The medium is the message is perhaps the most defining yet misunderstood insight of the media landscape - ever. He argued that while we are mesmerised by what is being said, we miss the impact of the medium on our collective social psyche. In the age of AI McLuhan's meme should be enlightening. Facebook replaced a DARPA project called Lifelog, for mapping our social network, where we go and who we meet. Now ChatGPT is mapping how we think and feel. And this new medium blowing up heads all over the world.

AI automates emotional intelligence. But how do brands actually harness this new, literally mindblowing technology. Already consumers are discovering usecases for ChatGPT by themselves, using it as a therapist, lawyer, doctor, dietician… But the message of this medium is way more than just a co-pilot therapist, and brands are struggling with traditional product discovery, to leverage the ambiguities and the infinite potential for ultimate disruption.

AI for internal efficiencies

Leading organisations are integrating AI—Copilot, ChatGPT, internal agents—into everyday workflows. Microsoft’s own Copilot adoption for 300,000+ staff boosted productivity: 70% of users report more output, 64% save time on email, and 85% reach first drafts faster microsoft.com. Salesforce claims AI now performs up to 50% of internal tasks, with digital agents serving 5,000+ clients at 93% accuracy sfchronicle.com.

These deployments prove AI as a task enabler, not a headline disruptor. But efficiency is just the introduction. The real transformation happens when AI becomes the medium for reimagining the product itself.

Agentic AI from back‑office to boutique

Luxury fashion is trailblazing with “agentic AI” — systems that don’t just process queries, but make autonomous decisions to elevate entire experiences. Brands like LVMH and Diane von Fürstenberg are exploring agents that power invisible back-office forecasting and visible customer-facing styling assistants .

This isn’t about optimizing email. It’s about AI becoming the curator of experience—turning high-touch industries into platforms of personalised digital intelligence.

Artificial Receptionists: clinics powered by AI

Healthcare is witnessing its own revolution: voice-driven AI receptionists—“Joy” at Mayo Clinic and systems from VoiceCare—now manage benefits, bookings, and prescription workflows sfchronicle.com. They’re not replacing humans—they’re enabling empathy. Clinical staff are freed to focus on nuance, while patients gain faster, more responsive interactions grounded in real voice UX discovery.

Democratising wealth with AI

Agentic AI is expanding financial inclusion, not retracting it:

• Conquest, backed by Goldman Sachs & Citi, uses AI chatbots to analyze user data and draft bespoke financial plans.

• JPMorgan’s “Coach AI” supports 200,000 advisers in real-time—boosting engagement while cutting costs microsoft.com+3voguebusiness.com+3medium.com+3.

These shifts emerge from persona discovery, segmentation, and rigorous A/B testing, not boardroom mandates. AI becomes the scaffold for building equitable, data-driven wealth products.

Emotional Intelligence in AI

Emotion AI, or “Artificial Emotional Intelligence,” is the frontier. Startups are using it in retail to sense shopper sentiment—detecting confusion, frustration, or delight in real-time deptagency.com. In customer service, intelligent agents escalate calls when tone signals distress .

In automotive labs, Affectiva’s cabin-aware AI monitors driver emotion—alerting to drowsiness, distraction, or frustration en.wikipedia.org+1thelightbulb.ai+1. These systems don’t just automate—they understand, enabling products to care, not just serve.

Product discovery in the AI era

What unites these examples? They treat AI not as a feature but as a medium to unlock fundamental shifts in user experience.

Here, emotional metrics (sentiment, tone, effect on mood) carry equal weight to functional KPIs. This is Artificial Emotional Intelligence: the ability of products to sense, respond, and adapt to human feeling.

The Innovator’s Dilemma solved

The true challenge—innovator’s dilemma—is navigating the tension between legacy efficiency gains and breakthrough disruption.

By starting internally (Copilot, agents, dashboards) and ensuring discovery-led experimentation, brands build a runway. They gather evidence, test, validate, and only then scale the emotional, customer-facing elements.

What begins as a back-office assistant becomes a front-stage differentiator.

A new product ethos

• Internal AI adoption builds muscle

• External prototypes test emotional resonance

• Evidence becomes strategy—not hierarchy or gut

• AI augments empathy—it doesn’t diminish it

This is how you craft not just efficient products, but emotionally intelligent ones.

Your product journey: an invitation

If your team is exploring AI, I help bridge the journey:

1. Map pain-points and emotion hotspots

2. Run persona-driven AI experiments

3. Prototype emotionally-aware interactions

4. Measure human + product metrics

5. Scale with transparency, ethics, and empathy

As ever, the medium is the message - and the opportunity is for products that don’t just do, but profoundly feel you, and make you feel special.