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- The Inktelligence - May 5, 2025
The Inktelligence - May 5, 2025
Moving up in the AI value chain
Hock Ng
May 05, 2025
A child’s drawing has intrinsic value to a parent but little economic value.
Tool makers are widening their moats by absorbing adjacent workflows. Convenience today means switching costs tomorrow so audit your tech stack and consider your non-negotiables.
For example, Notion is now including email in their app. They have already introduced a calendar feature not long ago. Starting out as a note-taking and task management tool, it is now aiming to keep you in the app for all the other workflows are well.
If you look at the direction that many companies are taking, including the LLM model providers, you will notice a similar trend. It’s the Apple playbook - get people to buy an iPhone, then Macbook, then Apple Watch and lock you in to the Apple Universe.
Player | Gateway Feature (examples) | Why It Locks You In |
|---|
OpenAI / ChatGPT | Connects to Google Drive and Microsoft OneDrive, shopping inside chat | Turns the bot into a single cockpit for files, data, research, and e-commerce. No need to jump to external apps. |
Google (Gemini in Workspace) | Gemini writes, edits, and cross-links Gmail, Docs, Sheets, Slides, Chat, Meet | One AI brain spans the entire Workspace suite, making Google the path of least resistance for every task. |
Microsoft 365 Copilot | Copilot surfaces Jira issues, CRM records, Teams chats, Outlook threads inside Office docs | Embeds all work artifacts in the M365 canvas, raising the switching cost of leaving Office. |
Anthropic / Claude + MCP | Model Context Protocol pushes/pulls notes to Obsidian, Notion, GitHub from within Claude | Claude becomes the orchestration layer, so writing → storing → iterating happens in a single chat. |
Canva (Magic Studio) | AI copy, image/video gen, resize, translate, and publish to socials in one canvas | Keeps the entire creative workflow from brainstorm to distribution inside Canva’s freemium walls. |
Notion | Notion Mail client, conditional Forms, page verification, Sites publishing | Extends from docs to email, data capture, and public pages, so your whole knowledge stack lives in Notion. |