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Featured Research
Interjections; anthropomorphism; and customer choice; teaching chatbots to listen
Small conversational cues shape large outcomes; when chatbots use interjections such as oh; wow; aww; users report feeling heard; satisfaction rises; purchase intent follows. Recent…
Latest Insights
Thinking with assistants; the cognitive cost of convenience
Generative systems lighten mental load; they also invite cognitive offloading on a scale that reaches beyond arithmetic and retrieval; the emerging evidence suggests immediate productivity gains may sit alongside subtle losses in attention; memory for sources; and creative diversification. Causality is not settled; the samples are small in places; yet the pattern is consistent enough…
12 Jul 2025
Answers without visits; the web’s changing bargain
People now ask systems for answers; not for lists of links; when the answer sits inside the interface the visit does not happen; the open web’s bargain weakens as machine reading replaces human visiting; the pattern mirrors charity disintermediation, where intermediaries are bypassed in the ask and in the allocation of value; trust becomes the…
28 Jun 2025
Rival cues; social identity; and engagement; why naming the other side recruits your own
Public brand narratives work best when they contain recognisable tension; a protagonist; an antagonist; and a clear reason to care. Referencing a known rival creates that structure in a single move; it orients attention; sharpens category meaning; and invites identity aligned participation. The mechanism is not mysterious; social identity and social proof do the heavy…
11 May 2025
