AI's ability to create content in seconds is devaluing most creations into a dime-a-dozen commodity. As old metrics of worth crumble, a new, more enduring currency is taking center stage.

Lukas N.P. Egger, VP of Product Strategy & Innovation at SAP Signavio, where he leads cutting-edge AI initiatives and integrates AI strategy into core operations, warns this shift rewrites the rules of what digital value looks like.

"We are rapidly converging on a future where any digital artifact will be produced at a quality indistinguishable from human content, at the marginal cost of electricity," Egger states. "Because content gets really cheap and ubiquitous, you cannot extract money through the artifact. You attract it through trust, and that's where new businesses will need to differentiate."

Content's cheap, trust isn't: Egger argues the issue transcends mere information volume, marking a deep economic transformation. As AI makes high-quality creation virtually free, traditional monetization models erode. In this new environment, he posits, trust will emerge as the non-fungible, non-commoditizable asset businesses and creators need to thrive.

Truth or consequences: The volume of AI-generated content creates what Egger calls a potential "loss of truth." As distinguishing authentic from synthetic media grows more difficult, confidence in what we see and hear diminishes. "It's very hard to foresee the second order consequences of any technological change," he cautions, emphasizing that the speed of this transformation could be particularly painful, leading to "collateral damage" as society adapts.

Checkmate, humanity?: Faced with such disruptive potential, Egger offers a surprisingly optimistic analogy from the world of chess to frame how humanity might navigate this new era. "In chess, computers out-competed humans almost 30 years ago," he explains. "Yet, more people are playing and watching chess than ever before. It's not true that just because a computer gets better at something, people stop caring." He points out that human players instead used AI tools to "bootstrap themselves," elevating the skill level in the game.