Last week, after hiking in the Cascades, I caught myself doing something I never would have done five years ago.
I let AI pick my hotel in the 3rd arrondissement of Paris.
My stay in Paris will be brief, but I want it to be the reward after I hike the Walker's Haute Route from Chamonix to Zermatt—137 miles and roughly 49,000 feet of elevation gain over 11 mountain passes.
After eleven days in the Alps, those two nights won't simply be a place to sleep. They'll be the luxury part of the experience.
Getting the hotel right is table stakes.
Who I'll be sharing those two days with raises the bar even higher.
My friend Connie will meet me there.
Connie and I met last summer through the Women's Entrepreneur Program at Kiln in Park City. We weren't networking. We weren't pitching each other. We simply kept showing up.
Month after month.
After each meeting, a group of us would wander over to Hill and Hearth for dinner. We'd talk about our businesses, our families, our travels, and whatever else was happening in our lives.
Somewhere around that dinner table, we stopped being fellow entrepreneurs and became friends.
Connie is a CEO and an internationally recognized design firm. She designs custom furniture, fixtures, and interiors for luxury hotels, resorts, senior living communities, and hospitality brands around the world. Beautiful spaces aren't just something she appreciates—they're what she creates.
Which meant choosing a hotel in Paris suddenly felt like more than a travel decision.
It felt like setting the stage for two days I'd been looking forward to for months.
So I started planning.
I wanted a boutique hotel. Not ultra-luxury, but not budget either. Somewhere walkable to the Marais. A real hotel with sophisticated design influences—not an Airbnb—because I need to ship a package there before I arrive.
Five years ago, I know exactly what I would have done.
Google.
Booking.com.
TripAdvisor.
Forty browser tabs.
Hundreds of reviews.
Analysis paralysis.
Instead, I opened ChatGPT.
I typed:
"Recommend a boutique hotel in the 3rd arrondissement. Refined rather than luxurious. I need a front desk that can receive a package before I arrive."
Within seconds, I had a thoughtful shortlist.
Not hundreds of options.
Three recommendations.
Each with a reason.
And that's when I realized something.
It wasn't just the technology that had changed.
It was me.
Five years ago, I trusted myself more than the machine.
Today, I trust the machine to do something I no longer want to do.
Somewhere along the way, AI crossed a threshold.
It stopped being a better search engine.
It became a capable decision partner.
Search helped me find information.
AI helped me make a decision.
That may sound like a subtle difference.
I don't think it is.
For nearly thirty years, the internet has been organized around search.
We searched.
We clicked.
We compared.
We decided.
Search reduced the cost of finding information.
AI is beginning to reduce the cost of judgment.
Instead of asking Google for links, we're asking AI for recommendations.
"Who's the best accountant for a founder-led business?"
"What's the best med spa in Maui?"
"Which vehicle camping platform should I buy?"
Those questions don't produce ten blue links.
They produce a recommendation.
I believe we're witnessing the biggest shift in how customers choose businesses since Google transformed how they found them.
We're moving from a Search Economy to a Selection Economy.
Businesses won't compete only to rank.
They'll compete to be understood.
Trusted.
And ultimately, recommended.
That doesn't mean SEO disappears.
Or websites.
Or content.
It means they all serve a different purpose.
The goal is no longer simply to attract a click.
It's to earn a recommendation.
But here's what surprised me even more as I planned those two days in Paris.
ChatGPT can help me choose a hotel.
It can't tell me where Connie's daughter celebrates birthdays.
It can't tell me which café has the perfect table tucked into the corner.
It can't tell me why the chocolate mousse is worth walking twenty minutes in the rain.
That comes from someone who knows.
Someone I trust.
And that's the paradox I keep coming back to.
As artificial intelligence becomes better at helping us make selections, authentic human relationships become even more valuable.
AI helps us narrow the field.
People help us experience the world.
Then I realized something else.
How did Connie become someone I trust enough to help shape two precious days in Paris?
Not because an algorithm recommended her.
Not because we had mutual followers.
Not because LinkedIn suggested we connect.
We met because we both kept showing up.
Month after month.
Conversation after conversation.
Dinner after dinner.
Trust wasn't built in a single meeting.
It was built by being present.
By listening.
By sharing our lives.
Those evenings at Kiln and Hill and Hearth eventually led to two friends meeting in Paris.
I don't think that's a coincidence.
I think it's a reminder.
Technology changes.
Human nature doesn't.
The internet was built for search.
AI is being built for selection.
But life is still built on trust.
And trust is still earned the old-fashioned way.
By showing up.
That's why I believe the businesses that thrive in the AI era won't simply have the best technology.
They'll be the businesses people trust enough to recommend—to one another and, increasingly, to AI.
And perhaps the same is true in our personal lives.
As information becomes abundant and recommendations become instantaneous, genuine human relationships become something even more valuable.
They become platinum.
Welcome to The Selection Economy.
I have a feeling we're going to be exploring this idea together for a long time.
Originally published in The Selection Economy™ newsletter.