MW What the 'like' button reveals about how we'll use and invest in AI

By Martin Reeves

ChatGPT already features 'thumbs-up' and 'thumbs down' symbols

The instinct to 'like' is not at all new.

You have probably not given a moment to thinking about the origin and impact of the familiar "like" button, but it's pressed more times per day than there are people on the planet. The like button has changed how we relate, communicate, transact and create. It also disrupted one industry, advertising; and fueled the growth of another, social media.

How did such a small thing become so prevalent and influential? What might the like button teach us about how to approach the next big technology wave - artificial intelligence?

The origin of the like button

Uncovering who invented the like button and how it spread so rapidly isn't as simple as you might imagine. Our new book, "Like: The Button That Changed the World," summarizes a three-year research journey in search of answers.

The digital like gesture came on the scene around 2000 when early web 2.0 pioneers - including Everything2, HotOrNot and Xanga - were building a variety of rudimentary feedback tools. These weren't just gimmicks. They were attempts to solve tangible problems: how to keep website users engaged, how to prioritize content, and how to encourage more engaging user-generated content. Nearly a decade later, Facebook, now Meta Platforms $(META)$, introduced its now-iconic blue thumbs-up icon, but the ground had already been laid by countless others.

No single person or company invented the like button. It's the product of a messy, serendipitous and social process, involving a broad cast of tinkerers. One thing that is striking from the stories of the like button's pioneers is that they were not aware of doing anything momentous when they made their contributions. Rather, they were just focusing on that day's tactical challenge, be it creating an online voting function that did not trigger a time-consuming page refresh or giving recognition for user-generated content such as restaurant reviews. The origin story of the like button is not one of farsighted heroes and tightly managed innovation processes. The journey was messy, serendipitous, and social.

The like button evolved well beyond the problems it was initially designed to solve. It eventually created a monetization mechanism and viable business model for the fledgling social-media industry, triggering the rise of digital marketing and the disruption of the $700 billion advertising industry. It ultimately changed how we communicate, what we pay attention to and how we create, share and consume content. It even changed our aspirations, with Vlogger/Influencer consistently the top-ranked career aspiration for children over the last half decade.

The like button didn't require any explanation.

One of the reasons for the meteoric rise of the like button is that the instinct to "like" is not at all new. The gesture's lineage traces back across millennia - from prehistoric cave paintings of hands to the audience's thumb gestures in the Roman coliseum deciding a gladiator's fate, to a prominent 19th-century American painting that re-popularized the gesture in Western culture and a well-known preacher who further fueled its rise with fiery sermons which invoked the gesture.

The modern like button succeeded in part because it piggybacked on this deep cultural familiarity, underpinned by evolved behaviors and brain chemistry that reinforce our sociality as a species. The like button didn't require any explanation. A single click conveyed appreciation, endorsement, agreement or simply acknowledgment. It was effortless and frictionless, and that made it powerful.

'Like' AI

The view of innovation stemming from serendipity, encapsulated in the story of the like button, has implications for investors as they try to make sense of and place bets in a fast-changing technological landscape. These include:

-- Focus on user intimacy: Much commentary on AI is focused on the technical functionality of the underlying models, regarding this as the main arbiter of who wins. An alternative view is that among broadly equivalent competitive models with the most human interfaces, overcoming mistrust and unfamiliarity by using the equivalent of the like button to tap into our instincts and needs, will be the most successful. Indeed, OpenAI has already deployed "thumbs-up" and "thumbs down" symbols in its ChatGPT user interface.

-- Focus on social learning: Right now, most consumer AI applications generate answers to questions posed by individuals. However, we are a deeply social species, as the like button amply illustrates. Artificial intelligence could be legitimately reframed as assisted collective intelligence. Tapping into this social dimension could be a winning move.

-- Take expert views with a pinch of salt: In interpreting the early stages of a technology revolution, we often turn to experts. But even the pioneers of the like button had little inkling of where it would all end up. We can already see this playing out with AI, where some early expert views proposed that it would be more likely useful for routine than creative tasks, although emerging evidence suggests that this reasonable-sounding view is wrong.

-- Remember it's a marathon: Don't blindly prioritize first-to-market or first-in-class opportunities. The first applications are not always the most successful. The initial tactical utility is often eclipsed by later business model innovations that change not just a single process step but rather rewire the entire process for generating and capturing value.

-- Look at the community, not the company: Observed granularly enough, there is often a community of innovation around a set of related needs. The company that's ahead initially is often eclipsed by others, as in the case of social media.

-- Don't overvalue conspicuous novelty: Innovations that require a different way of thinking or behaving may not diffuse as easily as ones that tap into pre-existing ideas, language and tendencies.

-- Reframe often: When a technology acquires a name, it often comes with an implied definition, boundaries and worldview. But to tap into the serendipitous nature of technology requires reframing for unintended effects. That requires openness, flexibility and multiple mental models.

The rapid rise of artificial intelligence puts us at risk of only expecting neat, well-engineered answers to any question. The like button reminds us that innovation is neither of these things. Investors should remain alert to the messy, serendipitous and unpredictable reality of innovation if they are to capitalize on the next wave of opportunities.

Martin Reeves is chairman of the BCG Henderson Institute. This article is based on "Like: The Button That Changed The World ," (Harvard Business Press, April 2025) by Reeves and Bob Goodson, president and co-founder of Quid.

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-Martin Reeves

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May 29, 2025 08:10 ET (12:10 GMT)

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