AI is everywhere. From chatbots to digital clones, our feeds are filling up with content that looks real but often isn’t. While this wave of automation offers efficiency, it also threatens one of the most valuable currencies a brand can hold: trust. For Black and Brown founders building brands in a world where visibility is already a fight, authenticity isn’t just a strategy — it’s survival.

Two Yale juniors, Nathaneo Johnson and Sean Hargrow, are turning heads after raising $3.1 million in pre-seed funding for their AI-powered social network, Series. Unlike traditional platforms such as Facebook or LinkedIn, Series emphasizes purposeful, AI-assisted connections rather than follower counts and likes (Prosser, 2025).