Originally, the LinkedIn platform functioned effectively as what it was created to be — a conventional professional network. Its value was primarily social and transactional: resumes, connections, job postings, recruiters, and messaging. Even after its acquisition in 2016, Microsoft continued to frame it as an independent entity.
The shift happened gradually. As Microsoft expanded MS 365, MS Dynamics, and GitHub, LinkedIn’s content became more valuable to them as a data resource than as a social service for its members. LinkedIn’s constantly updated professional data helps Microsoft understand who works where, how companies are connected, and which leads and opportunities might matter to their teams. Patterns in workforce skills and hiring practices turn user profiles into actionable business insights for its parent company.
The user-facing content layer gradually became less important than the data being generated behind it. The platform is still active, with close to a billion users, but likes, posts, and the ever-increasing amount of AI-generated entries don’t necessarily provide value to LinkedIn members. They mainly function to keep profiles active and up to date. The real value is in the structured data behind the platform, which feeds Microsoft’s enterprise tools. Fair enough, they own it.
But this matters for real people and their career planning because it challenges the assumption that active participation on LinkedIn is required to advance a career. While the platform still positions itself as a hub for opportunity, its importance to individual career development is overstated. Understanding what LinkedIn is actually optimized for helps explain why stepping back from it doesn’t necessarily mean falling behind.
LinkedIn remains Microsoft’s largest acquisition, and nearly a decade on, its role is clear to those who look closely. Job titles, career transitions, skills, company relationships, and hiring intent all feed directly into Microsoft’s enterprise stack. The social layer exists largely to encourage ongoing updates and participation.
For those who want to highlight their skills and contributions in today’s challenging employment environment, there are more effective approaches. Verifiable artifacts such as GitHub repositories, issue histories, or long-term projects, can produce stronger signals than algorithmic engagement. LinkedIn activity is surface-level at best, while tangible outputs like projects, code, or contributions, may produce better results, especially with emerging new concepts in online metrics, like AEO and GEO.
In 2026, AI-driven tools are changing how online contributions are evaluated. Concepts like Agentic Engine Optimization (AEO) and Graph-Engine Optimization (GEO) are emerging as frameworks for how automated systems can assess connections, outputs, dependencies, and relationships across online activity. They don’t just count clicks, likes, or post - they aim to analyze patterns and actions in a more holistic way. While these methods are not yet standardized, they illustrate the gradual transition from the old SEO and 'search by click' counts, to the newer trend of evaluating work by structured contributions rather than social metrics.
Understanding these emerging approaches can help you link your online artifacts - ie - your repositories, projects and community posts so that they reflect your skills more accurately. As AI-driven search becomes more prevalent, tangible, verifiable contributions increasingly outweigh curated social media activity.
Ben Santora - January 2026
Top comments (4)
That was a "fun fact" about sharing fun facts and details before AI already: social media and social business platforms luring people into oversharing personal details that could be used against them by hackers and scammers for example. What you're hinting at sounds even bigger and, if not controlled by a business like Microsoft but by a foundation acting in the public interest, might even surface helpful insights. Microsoft has Windows, GitHub, Copilot and LinkedIn, and at least the latter keeps nagging users to install its native app on their mobile phones so they can even gather more data and send push notifications.
Ingo - Right. This online sharing of our personal details goes way back to the very first social media platforms. Now that info is valuable data. As you say "Microsoft has Windows, GitHub, Copilot and LinkedIn." Even though I know this well, seeing those powerful entities lined up like that shows the immense power Microsoft has in the world. I mean, even Linus Torvalds uses GitHub, right? Not because he likes Microsoft or wants to participate in a corporate ecosystem, but because GitHub has become the dominant platform for managing open-source projects. The code, collaboration, and issue tracking that matter to him are hosted there, so even for him, the platform is pretty much a necessity.
This framing makes a lot of sense to me, especially the idea that the social layer is no longer the point.
I’ve slowly come to the same conclusion: LinkedIn feels less like a place to express professional identity and more like an ingestion surface for structured career data. Titles, transitions, skills, company graphs — those are the real assets. Posts and engagement mostly just keep the data fresh.
That’s not even a moral judgment, honestly. Microsoft bought LinkedIn to plug it into an enterprise ecosystem, and that’s exactly what happened. What feels misleading is how much pressure individuals still feel to “perform” on the platform, as if posting regularly is some prerequisite for career progress.
The point about artifacts really resonates. When I think about what actually compounds over time, it’s not posts — it’s things that exist independently of the feed: repos, long-running projects, issue threads, writeups that people still find months later. Those feel far more legible to both humans and machines.
The AEO / GEO angle is interesting too. Even if the terms aren’t standardized yet, the direction feels right: systems caring less about noise and more about relationships, outputs, and continuity. In that world, activity without substance matters less than substance without activity.
Stepping back from LinkedIn doesn’t feel like opting out anymore — it feels like choosing where to put effort that actually leaves a trace.
Well said - your wording echoed exactly what I was really trying to say in my post - how much pressure individuals still feel to “perform” on the platform, as if posting regularly is some prerequisite for career progress.