My Daily Emails

AI systems that “feel magical” can also be seen as manipulative. Recent research from Griffith University shines light on a growing issue:  AI-induced consumer vulnerability: the uneasy sense people get

Even the biggest brands can forget to state the obvious. A few weeks ago, Lay’s announced what it called the largest brand redesign in its nearly 100-year history. The radical new changes? Warmer

When we buy into a product brand, we buy membership in a story. One of the strongest emotional glues in human behavior is belonging. We invest in brands that connect us:

There are 60 days left in 2025. Most founders will use them to plan. The leaders will ship. As the calendar tightens, something strange happens in our brains. Deadlines stop

The day after Halloween is always the same: too much sugar, too little clarity. Everything’s sticky, dirty costumes are on the floor, and no one completely agrees which houses gave

Halloween is one night when strangers still open doors for each other. My wife and I still take our girls trick-or-treating. We know these years are numbered: soon they’ll be

In 2026, your product may talk — not via voice, but via persuasion cues. Conversational AI uses framing and nudges to steer choices. Increasingly, physical products are borrowing those same tactics.

For humans surrounded by constant pings and alerts, calm is the new luxury. Calm technology (design that stays in the background until it’s truly needed) is quietly coming back into style.

Reader Veronica from San Francisco asked: does “premium” wording work for software too? It does, with a few extra levers. The same psychology I wrote about a couple days ago

Simply asking “Hey, how likely are you to buy this?” raises the odds someone actually WILL. In behavioral psychology, the mere-measurement effect describes how measuring a person’s intention influences their subsequent behavior.