Search, feed, marketplace, app store, AI assistant - every distribution channel that matters is now algorithm-mediated. Workers and firms that read the algorithm gain leverage that has nothing to do with their underlying skill.
For most of history, distribution worked through human-readable channels - sales reps, shelf space, broadcast slots, search rankings tuned by people. You could see how the channel worked and game it if you needed to.
Every important distribution channel today is algorithmic. TikTok's feed, Amazon's product ranking, Google Search, Apple's App Store, the AI assistant your customers are about to ask. The rules of visibility are encoded in models you don't see. Reading those rules is the new strategic literacy.
When humans gatekept distribution - buyers, editors, search algorithm tuners - there was always a social channel to read and game. The work was relational. Salespeople thrived.
When algorithms gatekeep, the channel itself is the work. What inputs the algorithm rewards, what signals it deprioritises, what edge cases it can be nudged into - these become competitive intelligence. The firms that read the algorithm well - Shein, ByteDance, Amazon's third-party sellers, top YouTubers - out-distribute firms with superior underlying product but worse algorithmic literacy.
The same dynamic now applies internally. As AI runs more of the workflow inside firms, employees who understand the AI's logic get leverage their colleagues don't. Above the algorithm. The strategic literacy is the same skill at the firm scale and the worker scale.
Michael Smith generated $10M in royalties streaming AI-generated music to bot accounts.
Michael Smith generated $10 million in Spotify royalties over years by uploading AI-generated music and streaming it to thousands of bot accounts he controlled. The FBI got involved. Charges followed.
The story is instructive not because of the fraud - it's obviously bad - but because of what it reveals about algorithmic literacy. Smith understood Spotify's payout algorithm better than most signed artists. He understood what the platform measured, what it didn't, and where the gaps were. The playbook, stripped of its illegality, is exactly what every modern creator and seller does at smaller scales.
The legitimate version of algorithmic awareness is just as powerful and far more sustainable: the YouTube channel that ships videos optimised for the algorithm's reward signal, the Amazon seller who structures listings around the search ranking model, the SaaS firm that designs its product around how AI assistants will represent it to users in 2026.
Reading the algorithm isn't gaming it. It's understanding the medium your work has to travel through, and shaping the work so it can. The work itself doesn't get worse - but the distribution gap is enormous.
Zara and H&M had the fast-fashion playbook nailed for two decades. Shein out-distributes both by reading algorithmic feeds - TikTok, Instagram - and structuring its product launches, pricing, and copy to feed those algorithms exactly the signal they reward.
Same garments. Vastly different distribution outcomes. Algorithmic literacy as core strategy.
Two competing SaaS vendors. One writes documentation, blog posts, and product pages in the traditional human-SEO shape. The other structures everything around how AI assistants will represent the product to customers in 2026 - structured data, explicit comparisons, FAQ-style answers, dense knowledge graphs.
In 18 months, the second is the one customers' AI assistants recommend. The first is invisible to the new distribution channel - and didn't see it coming because they weren't reading the algorithm that was about to matter.
For each of the algorithmic channels your firm depends on, who in your firm reads the algorithm?
If the honest answer to any of these is "nobody specifically," your firm is being read by the algorithm rather than reading it. The other firms in your industry are catching up.
Algorithms decide distribution. Read them, or be read by them.
An advisory engagement that maps the algorithmic channels your firm depends on, identifies how AI is reshaping each, and positions your firm to be visible (and chosen) in the new distribution architecture.