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FIG. 5
The advertising value chain
five links become three · three of them collapse into one tool
The three collapse mechanisms
how AI rewrites a value chain
1Remove
A whole link disappears because the next step can be done without it. A company, a department, a profession that used to be needed stop being needed.
Two or more previously-independent links collapse into one tool or role. The advertising example: ideation, design and production fused into generative AI.
Advertising · journalism · basic customer support
3Reorder
Links still exist but change order or relative value. Activities that used to be secondary become central, and the leading ones step back.
Medicine · law · engineering · education
The same pattern, every sector
Where value migrates when AI touches the chain
Link collapse and forced repositioning of survivors is the deep grammar of exponential transformation. It repeats, with variations, in every industry AI touches deeply enough.