Published Aug. 4, 2026at5:37pm
Claude and ChatGPT, meet your new competition: Tucker Bryant.
A 32-year-old former Google employee who describes himself as a conceptual artist and keynote speaker, Bryant is the one-man operation behind San Francisco’s latest viral billboard, a 14- by 48-foot ad on the corner of Sixth and Folsom streets that reads “ChatTJB: The leading chat interface powered by AI.”
The twist: AI in this case stands for “Average Individual.” TJB are just Bryant’s initials. And the chatbot isn’t powered by a large language model but by Bryant’s weary brain and tired fingers.
Bryant has spent the last eight days engaged in an elaborate — and exhausting — piece of digital performance art. When people type prompts into his website, ChatTJB.org (opens in new tab), Bryant is the “AI” on the other end, typing back responses. He’s been at the keyboard for as many as 10 hours a day, offering chatbot-like answers as rapidly as he can type them.