless flywheel of content: more to learn from, more to create, more data to feed back into the cycle. Yet, there’s an unexpected twist. AI doesn’t just supercharge our ability to create; it also curates an online world tailored to us, cutting through the noise and unlocking connections that we thought were lost in our increasingly isolated digital lives. In doing so, AI has the potential to fulfill two fundamental human desires: the drive to Create and the need to Connect. Here’s how:

1. Single-player mode: Create.

No tool in human history has leveled the playing field more than the internet. In this post-permission world, anyone can learn, create & distribute anything, with virtually no marginal cost of reproduction. This has enabled startups (leveraging code) and creators (leveraging content) to create empires without asking the permission from gatekeepers. Yet, until now, our creations were bound by the limits of our imagination and skills. With AI, those boundaries have dissolved—the power once exclusive to a select few is now in everyone's hands. And without noticing it, AI has made us all a bit more like superhumans, enabling us to achieve more than ever before.

• Creativity: Anyone can express their creativity in any form of content, regardless of skill level, at a fraction of the cost. In less than 10 years, a team of 5 people empowered by AI will win an oscar. If the industrial revolution gave organizations weapons of mass (physical) production, the AI revolution is giving individuals weapons of mass (digital) creation. We’ve armed the rebels, and they’re leading us into a creative renaissance.

• Productivity: LLMs gave everyone a Creative Director for free; AI Agents is extending this to other roles: COO, CMO, CFO, and more. Now, anyone can become CEO, focusing on core high-value activities, while AI Agent co-founders automate mundane tasks and enhance workflows. Combine this technological unlock with the cultural phenomenon that is Gen-Z, and you get the most entrepreneurial generation in history.

• Performance: Technology makes us kings and gives us all a royal court, made up of the best experts in the realm: Context-aware, hyper-personalized, multimodal, always-available teachers, coaches, doctors, advisors—ready to help us live our best life. These AI co-pilots will be the personal counterparts to the professional ones of the previous category, completing our AI squad.

But if anyone can be a superhuman, it can only mean one thing: the lower the entry barriers, the higher the competition, the larger the size of the arena. Every day, your feed on X hits you with a new toy,  a new “Flux with Lora + Gen-3 Alpha image-to-video,” making humanity more powerful but leaving individuals feeling smaller. Are we destined to live in a world of super-creative gods who feel increasingly lonely?

2. Multiplayer mode: Connect.

After three waves of internet evolution, we've become nearly limitless, enjoying unprecedented freedom and leverage. But this newfound power has also plunged us into a global arena where everyone's competing for attention, money, and status, creating an exhausting and isolating experience. Life can't just be a competitive single-player game; it needs to be a collaborative multiplayer experience. This is where AI offers a cure. While Web2 is like Fortnite, throwing everyone into a battle royale, Web3 has the potential to be more like Minecraft, where people (and AI) come together to build, create, and collaborate, crafting their own worlds and experiences in a shared space. 

• Social: Web1 was profile-centric (e.g. Myspace) enabling people discovery, Web2 was feed-centric (e.g. Facebook) enabling content discovery, and now Web3 is becoming AI-centric (e.g. C.ai, Replika) and will enable community discovery. By providing a human-like presence that allows us to express ourselves and feel seen, AI also unlocks personalized curation at scale, helping everyone to discover their communities to belong online and offline.

• Gaming: Human culture and society have always been built around communication and play. Where Social is mostly about content and conversations, Gaming is about shared online experiences—now going through a massive acceleration: From a UGC explosion, to a new agent-based multiplayer infra to tools that empower game developers—AI is transforming how games are made and experienced.

• Identity: Culture moves at the speed of bits—identity follows. Now that everything is trending all at once, we’re witnessing an archipelization of the mainstream into infinites sub-cultures. This turns many formerly utility-based sectors into identity-based and community-powered ones. People want to belong: Commerce, Travel, Health and even Finance are increasingly turning into multiplayer games, enabled by AI who’s becoming a personalized curator, supercharging activation and retention.

Create like a god, connect like a human.

As AI and Web3 redefine what's possible, we stand at a crossroads. We now have the power to create without limits, but true progress lies in our ability to connect deeply. The future isn't just about wielding superhuman capabilities—it's about using them to build a world where technology enhances our humanity. How we choose to balance creation and connection will shape the next chapter of our shared experience.

This cultural dynamic has fascinated me for over 15 years. I’ve started companies focused on both creation and connection, written about the intersection of creativity and loneliness, and now this idea is the core investment thesis at Intuition. If you’re building or want to invest in this space, let me know.

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Thanks to Clara & Etienne for reading drafts and edits.