{"id":11001,"date":"2026-04-17T15:18:27","date_gmt":"2026-04-17T15:18:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/?p=11001"},"modified":"2026-04-17T15:18:27","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T15:18:27","slug":"what-san-franciscos-ai-billboards-say-about-the-state-of-the-industry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/?p=11001","title":{"rendered":"What San Francisco\u2019s AI billboards say about the state of the industry"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Here in San Francisco, we live in a bubble, and we know it. While much of the rest of the country sees the city through the lens of Fox News cameramen searching out homeless encampments, we actually live in a very beautiful, very wealthy, and, currently, very AI-obsessed place. Traditionally, the billboards along 101 through Silicon Valley have offered a glimpse into the collective mind of the tech industry. These days, a big chunk of that industry, including most of the major AI labs, is based here in San Francisco, and the billboards have followed.<\/p>\n

The San Francisco Chronicle<\/em> recently did the legwork to catalog literally all of the billboards in the city and found that fully half now advertise AI apps, platforms, and infrastructure. The words and imagery they use reveal something about how the AI industry sees itself and the world around it.<\/p>\n

A billboard advertising an artificial intelligence company is posted on September 16, 2025 in San Francisco, California. As AI companies open offices in San Francisco, billboards advertising AI companies are appearing throughout the city and along Interstate 80. [Photo: Justin Sullivan\/Getty Images]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

You are here<\/h2>\n

The advertisements do collectively smack of young companies in a young industry. But they also depict an AI industry that is well past its experimental stage. The billboards around town, for the most part, advertise real apps that do non-trivial things, and products that solve real, sometimes niche problems that hinder the meaningful deployment of AI in business settings.\u00a0<\/p>\n

No space for safety<\/h2>\n

Even though AI safety, alignment with human values and goals, and governance remain hotly debated issues, almost none of the outdoor advertising mentions those subjects.<\/p>\n

The go-to-market teams at AI companies may believe billboards are no place for nuanced policy debates. The ads seem aimed at chief information officers or VP-level decision-makers trying to gain a competitive edge by using AI for more business tasks. That audience is likely more interested in agentic features, reliability, and scalability.<\/p>\n

Only one billboard, from Okta, mentioned downside risk. Its billboard reads: “Build and secure AI agents from day one. Okta secures AI.” What Okta is actually selling is identity and access management for AI agents\u2014that is, the authentication and permissions systems that keep agents from seeing things they shouldn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, trust will be a huge issue as AI models and agents proliferate within businesses. Leaders and workers will have to build trust in these systems over time, and that trust depends on AI consistently getting things right while being entrusted with increasingly valuable work. If an AI system leaks sensitive information, for example, trust could vanish, and the tool itself would quickly lose value.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2018Stop hiring humans\u2019<\/h2>\n

Another elephant in the room is job replacement, yet none of the billboards acknowledge it. In one case, they lean into it.<\/p>\n

Artisan AI, which sells AI \u201cworkers,\u201d has plastered controversial billboards<\/a> around the city suggesting human replacement is actually a pretty cool future. In one double-decker ad featured in the Chronicle<\/em> piece, a woman declares, \u201cStop hiring humans.\u201d Below, a man who looks like a home shopping host gestures toward her, saying, \u201cIt\u2019s not the ’90s anymore, hire Ava.\u201d Ava is apparently the avatar for Artisan\u2019s digital workers.<\/p>\n

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[Screenshot: SF Chronicle<\/a>]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Critics have called the campaign dystopian and anti-worker, and some billboards have been vandalized. Artisan\u2019s 20-something CEO, Jasper Carmichael-Jack, said the campaign was meant as \u201cshock marketing.\u201d But, hey, the Artisan team is clearly a cheeky bunch, and even the company name is laced with irony: The word \u201cartisan\u201d usually refers to something made by skilled human<\/em> hands. (In San Francisco, \u201cartisanal\u201d avocado toast<\/a> costs $9)<\/p>\n

Swagger<\/h2>\n

Some billboards reflect the boundless confidence of the accelerationist \u201cbuilder\u201d crowd.<\/p>\n

Linear\u2019s billboard shows the hand of God, styled after Michelangelo\u2019s The Creation of Adam<\/em>, reaching down to touch a swarm of hand-shaped cursors that apparently represent AI agents. The tagline reads: “Agents. At your command.” Linear makes project management software for engineering teams. Its AI agents handle tasks once done by humans, such as assignment, issue tracking, and sprint planning. The implication is hard to miss: If AI agents can do many of the things humans once did, the humans directing get to play god.<\/p>\n

Bland, whose platform creates human-sounding AI agents that can make and receive phone calls, takes a similar approach. Its billboard has a romance novel cover vibe, featuring a masculine (customer support?) robot embracing a human woman. The caption reads: \u201cCustomer support that actually cares.\u201d Rather than addressing the obvious socio-economic and customer-experience issues, Bland seems to, well, embrace them. In essence, the message is that\u00a0AI agents are capable of empathy beyond what human support reps can manage. Tip: AI models aren\u2019t there yet. That claim is aspirational at best. In essence, the message is that\u00a0AI agents are capable of empathy beyond what human support reps can manage. Tip: AI models aren\u2019t there yet.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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We\u2019re not talking to you<\/h2>\n

If you thought the city’s AI billboards were meant for general audiences, AgentMail\u2019s ad suggests otherwise. It features a screenshot of a tweet from Y Combinator founder and mega-investor Paul Graham, describing a startup whose market cap will “sound like fiction.” The company name is not even mentioned in the tweet.<\/p>\n

The billboard\u2019s caption reads, “We have some high expectations\u2026” followed by “No pressure, right?” AgentMail has already raised about $6 million in seed funding from General Catalyst, with participation from Y Combinator and angel investors including Graham. The ad may be targeting new customers for its platform, which creates email accounts for AI agents. Or it could be trying to drum up interest among potential A-round investors. Either way the billboard takes an “if you know, you know” approach that\u2019ll only make sense to a few thousand people if they happen to drive by.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Hello, Des Moines<\/h2>\n

It\u2019s worth imagining how these ads would land outside the San Francisco bubble. In Des Moines, Iowa, the Artisan billboard\u2019s instruction to\u201cStop hiring humans\u201d might feel less cheeky and more threatening. Some residents might take Bland\u2019s robot-lover ad the same way. <\/p>\n

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 [Photo: Bront\u00eb Wittpenn\/San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Other ads would just seem alien. Motorists would wonder what on Earth Baseten is selling with its \u201cown your own inference\u201d message. (Baseten\u2019s platform lets companies control the AI models they use to generate output in production.) And AgentMail\u2019s \u201cGraham tweet\u201d ad would probably be incomprehensible.<\/p>\n