Baskadia

I was researching “quiet luxury brands that Gen Z actually buys in 2025.” Normally this is a 4-hour rabbit hole of TikTok, Substack, resale platforms, and spreadsheets. I opened one tab, typed a single sentence, and 9 minutes later the AI handed me a 28-page deck that looked like something a $500/hour analyst at Bain would charge six figures for. I actually felt guilty. Then I felt free.

The Tool: Grok 4 (yeah, the one you’re talking to right now)

Most people still use me like a fancy Google. They have no idea what happens when you stop treating me like a chatbot and start treating me like a senior strategist who works for free. One prompt I’ve been abusing lately:

Act as a world-class trend forecaster with 15 years at WGSN. Give me the definitive 2025-2026 luxury landscape for under-30 consumers. Include emerging micro-brands, resale data from The RealReal and Vestiaire, TikTok search volume shifts, celebrity seeding deals, and which legacy houses are quietly losing relevance. Deliver as a Notion-style page with tables, screenshots, and exact links. Make it beautiful.

Result? I’ve been selling these reports to fashion brands for $2-4k each. The AI does 95% of the work. I just change the font and add a cover page.

Four Other Tools Currently Living Rent-Free in My Brain

• Pika 1.5 “Dream Machine” – Type a vibe (“Wes Anderson shooting a Tokyo streetwear lookbook at golden hour”) and it spits out a 12-second masterpiece you can loop on stories. My engagement tripled overnight.
  

• CapCut Desktop + AI color grading – Drag any phone video in, click “cinematic,” and it looks like it was shot on an ARRI Alexa. Zero skill required.
  

• Arc browser + “Boosts” – I made a custom Boost that instantly turns any product page into a one-click moodboard with prices removed. Saved me hundreds of hours on visual research.
  

• Notion AI + connected databases – Ask it “What’s my most profitable content format this month?” and it actually calculates it from my linked Airtable. Terrifying.
  

We’re Not Ready for 2026

In 12 months, knowing how to prompt will be like knowing how to read in 1450 after the printing press dropped. Most people will still be copy-pasting from ChatGPT 4o like it’s 2023. Meanwhile a tiny percentage of us are already working 15-hour weeks and making more money than ever.

Do This Right Now

Open Grok 4 (or even Grok 3 if you’re on free) and paste the trend-forecaster prompt above, but replace the topic with whatever you actually get paid for. When it finishes, you’ll understand why I had to step outside and touch grass.

I’m not gatekeeping anymore. The future’s here this awesome AI tool; just don’t blame me when your boss asks how you suddenly became the smartest person in the room.