New channels attract confident claims. The pattern is familiar to anyone who worked through the early years of paid search or social: specific numbers offered before anyone could have measured them, and certainty presented as expertise.
We think the opposite posture is the more valuable one to a serious brand. In a channel this young, restraint is a form of competence.
What cannot be promised
No partner can promise how an assistant will respond to a given request, or that a brand will be named in it. Anyone offering that is describing an outcome they do not control. The same applies to projections built on benchmarks that do not yet exist for this surface.
We would rather lose an engagement than win it on a claim we would have to defend later.
What can be committed to
Clarity about how the channel actually behaves, and where the boundaries of current knowledge sit. A defensible position for the brand, arrived at through strategy rather than assertion. Preparation that makes acting quickly possible when the commercial layer is confirmed. Honest reporting of what we observe, including the parts that complicate the story.
Those commitments are narrower than a guarantee and considerably more durable. They are also, we suspect, closer to what an experienced marketer was hoping to hear.
Selectivity as a working method
We take on a small number of engagements at a time. That is partly a quality decision and partly a practical one: this channel rewards sustained attention, and attention does not scale by adding logos. A practice that stays small can keep looking closely.