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Essays - Benedict Evans · Benedict Evans
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About Essays - Benedict EvansHow far do LLMs give us a step change in how good a search and recommendation system can be? Do they let you build one without needing a vast user base of your own?
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Don’t assume LLMs eliminate the scale advantage in search or recommendations. Test whether model intelligence can overcome cold-start constraints—or whether relevance still depends on proprietary user behavior and feedback loops.
The answer determines whether you can enter with a model-led product advantage or must also build a defensible system for collecting data, learning from interactions, and compounding relevance.
For your product, list the inputs needed to produce a strong first recommendation and those needed to improve it over time. Which can an LLM supply, and which require usage data or network scale?
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