context engineering is not just an AI concept; it's a fundamental principle of how humans, markets, media, advertising, and culture work.
The deeper idea is that outcomes are often determined less by the thing itself and more by the context surrounding it.
The thesis
We've spent decades obsessing over the message.
The better question is:
What context did we create for the message to exist inside?
An LLM is probably the cleanest example.
Give the model:
"Write me an ad for a dentist."
You'll get something generic.
Give it the brand positioning, audience, location, customer psychology, competitive landscape, previous campaigns, tone of voice, offer, objections, desired outcome, examples of what not to say, and the environment in which the ad will be consumed - and suddenly the same model produces something much better.
But who is actually doing this? Is AI making us lazy to the point that we don't even want to go the extra mile, to provide the context that can get us the best results?
The model didn't suddenly become smarter.
You gave it better context.
And that's what makes context engineering such an interesting lens for understanding almost everything.
1. Context engineering is the invisible layer behind outcomes
We tend to think causally:
Input -> Output
But in reality it's closer to:
Context -> Input -> Interpretation -> Output
The exact same sentence, image, product, person, or idea can produce completely different outcomes depending on the context surrounding it.
Take:
"We need to talk."
From your partner, it can produce anxiety.
From your boss, it can produce fear.
From your best friend, it might mean nothing.
From a doctor, it can be terrifying.
The words haven't changed. The context has.
Human beings don't interpret information in isolation.
Neither do AI systems.
Neither do markets.
Neither do consumers.
2. Advertising has always been context engineering
Advertising agencies have traditionally called it things like:
positioning, brand strategy, creative strategy, media strategy, audience targeting, cultural relevance, storytelling
But underneath all of them is essentially the same thing:
Create the conditions under which someone interprets a message in the way you intended.
Imagine two identical products.
One is placed in a supermarket aisle between competing products.
The other is placed in a minimalist boutique with beautiful architecture, curated lighting, a compelling story, and a £300 price tag.
Same product. Different context. Different perceived value.
This is why luxury brands are so obsessive about environments.
The environment is part of the product.
Context creates meaning.
3. This is why the same ad can perform completely differently
Imagine an ad saying:
"Get your teeth professionally whitened for £199."
Put it in front of someone scrolling TikTok at 11pm and it might feel like an interruption.
Put it immediately after a video about someone getting ready for their wedding and suddenly it's relevant.
Put it on a billboard outside a dental practice and it becomes a local service proposition.
Put it inside a luxury magazine and the exact same £199 offer might feel cheap.
The creative didn't necessarily change.
The context changed.
This means the modern advertiser isn't simply engineering creative.
They're engineering:
Creative x Audience x Environment x Timing x Cultural Context x Intent
That's a much more powerful way to think about advertising.
4. Dialogue is context engineering too
This becomes even more interesting when you look at human relationships.
Communication isn't simply:
Person A says X -> Person B hears X.
It's:
History + relationship + environment + emotional state + timing + language + status + previous interactions -> interpretation.
If someone you've been dating for six months says:
"I'm tired."
That's different from someone saying it after an argument.
And different again from someone saying it after you've asked:
"Are you still happy in this relationship?"
The words are identical.
The context changes the meaning.
Great communicators intuitively engineer context before delivering the message.
Politicians do it. Salespeople do it. Parents do it. Teachers do it. Leaders do it. Comedians do it. Advertisers do it.
5. Even comedy is basically context engineering
A joke can be hilarious in one room and completely inappropriate in another.
Why?
The punchline isn't the entire joke.
The audience's expectations, the setup, the relationship between the people, the cultural moment and the environment all contribute to whether the joke works.
In fact, the setup is essentially context engineering.
The comedian spends 90% of the joke telling you how to interpret the next 10%.
That's why:
Context is often more powerful than content.
6. AI has accidentally made this visible
This is perhaps the most interesting part of the thesis.
For years, humans have been doing context engineering intuitively.
AI has made the mechanism explicit.
We suddenly discovered that:
If you give intelligence better context, you can produce better intelligence.
That's essentially what prompting taught everyone.
But we're moving beyond prompting.
The future isn't:
"What's the best prompt?"
It's:
"What's the best context?"
That's a much bigger idea.
A prompt might be:
"Write a sales email."
Context engineering is:
Here is the company. Here is the customer. Here is the customer's problem. Here is their previous behaviour. Here is the sales history. Here is what they've already seen. Here is the competitive landscape. Here is our positioning. Here are our constraints. Here are examples of successful communication. Here is the desired outcome.
Now the model isn't merely being instructed.
It's being situated.
7. And this is where it becomes a business thesis
I think there is a much bigger idea hiding underneath this:
The next generation of companies won't just build intelligence. They'll build context around intelligence.
The model is becoming increasingly commoditised.
GPT, Claude, Gemini, etc. can all reason incredibly well.
The competitive advantage increasingly becomes:
What does your system know? What does it remember? What does it have access to? What does it understand about the customer? What context does it receive before making a decision?
This is why proprietary data, memory, workflows, customer history, business rules, tools, integrations and behavioural signals become so valuable.
The intelligence layer becomes increasingly interchangeable.
The context layer becomes the moat.
8. Which leads to a provocative idea
You could argue:
The internet was the information revolution.
AI is the context revolution.
The internet gave humans access to vastly more information.
AI can potentially take all of that information and determine:
What matters here? What does this mean? What should happen next?
But it can only do that effectively when given the appropriate context.
So the scarce resource isn't necessarily information anymore.
It's relevant context.
9. Context compounds
This might be the most important economic implication.
Imagine an AI receptionist for a dental practice.
On day one, it knows:
"We are a dental clinic."
That's useful.
Then it learns: the clinic's services, prices, opening hours, staff, location, booking rules, common questions, patient preferences, appointment history, cancellation patterns, lead sources, treatment conversion rates, which conversations turn into appointments, which objections prevent bookings.
Now it has something far more valuable.
Context accumulated over time.
And that context makes the system increasingly effective.
This creates a feedback loop:
More interactions -> More context -> Better decisions -> Better outcomes -> More interactions
That's potentially a very powerful moat for AI businesses.
10. Context is also how culture works
There's an even broader cultural dimension.
Memes are context engineering.
A meme often isn't funny because of the image itself.
It's funny because you understand: the reference, the cultural moment, the people involved, the previous meme, the irony, the audience's shared knowledge.
Remove the context and the meme becomes incomprehensible.
Same with fashion. Same with music. Same with art. Same with political messaging. Same with branding.
Culture is essentially shared context.
And brands that understand culture are really good at manipulating or participating in those contextual systems.
11. The biggest implication for marketers
I think the old marketing model was:
Create message -> distribute message -> hope it resonates.
The emerging model is:
Engineer context -> introduce message -> allow the audience to interpret it.
That's a profound difference.
The question stops being:
"What's the best ad?"
And becomes:
"What needs to be true for this ad to become the right message?"
That's a much more sophisticated question.