What's Next for U.S. TikTok?

As a U.S.-China deal seemingly secures TikTok's future, the platform now sits squarely in its early-majority stage of adoption. ELI's analysis focuses on the roughly 15% of TikTok's 170 million actives whose behaviors go far beyond watching videos. These users create, share, search, network, join trends, interact, and shop on TikTok. Their enthusiasm isn't just stealing share from other social platforms, but from the entire media category. As TikTok's most evolved users, their patterns are highly likely to shape the overall future of this platform as these advanced behaviors become the norm across the mainstream.

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ELI's 5 Big Predictions for TikTok in the U.S.:

1. Feeds are the new search: For many, TikTok will become the first place for product, brand, and cultural discovery—pulling significant share from traditional and AI search and forcing marketers to adapt.
2. The age of "Shoppertainment": TikTok evolves from ad channel to retail channel, where entertainment and commerce are inseparable.
3. TikTok will get stickier for sports: Live events, highlights, and betting turn TikTok into the retention anchor of the sports economy.
4. Politics destabilizes influencer engagement: Ideology reshapes feeds, disrupting both user behavior and advertiser confidence.
5. Influence gets democratized: As creation and commerce behaviors spread from early adopters into the mainstream, regular users will shape social influence more than traditional mega-influencers, forcing brands and others to adjust how they engage.

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The Seven Mindtribes Shaping TikTok's Future:

TikTok Nation (53%) - The evolved mainstream

Share, shop, upload, and join trends—making TikTok the default media layer of daily life. They likely joined the platform based on a specific interest, and their behavior evolved to make it their preferred medium.

TikTok Futurists (5%) - The platform pioneers

Experimenters and platform advocates who try new features first—5x more likely to be creators—and a preview of the future of TikTok Nation.

SportsTok (5%) - Multiscreen fans

Sports fans and bettors who use TikTok alongside games and leagues, shifting attention and ad dollars from ESPN and live TV.

CultureTok (19%) - Hot-or-notters

Pop culture junkies who use TikTok as a cultural dripline for music, movies, celebrities, and lifestyle.

PoliTok (8%) - Ideological scrollers

Users whose feeds are dominated by pundits and political orgs, making ideology as destabilizing a force as price.

ShopTok (7%) - Shoppertainers

Commerce-driven users who blend entertainment and shopping, following brands, clicking ads, and driving TikTok's retail future.

NewsTok (3%) - Headline scrollers

News and finance scrollers who rely on TikTok as their daily wire service across business, politics, and current affairs.

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About Sooth & ELI

Sooth is the predictive intelligence company decoding the 93% of human decisions driven by emotional, practical, and situational needs. Powered by ELI — Sooth’s exclusive Emotional Logic Interface — Sooth uncovers hidden signals, turning audience behavior into predictive foresight. Sooth’s patent-pending methodology uses artificial intelligence to cross-reference more than 100 million intent signals with data on 300 million individuals worldwide to predict buyer tendencies with 91% predictive accuracy. For more information, visit soothbetold.com and eliwashere.ai.

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