AI fakes your vacation photos and it's a $9T market.
Absurd new app trends and creators get rich with 5x pricing premium.
This morning I was testing an app called Endless Summer that’s trending on TechCrunch. The app uses AI to fake vacation photos of you in random places around the world. It’s meant for when you’re too burned out to actually travel and launched as a side project by product designer Laurent Del Rey who recently joined Meta’s Superintelligence Lab.
Here’s the first output I got:
I love that it placed me in LA at a food truck (it could’ve placed me in Seoul or Italy or anywhere) and that I don’t look to be having fun. In fact, it looks like the only reason I’m standing there is because my phone’s charging… even my AI fake be staying plugged in.
Endless Summer as an app concept is burnout inversion.
Travel used to cure burnout… now we’re turning leisure into a performance piece rather than a lived experience.
I don’t see how this is sustainable.
AI is surfacing the craving… People want warmth, texture, ease, novelty, joy, movement.
The next wave of builders will make it real.
The economics support it. Global wellness is projected to hit $9T by 2028, with 82% of consumers calling wellness a top priority.
Now, let’s get into what else moved this week across AI, money, and the future of work.
Creator Economy
Ultra-niche creators command 3-5x premium pricing
ThriveCart released its 2025 Creator Economy Industry Report and ultra-specific niche creators are now commanding 3-5x higher rates than generalists, with 47% higher engagement rates.
This data challenges the “go broad” content advice. Creators who position as “burnout recovery for healthcare workers” outperform “productivity coaches” on both pricing and engagement.
Meanwhile, corporate training budgets are shifting from internal training (3.7% decrease) to external learning (23% growth to $12.4 billion) which represents a structural reallocation that favors independent experts over institutional credentialing.
And universities are meeting only 0.2% of AI learning demand so it makes sense that the personal development market is projected to hit $67.2 billion by 2030.
I expect continued fragmentation into micro-niches as more creators recognize these pricing advantages.
This mirrors the B2B SaaS evolution… horizontal tools eventually lose to vertical solutions. In a mature creator economy, specificity creates defensibility. Until you have scale… then you can become the Amazon of your broader market.
Future of AI
AI Pacesetters 4X More Likely to Capture Value
The 2025 Cisco AI Readiness Index came out this week and signals an emerging AI divide…
13% of companies (“Pacesetters”) are pulling far ahead in ROI. These AI leaders are 4x more likely to move pilots to production and 50% more likely to see measurable value from AI investments.
AI readiness is now a competitive currency.
I believe this gap will widen as agentic AI becomes mainstream. 83% of firms plan to deploy AI agents, but most still lack the secure infrastructure to sustain them. The time to invest in AI plumbing (data pipelines, GPUs, networks) is… now.
AI is not an R&D experiment.
Business leaders need to treat it like a core product line and either partner with “Pacesetter” companies or hire their talent. What exists nows that didn’t 12 months ago are proven templates for value capture.
Cisco’s study directly challenges the MIT study released in July that claimed 95% of AI projects generate zero return, which I covered here:
While many continue to sit around arguing whether we’re in an AI bubble or not, the reality is we’re in the largest wave of innovation in decades (if not our lifetimes) and the people who are innovating, building, and iterating are the ones with Rich Futures.
Future of Money
UK opens $19T asset management industry to tokenization
The UK Financial Authority published this paper on Tuesday, which proposes rules for fund tokenization in the UK’s £14 trillion ($19 trillion) asset management industry.
The framework enables tokenized fund registers under existing rules while outlining pathways for future on-chain settlement using public blockchains. Their explicit goal: reduce operational costs, improve transparency, broaden private market access, and enable fractional ownership for retail clients.
Within 18 months, we can expect major asset managers to announce tokenization partnerships with blockchain platforms (ETH was explicitly mentioned as future-compatible). Other jurisdictions will observe UK’s implementation and successful execution creates a blueprint for global adoption.
Regulatory clarity creates market opportunities faster than tech innovation. The UK just provided that clarity.
Here’s a few more signals on my radar that indicate where capital and culture are headed...
MrBeast has filed a trademark for financial services venture called “Beast Financial” that would provide offerings like student loans, credit insights, and insurance.
ChatGPT will soon allow erotica for adult users. In 2023: AI will cure cancer. In 2025: soon we will achieve AI erotica for verified adults.
The Hollywood Reporter dropped their 2025 Creator A-List with the “50 Hottest Creators” shaping culture. There’s some overlap with TIME’s 2025 Creator 100 which I covered in July… and some new standouts like Gabby Windey and Dylan Efron that signal where creator power is growing.
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