TAYLOR'S TOP FIVE TRENDS: March 6, 2025

Andy Dunn’s new app Pie uses AI to help you make friends

• Andy Dunn, founder of Bonobos, has launched Pie, a social app designed to facilitate real-life friendships, raising $11.5 million in Series A funding and growing to over 130,000 monthly active users in San Francisco and Chicago. The app organizes in-person events but faced a challenge as large gatherings made it difficult for attendees to connect. To solve this, Pie acquired Sparked Connections, an AI-powered matchmaking tool created by two event organizers, integrating it into select events under the "Sparked by Pie" branding.
• Pie's AI-driven feature helps attendees form meaningful connections by grouping them into small, compatible clusters before events. At events like “Coffee with Strangers,” users complete a short personality test with prompts on topics like stability, astrology, and personal values. The AI then matches them into groups of six and places them in a group chat before the event, allowing them to interact and build rapport in advance.
• Pie leverages ChatGPT and user feedback to refine its AI matchmaking process, aiming to decode the ‘dark art’ of social compatibility. While some might find it disheartening that AI is needed to foster friendships, the concept aligns with existing tech-driven social interactions like Instagram connections or Bumble dating. With growing concerns about loneliness in the U.S., Pie represents an innovative approach to making socialization more intentional and effective.

How “Severance” Makes a Fetish of the Office

• "Severance" continues to explore the contradictions of corporate life, both critiquing and romanticizing the office environment. While the show initially framed Lumon’s severed floor as a dystopian workplace suppressing individuality, its aesthetic choices—meticulously structured visuals, strict formality, and childlike rituals—make it strangely appealing. The show resonates with post-pandemic audiences who, after years of remote work, may find the office’s structure and hierarchy oddly comforting, even as it remains oppressive.
• Season 2 deepens its critique by portraying the office as an infantilizing force that fosters dependency rather than just alienation. The Macrodata Refinement team operates in a deliberately childlike environment, with tiny desks, playground-like social activities, and rewards that mimic birthday parties. The introduction of surreal "bio" elements, such as gothic shepherds and ominous team-building retreats, suggests that Lumon not only suppresses workers but regresses them into a state of arrested development, making the office a kind of perpetual childhood.
• Despite its themes of personal reintegration and resistance, "Severance" ultimately presents the office as the primary source of meaning in its characters' lives. While the outie versions of the protagonists are supposedly free, they are depicted as directionless and emotionally stunted compared to their innie selves, who experience personal growth, connection, and even love within Lumon. This paradox reinforces the show’s core question: Is the office a prison, or is it the only place where people can escape their mundane realities and become someone different?

Digiday+ Research: TikTok usage and spend fall as U.S. ban looms

• TikTok experienced significant growth throughout 2024, becoming a major focus for brands both in terms of usage and investment. However, the platform's momentum dramatically shifted entering 2025 due to the confirmed, though temporarily paused, U.S. ban. Digiday research indicates a notable decline in brand engagement, with active brand participation falling from a high of 88% in Q3 2024 to 73% by Q1 2025. This drop-off signals that brands are now proactively adjusting their strategies in anticipation of TikTok's potential exit from the U.S. market.
• Marketing spend on TikTok has significantly decreased, marking a stark reversal from previous upward trends. Digiday's Q1 2025 survey revealed that just 70% of brands allocated any portion of their budget to TikTok, a notable decrease from 87% just six months prior. Moreover, the segment of brands investing heavily in TikTok (those dedicating a large or very large portion of their marketing budgets) has sharply declined from approximately 26% in Q3 2024 to only 12% in early 2025. This trend highlights how uncertainty around the platform's future has triggered brands to shift budgets toward more reliable marketing channels.
• Brands have also become increasingly skeptical of TikTok's effectiveness in driving meaningful business outcomes, particularly conversions and brand-building. Only 17% of brands surveyed in Q1 2025 identified TikTok as the most effective social platform for conversions, down from 22% previously, placing it significantly behind Instagram (43%) and Facebook (33%). Similarly, perceptions of TikTok's strength in branding have weakened, with just 11% ranking it as the top platform, compared to Instagram at 64% and YouTube at 13%. These figures underscore that brands view TikTok as comparatively less impactful, compounding concerns already heightened by the regulatory challenges the platform faces.

Instagram says it's 'doubling down' on DMs. This chart shows just how much.

• Instagram significantly prioritized direct messaging over the past year, rolling out more than 20 updates, reflecting a strategic shift toward private social interactions. According to Instagram head Adam Mosseri, messaging has now become the primary form of engagement on the platform, surpassing traditional feed-based sharing. This shift underscores Instagram’s focus on fostering deeper personal connections and driving creativity through direct, private interactions.
• Key updates released throughout 2024 include advanced AI integrations like AI-generated chat themes, AI-created custom stickers, and interactive features allowing users to create self-portraits and animate photos directly within DMs. Additional enhancements introduced practical messaging tools such as editing sent messages, toggling read receipts, sending longer voice messages (up to five minutes), and improved group communication with features like location sharing, nicknames, and message pinning.
• Instagram plans to continue emphasizing direct messaging in 2025, describing it as a core priority alongside creativity and connection. Recent features such as scheduling messages, sharing high-definition images, message translations, music stickers, and QR codes for group chats and broadcast channels illustrate the platform’s intention to expand messaging capabilities further, enhancing both user engagement and content-sharing versatility.

Functional Beverages Overflow in Popularity

• Functional beverages, which promise health, beauty, and performance benefits like stronger hair, better skin, sustained energy, or longevity, are rapidly growing in popularity within the food and beverage industry. Driven by rising consumer interest in health and wellness, this market—already popular in Asia—is projected to surpass $329 billion globally by 2030, according to Mordor Intelligence.
• Popular examples fueling the functional beverage trend include sparkling wellness sodas like Celsius, upscale smoothies from Erewhon, and magnesium-based supplements like Magna. Searches for products like collagen-infused drinks, anti-wrinkle beverages, and protein-enhanced hydration have dramatically increased, drawing significant investments from major brands; notably, PepsiCo acquired an 8.5% stake in Celsius for $550 million despite the often unusual ingredients like marine collagen powder, crushed fish cartilage, and bovine colostrum.
• Although the market's rapid growth invites potential scams and exaggerated claims due to minimal regulation, brands validated by medical professionals or endorsed by trusted public figures are likely to dominate. For instance, IM8, co-founded by healthcare entrepreneur Danny Yeung and soccer star David Beckham, exemplifies effective marketing through credible endorsements, simplifying Beckham's complex daily supplement regimen into one convenient drink.