South Africa, July 28 -- Take email. When it arrived, the cost of sending a message effectively disappeared overnight. Marketers rejoiced. Printing, envelopes and postage became relics of a slower age. Suddenly every prospect was just a click away.

The opportunity was real. So was the problem.

Within a few years, inboxes were overflowing with unsolicited messages. The word 'spam' no longer referred to canned beef, and legislation struggled to catch up. The organisations that survived weren't necessarily the ones sending the most emails. They were the ones that remembered a simple principle: people's attention has value.

Generative AI presents a remarkably similar moment. The technology is extraordinary. Images can be created in seconds...