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The funnel has long been our favorite metaphor in marketing. It's simple. It's tidy. And for a long time, it worked.

But here’s the uncomfortable truth:

In a world where AI-driven personalization, instant feedback loops, nonlinear discovery, and self-directed decision-making rule the day, the funnel looks less like a journey and more like a relic.

The path to purchase today isn’t “awareness → interest → consideration → conversion.”

It’s:

A recent study by Gartner revealed that only 17% of a B2B buyer’s time is spent meeting with sales reps. The rest is spent independently researching—often in ways we can’t predict or measure in real-time.

[Source: Gartner, The Future of B2B Buying, 2023]

For modern marketers, the funnel no longer reflects reality.

The flywheel does.

We haven’t stopped building. But we’ve stopped dreaming.

🔄 Enter the Flywheel

Instead of pushing leads down a narrow path, it focuses on creating loops of value that accelerate themselves over time.

Amazon’s early strategy is a textbook example. It built its flywheel on:

• Lower prices → better customer experience

• Better experience → more customers

• More customers → more sellers

• More sellers → lower prices again

Every loop strengthened the next.

In a marketing context, think:

• Great content → more engaged audience

• Engaged audience → richer first-party data

• Better data → smarter personalization

• Smarter personalization → better content experience

When you stop thinking about moving people from point A to B, and start thinking about how each interaction fuels the next, you build flywheels.

🤖 Why AI Makes Funnels Obsolete (and Flywheels Essential)

1. AI Personalizes, But Customers Still Meander

AI allows us to deliver the right message at the right time—but that doesn't mean customers move in a straight line. AI helps tailor the journey, not control it.

Key Insight: AI-enhanced touchpoints are micro-moments—opportunities to re-engage, not push forward.

Example: Spotify’s “Made for You” playlists. These aren’t ads—they’re AI-crafted moments that increase usage, satisfaction, and advocacy. That’s flywheel thinking.

2. Discovery Happens Everywhere

Generative AI is changing how customers search.

Rather than typing keywords, they’re asking complex, contextual questions to tools like Perplexity, ChatGPT, and Gemini.

This decentralizes discovery—your brand is now found via:

• Summarized mentions

• Community recaps

• Third-party AI outputs

You don’t control the funnel entry anymore.

Instead, focus on owning the moments when customers find you, and ensuring those moments loop back into value.

3. Advocacy is the New Acquisition

In flywheel models, customer satisfaction isn’t the end—it’s the accelerant.

Modern brands grow faster when users become promoters—but this only happens when the full experience feels coherent, rewarding, and responsive.

A happy customer isn’t just retained.

They’re reinvested into your growth.

Example: Notion’s user community and templates created by fans are now more powerful than its paid marketing. That’s a flywheel in action.

🛠️ How to Start Building Your Flywheel

Then redesign around that.

Here’s how:

1. Map Value Loops, Not Just Touchpoints

Instead of mapping steps to conversion, map:

• What value are we giving here?

• What momentum does this moment create?

• How do we re-engage after the sale?

Ask: What does the customer do next, and how do we help them?

2. Shift from Campaigns to Ecosystems

Flywheels thrive in ecosystems—places where content, product, community, and data fuel each other.

This means breaking down silos between:

• Product & Marketing

• Brand & Performance

• Acquisition & Retention

Great example? Duolingo.

Its brand humor, app UX, user progress, and community challenges all feed each other in loops. The owl isn’t just a mascot—it’s a behavior engine.

3. Measure Momentum, Not Just Movement

Funnel metrics = drop-offs.

Flywheel metrics = velocity.

Track:

• Repeated engagement

• Advocacy creation

• Organic re-entry into the brand ecosystem

• Customer-led referrals

In flywheels, retention is acquisition.

🧠Final Thoughts

Funnels made sense when marketers controlled the message and the medium. But today, customers curate their own paths. Algorithms rewrite discovery. Loyalty comes from experience, not exposure.

The smartest brands in 2025 won’t be optimizing paths.

They’ll be designing flywheels—systems that create sustained motion and compounding value.

It’s time we stopped trying to push people forward.

Let’s build experiences so good, they pull people back in.

That’s it for today. I’d love to hear from you!

Share your thoughts, experiences, or questions about modern marketing.

Comment below if you’re reading it on our website or hit reply if you’re reading it in your inbox .

In a world ruled by metrics, KPIs, and dashboards, marketers are facing a new challenge: confusion between what can be measured and what actually matters.

In the next edition, we’ll question the tyranny of optimization, explore qualitative ROI, and make the case for more human-centered measurement.

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Hit reply (if you’re reading it in email) or leave a comment (if you’re reading it on the web) and tell me what topics, brands, or case studies you would want me to analyze, and I'll add them to my list of ideas. You’ll also get a shout-out.