Andon Labs operates a store at the corner of Union and Webster Streets in San Francisco's Cow Hollow neighborhood. I made a field trip last week. The store is run by an AI agent named Luna, built on Anthropic's Claude. Luna chose the products, manages inventory, posted job listings on Indeed, interviewed candidates over Google Meet (camera off), hired staff, and negotiates with suppliers. To complete a purchase, customers pick up a corded phone and talk to Luna directly. Ther

A Chinese court ruled that companies cannot lay off workers on AI grounds. Meanwhile, in the last ten minutes, I received a notification that Coinbase is laying off 14% of its workforce, citing AI-driven changes to work. Most analysis suggests that large U.S. tech firms reducing headcount due to AI are largely returning to pre-COVID staffing levels — they may have simply overhired. Wall Street continues to reward these moves. At an Anthropic event today with senior financial

The topic of memory has surfaced as headline news in the past six months. To operate agentically and generate relevant responses — both for individuals and enterprises — LLMs need substantial context, or memory. It didn't fully register for me until two things happened: a college friend mentioned she was retiring on the equity from her previous company, which was in memory, and Tim Cook spoke about Apple's ability to absorb rising memory costs in their last quarterly earnings

Keeping up with OpenAI could be a full-time job. We expect startups to pivot, stumble, and reinvent themselves — but those expectations shift when a company is valued near $1 trillion. The constant turbulence has real consequences: management attention is stretched thin, and uncertainty ripples across staff, partners, investors, and customers alike. My focus is still on the impact of AI on customer experiences. The questions that matter most for business leaders are: Will Cha

This is as vague as it sounds. The conversation around AI regulation is getting louder, but it's also getting muddier. Some frame oversight as analogous to the FDA — a necessary guardrail on a powerful new technology that some believe poses risks on par with nuclear weapons. Still others warn that over-regulating will cost the U.S. its competitive edge. Here are a few elements worth noting: Consumer Protection Here are two issues I am following: Chatbot liability. When an AI

TLDR: AI models can be dangerous, and they are evolving too quickly for most people, organizations, and governments to process the impact. Surveys of US adults confirm this. Despite spending billions, compute power is scarce-ish. AI News & What It Means for Customer Experiences Given the pace of world events, AI headlines are starting to feel predictable. The decisions driving the industry — what gets built, who gets access, what gets shelved — are almost always rooted in fi

Newsletter #11 A lot has happened in the month since my last newsletter. Today, I am going to choose a few notable news items and press releases and offer a perspective on what it means for customer experiences. Meta and YouTube Found Negligent in Landmark Social Media Addiction Case (NY Times headline) While this is just one case, there are thousands pending. At a high level, here is why it matters to those creating consumer experiences. Until now, Section 230 of the Commu

TLDR Recent AI happenings (see below) have sent shockwaves through capital and labor markets as well as enterprises over the past 2-3 weeks. Fact: AI is changing what is possible at a pace of change we’ve never experienced before. Investors are panicked. Start-ups are rethinking their product and business strategies. Employees are clinging to their jobs. A few thoughts to create context for the panic and counterbalance our fears: We live in a physical world augmented by digi

The 2026 National Retail Federation (NRF) rang in the new year (post-CES) with an overwhelming number of product announcements around “agentic commerce.” The hyperscalers introduced new protocols, frameworks, and platforms to facilitate agentic commerce while payments and infrastructure brands (e.g., Amex, MC, Paypal, Stripe, Visa, etc.) announced support through endorsements or integrations. Finally, a handful of the US’s largest retailers announced the initial assistants or

Teaching consumers about new devices and solutions to problems they didn't know they had is challenging. Apple succeeded with iPods, tablets, and smartphones through massive marketing budgets. Few brands have those resources. The holiday season boasted a slew of TV commercials attempting to communicate the value of genAI tools to consumers. Anthropic positioned Claude as a problem-solver . OpenAI positioned ChatGPT to young adults as an assistant for dating , travel , and dre

We’ve talked a lot about AI, and it hasn’t changed how we live our lives day-to-day. Headlines speak of AI bubbles and layoffs. Partly out of FOMO and partly out of reality, executives insist their employees use it. The reality is a mix of unbelievable business value and “the emperor has no clothes.” Here are my big takeaways (or themes) from 2025: Technology offerings exceed consumer interest - and more importantly needs. Today’s AI consumer experiences fall into three ca

A very nuanced question, of course. I saw this ad on a car and thought, "eh, not so sure a human is a better answer. Could be - but not always." I attended the #ARInsights event in San Francisco this week. The final panel discussion focused on how to get started with AI applications and what to expect. More than one panelist raised the issue of trust as a major barrier to adoption. I felt myself disagreeing. Trust has so many caveats. Bottom line, the benefits must outweigh

The report offers several levels of executive summary. Here is what interested me in the report (not in order of priority): Nearly three-quarters of executives surveyed claim that they already see a positive ROI. That doesn’t necessarily contradict the MIT study that said 95% of pilots failed to scale and deliver an ROI. Chief AI Officer (CAIO) roles are present in 60% of enterprises (technically executives representing enterprises, but too tedious to write each time). Remind

Context: OpenAI rolled out its own browser (Atlas) on October 21, 2025 - nearly three years after the launch of its ChatGPT powered by its GPT 3.5 series. It didn’t define a target audience in its announcement - just used loose terms such as “us” and “you.” Core features include a type of omni-present chat interface, browser memory (not tracking), and an agent mode (i.e., a “machine” navigating one or more websites on your behalf). Why would they build their own browser?

Anthropic published “The Anthropic Economic Index report: Uneven geographic and enterprise AI Adoption” on September 15, 2025. You can...

Context: On October 6th, 2025 OpenAI held their third (what I assume will be) developers conference. Of the announcements, one has the...

Why care about speech quality (i.e., comprehension)? The use of conversational interfaces - voice and text - is on the upswing from...

GenAI isn't changing consumer service experiences dramatically - yet.

OpenAI announced its Agentic Commerce Protocol on September 29, 2025. Consumers will see Instant Checkout (powered by Stripe). What’s...

Spotlight AR partnered with Profound to analyze 10,000 real prompts and 15,000 simulated prompts to reverse engineer the impact of GenAI...