Tony Dai
I work on NILE, the next Amazon for personal AI. Every personal device will eventually be a personal AI, on system level, and this transition brings a new monetisation layer. 戴灏庄。我在做 NILE，个人 AI 时代的下一个 Amazon。每一台个人设备最终都会在系统层面成为一个个人 AI，而这场转变会带来一个新的变现层。
I don’t panic.我不慌。
I opened a small store at fourteen and learned, expensively, the difference between owning a business and renting a shelf. Debate taught me to argue the side I disliked until I understood it. Imperial College and a strategy desk at CICC taught me, from opposite ends, the same thing: money and information were about to move between machines with no one initialling each step.
NILE is the practical version of that observation. Brands are found, compared and bought by agents there, and pay only when something actually sells. I hold the thesis loosely. The people building alongside me know more than I do about most of it, and the essays below are where I try to catch up in public.
十四岁开了一家小店，用很贵的学费分清了「拥有一个生意」和「租一个货架」的区别。辩论教我为自己不喜欢的一方辩护，直到理解它。帝国理工和中金的策略岗从相反的两端教了我同一件事：钱和信息很快会在机器之间流动，不再需要有人逐笔签字。
NILE 是这个观察务实的版本。品牌在那里被智能体发现、比较、购买，只在真的成交时付费。这个判断我拿得并不紧。和我一起做事的人，在大多数环节上都比我懂；下面的文字，是我在公开地追赶他们。
Began with people I had already spent years disagreeing with.和已经一起争论了多年的人开始。
Leading brands.头部品牌。
Their annual GMV. Theirs; we only keep the books.它们的年 GMV。是它们的，我们只是记账。
0–210–21
- 2019
A first store, 1000+ sites, age 14第一家店，1000+ 个站点，14 岁
- 2015–23
8 years of debate, 8th in Chinese debate 2023.八年辩论，2023 华语辩论第八。
- 2023
EDP at RDFZ, Imperial College London人大附中早培，帝国理工学院
Top 200 in Beijing.北京前 200。
- 2025
CICC中金
The youngest person on the strategy desk, and for a while the least useful.策略岗上最年轻的人，有一阵子也是最不顶用的。
- 2025–
Four questions I have not finished asking.四个我还没问完的问题。
When the screen stops being an app当屏幕不再是 App
If every pixel can be generated as cheaply as a sentence, most of what we call an app becomes optional. I suspect this resets the consumer business model. I am less sure what replaces it, and wary of anyone who is.如果每个像素都能像一句话一样便宜地生成，我们所谓的 App 大多会变成可选项。我猜这会重置 to C 的商业模式；取而代之的是什么，我不确定，也提防任何声称确定的人。
Ads are dying广告正在死去
Universal carts and agent protocols make it possible for a brand to settle, refund and keep its own customer. Possible is not the same as chosen. Whether brands take the option is the more interesting question, and not one I get to decide.通用购物车和智能体协议让品牌可以自己结算、退款、留住用户。「可以」不等于「会」。品牌是否接下这个选项才是更有意思的问题，而且轮不到我来决定。
Everything generated, but generation is not 0-1一切皆可生成，但生成不是从 0 到 1
If a sale cannot be attributed, I would rather not be paid for it. It is less a principle than a discipline: a way of keeping myself honest about what is actually working, at some cost to what we could bill.归因不了的成交，我宁愿不收钱。这与其说是原则，不如说是一种纪律：让自己对「什么真的有效」保持诚实，代价是少开一些账单。
New money between machines机器之间的新钱
Herodotus describes Carthaginians trading with a people beyond the Pillars of Heracles without ever meeting them: goods left on the shore, gold set beside them, each side withdrawing until both were content. Nobody cheated, he says, because nobody could.希罗多德记载，迦太基人与赫拉克勒斯之柱外的一族做生意，却从不见面：货物留在岸上，金子放在旁边，双方各自退开，直到彼此满意。他说没有人作弊，因为没有人能作弊。
Notes on commerce after the app.关于「App 之后的商业」的笔记。
Short essays written while building, on what agents change for brands. They are working notes, already ageing the moment they are published, and revised when I turn out to be wrong. Free, on Substack.一边做一边写的短文，关于智能体给品牌带来的改变。它们是工作笔记，发出那一刻就已开始过时，发现错了就会修。免费，发布在 Substack。