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Customerland
Futurescape: What Comes After Apps, Ads, and Algorithms
In this episode, we sit down with Jess Leitch, Executive Strategy Director at Frog, to explore the seismic shifts redefining how humans interact with technology — and what that means for brands, designers, and everyday users. From the collapse of the traditional interface to the rise of agentic AI, Jess walks us through a future that’s already underway, where experiences are increasingly ambient, autonomous, and deeply personal.
We talk about the concept of zero UI — the idea that screens and clicks are giving way to invisible systems that anticipate our needs. We unpack what happens when brands are no longer in control of their own channels, when LLMs become the new interface, and when intimacy with machines becomes not just possible, but expected. This isn't speculation. It's happening now — and it’s upending everything from marketing strategies to design fundamentals.
Jess challenges us to reconsider what trust looks like in a world where decisions are made by machines on our behalf. And she shares why designers and strategists must think not just about usability, but about dignity, emotional resonance, and long-term impact. If your business, brand, or career depends on how people engage with technology, this conversation is a wake-up call.
Welcome to Futurescape — where the next interface isn’t an interface at all.
Listen to the full episode now on Customerland. And if you’re building the future, start with the people who will live in it.
We're moving towards a world where we will have agents that work for us, that understand, that will have personal agents that understand us deeply and are involved in. You know all of the parts of our lives as many parts of our lives as we choose to involve them in, and they'll know where we go and what we spend money on and what our preferences are and which brands we like and which brands we like and which brands we don't like, and we will develop relationships with them. It will feel like we have developed a relationship with them.
Mike Giambattista:Today on Customer Land. Jess Leach is head of Frog in North America. If you're not familiar with Frog, you should be, because they're an extraordinary organization run by some extraordinary people doing some extraordinary things. But don't listen to me hyperbolize. Let's hear Jess on what they're all about. Jess and her group have just put out a report called Futurescape, which is easily the most fascinating bit of research I've read in a long time. Having said that, Jess, thanks for joining me. I really appreciate it.
Jess Leitch:I'm so happy to be here. I'm really excited to have this conversation today and to talk about Futurescape, which is my favorite thing to talk about at the moment.
Mike Giambattista:Well, there's just so much in it and, as we were saying before we hit the record button, you know this, it really requires to really do it justice requires an afternoon, Neither of which of us have that, but you know, maybe next time. But just to set context for the rest of the conversation, can you tell us about Frog and about your role there?
Jess Leitch:Yeah for sure. So Frog is a global creative consultancy and we've been around for over 50 years now, and we're all about creating market-leading iconic experiences for iconic brands, and so we work with passionate leaders and visionary entrepreneurs, and we're all about applying creativity and strategy and design and data to reinvent businesses and help drive growth and orchestrate customer-centric transformation. We're also about advancing people on planets, so making sure that anything that we're doing is creating this kind of and shaping this regenerative future that's very important to us, a future that's both sustainable and inclusive. So, really, you might know us for things like our founder, harmut Esslinger, working with Steve Jobs on the first Snow White design language with Apple computers, or you might know us for work with Sony Wager on the Walkman back in the day, but you know we've had a long, long history of working with a number of iconic leaders to help create those kind of iconic products that set the standard for a market, and so, yeah, it's an incredibly exciting team to be part of, and I'm super happy to lead the team in North America.
Jess Leitch:So that's my job. I lead a team of strategists and technologists, product managers, project managers and, of course, a huge team of designers as well, so every flavor of design pretty much. We have at Frog, everything from architects to visual designers, to interaction designers, service designers as well. So, yeah, it's a pretty diverse team. And the other team that we've been building recently is emerging technology and data and AI, of course, because we couldn't not talk about that, right yeah.
Mike Giambattista:Well, for my part, I just want to camp out in your offices and absorb it.
Jess Leitch:You're very welcome we actually we actually just, uh, we just created a new office, um with um, with our partner, with our sister company, synapse in in san francisco, and it's this. It's kind of like our dream office, um, that's on the same um street, the brandon street, as open ai, and and it's got all the facilities that we've ever dreamed of from an industrial design, mechanical engineering standpoint. So you're very welcome to come in and see us.
Mike Giambattista:Well, thank you If you find some strange guy hanging out in there it's helpful to me. Unfortunately, I'm in New York and that's San Francisco, so it may not happen this week.
Jess Leitch:Oh, sometime soon hopefully.
Mike Giambattista:But thank you for the invite. So let's talk about Futurescape.
Mike Giambattista:It's a report that landed on my desk several weeks ago. I get a lot of reports. We talked to a lot of folks like yourself who are deep into the research of what moves people and frankly, I don't recall ever being engaged to this level with any bit of research. I just I'm consumed with not only just what you found out, but how you're approaching it. I think it's just so interesting and so vital right now. I mean, we're going to talk about a couple of topics that you know, culturally and legislatively, are facing some serious headwinds right now. But it seems like, well, I don't want to go where. It seems like I'd rather hear what's actually happening from your side. So, if it's okay with you, let's just kind of pull out some highlights and then I promise for everybody who's listening to this, I will post a link to the actual report. Strongly encourage you to download it and go through it yourselves. You'll find it a fascinating read. So let's talk context a little bit here. Why this report? What went into it? Help us out.
Jess Leitch:So Futurescape is this yearly trans report. So we um, but above all else, I think you know frogs are these like curious early adopters, and so they're always out adopting the technology, um, you know, playing with the latest products, and and so we really wanted to create this report to encourage all our frogs to channel that curiosity into a series of reflections that we could share with our wider community and to bring together a series of trends that we would expect to see for the coming year. But for 2025, what we really wanted to do was to take the opportunity to focus on kind of five kind of territories and 25 trends that we think have the potential to shape this next quarter of century. So the trends are really shaped into kind of five key territories and they were gathered from 35 colleagues across 13 different studios. So there's a huge range of different trends that are part of the report.
Jess Leitch:I can give you a little bit of an overview of the different trends that are in the report. So there's kind of five different areas. The first one is ebb and flow, so it kind of examines the changing consumer behaviours and business practices that are driving kind of this new demand for change in the way that organizations and brands engage with consumers, and it's highlighting trends like alcohol-free venues and AI-driven effortless shopping and the need for simplicity and technology to improve mental well-being. And then the second territory is this area of kind of forces of nature and it discusses the impact of technology and culture and business on the environment and society, and it includes topics like expanding the C-suite to include roles focused on ethics and sustainability and the integration of AI with Earth's resources and biodesign innovations and alternative energy sources like helium mining on the moon. And then this third area is machine visions, because we couldn't talk about we couldn't not talk about the future influence of AI on our daily life. You know, we talk about things like the potential of AI to understand human desires better than we do and the emergence of AI clones and the socio kind of spiritual challenges of human and machine relationships as well.
Jess Leitch:And then the fourth territory is this area of kind of merging dimensions and it looks at like the intersectionality of traditionally kind of disparate or separate worlds, and so we're looking at like the convergence of physical and digital experiences in the integration of health and wellness into daily life and the potential of engineering biology to create these kinds of sustainable solutions. And then this final territory is this area of kind of new horizons, which is supposed to be, you know, after the idea of you know where are the areas that we're excited about, where there's the most potential. You know the idea of the sun coming up over the horizon, or you know from behind the hill, like, where are we really excited? And this kind of focuses on future challenges and opportunities, including the shift towards zero UI interfaces, basically the importance of emotional resonance in customer experiences, the rise of parasocial interactions with AI and you know the potential for space exploration to inspire growth as well. So there's a huge range of topics in there.
Mike Giambattista:This conversation really deserves to spiral out of control.
Jess Leitch:It really does it really does. You could definitely be here for a week, I think.
Mike Giambattista:Right. I mean, you know, just spend time again. Just spend time in the report. You'll find yourself kind of going back over things rethinking about them multiple times just because there's so much kind of packed into wait. What if?
Jess Leitch:Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. I found myself saying that a lot here.
Mike Giambattista:Yeah, yeah, shifts in perspective. I think about where we could head to solve some of the engagement, interactivity, brain space problems that are clearly here and we're not thinking enough about. But do you want to pull out a few of those highlights and just talk about what's in the ebb and flow section?
Jess Leitch:Yeah, absolutely. I love this section because it's really focused on how, as individuals, our behaviors are changing and how organizations and brands need to start thinking about interacting with us differently. And maybe not even organizations and brands like you know us as a society, to how we how we interact with each other too. So you know us as a society, to how we how we interact with each other too. So you know, this section is really about like uniting, thinking about uniting diverse groups through shared interests and combating social isolation and promoting kind of improved living practices and helping individuals reclaim focus and balance in their daily lives. And we thought about, you know what could be ways to help individuals have a more mindful relationship with technology. So you know a couple of examples from that.
Jess Leitch:One of my favorites is this say no to technicolor overload. And so we see this trend towards advancements in technology supporting this kind of this almost retreat towards simplicity, and so, um, what we're seeing going out is this kind of always on notification, heavy kind of digital interaction, heavy kind of preference and a much more of a preference towards these intentionally quiet products that are helping us, as individuals, reduce that cognitive like overload that we're all feeling, just the fact that you're bringing that up gives me hope. Intentionally quiet products that are helping us as individuals reduce that cognitive like overload that we're all feeling Just the fact that you're bringing that up gives me hope.
Jess Leitch:It's really a trend.
Jess Leitch:I mean, there's a lot of intentionally kind of dumb products coming onto the market that are not connected, because not everything needs to be connected and people are. We're definitely seeing a trend towards people wanting single use products as well, so they want something to do one thing really well, and so I think that we will see more of that. As we rely more on AI, I think we will also see more of these kinds of products that promote focus and support consumers who want to limit distraction. And you know, we're also seeing really interesting things like people turning their phone screens to grayscale to make it less appealing, or you know just other ways that consumers want a limiting distraction. I mean, there's a really interesting new product that's out on the market called the Brick, which basically, like, turns your phone into it, bricks it, so you have to physically tap it and you can leave the Brick device in another part of the house. Or, if you go out, leave it at home and you basically can't unbrick your phone until you come back and tap the physical device.
Jess Leitch:So, yeah, so yeah, sorry.
Mike Giambattista:No, no, I just. I'm thinking of two other kind of variations on that same theme which I think are brilliant. One is which spoke to me personally there's something that I can't remember what it's called, but your phone basically turns off until you do a certain number of pushups.
Jess Leitch:Yes, it's the same idea, which is just cruel but but effective.
Mike Giambattista:And then the other one is a a, a guy that we've spoken with a couple of times. Kai Tang developed something called the light phone, which is which is kind of like. It's kind of like the early versions of the iPhone. It does almost nothing except phone work and a few other things now, but it was intentionally basic and bare in terms of functionality.
Jess Leitch:Yeah, yeah, you're making me think about like the Nokia 3210 with just the texting and the snake Right. I don't know if you remember those, I do. Yeah, iconic.
Mike Giambattista:So that's one of the trends that I'm really excited about in terms of Evin.
Jess Leitch:Flow. If you remember those, they were iconic. So that's one of the trends that I'm really excited about in terms of ebb and flow. And then I think the other one that I'm really excited about is there's a really interesting trend towards this that we're calling effortless is the new normal. That we're calling effortless is the new normal, and this is tied to agent-led conversational commerce kind of taking over online shopping.
Jess Leitch:So it's kind of crazy how many people have taken towards using large language models for shopping, and I saw some crazy statistic like over there was over a thousand percent increase in the number of people who used ChatGPT or other large language models to create their Christmas lists and bought their shopping and bought their Christmas presents through the large language model at Christmas time. So, you know, ai advancements are already changing e-commerce as we know it. So people are getting their recommendations for what to buy from these large language models and they're using these large language models to handle weekly shopping and to assist with major buying decisions. And we're also seeing, you know, vr and AR technologies removing guesswork and frustration from these kind of virtual browsing experiences. So it's really interesting.
Jess Leitch:On one end, we're seeing opportunities for brands to have consumers interact with their websites kind of being removed by the large language models on one end, but being added back by VR and AR technologies. Being added back by VR and AR technologies, allowing drawing customers back to their websites and to their mobile applications to actually use these new tools to see a pair of shoes on their feet or see, you know, clothing on their body or to see makeup on their face. So it's really interesting dichotomy actually. As you know, we see people moving away from kind of websites directly to make those kinds of shopping recommendations and buying, and you know they're actually doing their buying directly through the recommendations of the large language models. But they're also kind of gravitating to these sites where there are interesting VR and AR technologies that are helping them to, you know, remove that guesswork and frustration from virtual browsing experiences. It's been interesting.
Mike Giambattista:Oh, I'm sorry. No, no, no, it's far more interesting than anything I've got to say, so please.
Jess Leitch:No, no, no, I'm done, I'm done.
Mike Giambattista:No, I just say it's been an interesting kind of uh journey in the conversations I've had over the past few years where ar and vr was a cool tool yep really interesting, serious wow factor and shiny object yeah but you know, kind of limited utility and bottom line value, and what I've seen now, especially if you dive deep into the retail technology space, is that it's maturing to have some real bottom line impact, because I think it's, you know one. I think consumers are a lot more able to kind of process that they could derive value from different tools, and the companies that are sponsoring these things are are, I think, much more aligned with just trying out new stuff I think it ties I I totally agree, and I think we'll see more of it.
Jess Leitch:I think this has been something that has been, you know, we saw kind of the metaverse be a little less trendy for a while, but I think that, you know, as this has kind of been the age of generative AI, but there has been progress happening in the background with the companies who are experts in this area, and there are advancements being made, and I think that we will continue to see more of this. Especially, this kind of ties to another trend that I really love, which is in our kind of new horizons territory, which is like challenges that we'll need to overcome to stay ahead, which is this one around unleashing zero UI. And you know, we at Frog really have this view that we think that the future is going to look like one where we have many less user interfaces that we interact with, and we think that we're going to see the kinds of UIs that we interact with on websites and apps right now start to fade as technology integrates a little bit more seamlessly with life, and so we'll see more biometrics and AI and multimodal systems, and we'll see, you know, payments being done through watches and rings and, just you know, less through the current systems that we're using, and so things will feel a lot more intuitive and touchless and natural language driven. So, and touchless and natural language driven, so you know examples of things that we're seeing already. We're seeing Continental using intelligent interaction technologies and biometrics in their cars. We're seeing, in the University of Technology, university of Tokyo, researchers using touchless blood pressure screening technology that uses data collected from a video call or a smartphone app. And you know, we're also seeing the rise of digital national IDs verified through biometrics and removing that need for interfaces to ease authentication for transactions.
Jess Leitch:So, you know, we're seeing this kind of trend of unleashing zero UI, which means that we're creating this new world where we won't have a need for as many of these kinds of websites and apps as we have done in the past, and so I actually think it creates this real opportunity for AR and VR to step in with, you know, for brands to step in and redirect some of those investments that they were putting into websites, branded websites and applications in, you know, into creating these AR and VR applications that are much more branded, much more exciting experiences for their customers. And, you know, I think we'll see many, many more AR and VR experiences in different places. So in places like Roblox, for example, where customers are, or you know TikTok, or you know other places where customers are. I think we're going to see many, many more AR and VR driven experiences as we see more of these kinds of traditional websites and applications start to become less used.
Mike Giambattista:So you're in the position to probably hear and see and discuss with the C-level leaders who are making decisions as to what of these to implement, how to pursue them, what the pathways look like, and I'd love to hear more about. You know how you handle those conversations, because trying to get change a mindset, for instance, is an enormously difficult and costly endeavor, and you are in the business of changing mindsets, so how? Does that work, and if that takes us too far off track, we can.
Jess Leitch:We can pick that up in another call um, I mean, I think that, um, you know, I think part of part of the reason that we do these reports is to have these, you know, conversations about where we see the world going and it is it creates. Having these kinds of like trend-driven conversations, I think, are an easy way to discuss how you might see some of these trends applying to your organisation within the next kind of five, ten years, because, you know, companies adopt things at different rates. Like, some people are still moving to cloud, so, like it's a you know things take a while it's not going to. You know, we're not saying that everything's going to switch tomorrow. You know, we're still trying to get omnichannel right. We're still trying to get personalisation right.
Jess Leitch:We really are, aren't, we know it's, it's, it's one of those things that's going to take a while. Um, actually, that's another, that's an, that's another topic where I think, um, ai is gonna generative, ai is gonna seriously help, um, but, um, but that's for another conversation.
Jess Leitch:I think, yeah, it's another and that's another afternoon's work yeah, exactly, um, but I think you know, I think when I think, when you share these kinds of trends and what you're seeing with senior leaders, you can see the light bulbs go off in their head and you can see them recognize how this would apply to their brand and you can see them thinking through the implications and you know.
Jess Leitch:That's why I just love this kind of thing the Futurescape report because it really allows us to have these kinds of to get out of the everyday and have these kinds of future focused discussions with our clients and with senior leaders and you know, to discuss, like, if we are witnessing this shift from like app-centric to natural language-centric experiences, what does that mean for your organization? And if we are witnessing this shift from like app-centric to natural language-centric experiences, what does that mean for your organisation? And if you are given the opportunity to get out of this kind of frustrating, disconnected kind of omnichannel world, what could that new world look like? And what could it look like if we kind of were able to transcend that, if we were able to have an appless phone or you know something similar like that? So I think people get quite excited about being given the freedom to have that kind of conversation and do that kind of thinking, because it's not something that you do if you're in a quarterly kind of shareholder cycle.
Mike Giambattista:Right, right, trying to get things done.
Jess Leitch:Yeah, exactly.
Mike Giambattista:I know that we only have moments left here.
Jess Leitch:I know we haven't even covered like a quarter of it.
Mike Giambattista:We've done nothing here. This whole thing is just a taste, which is so good and yet so unfortunate because there's so much here, but one of the thoughts that you've highlighted in your ebb and flow section.
Jess Leitch:Yes.
Mike Giambattista:As it were. I just wanted to get your your kind of high level thoughts on it's time to take action. The question is, how can brands pivot from purpose to positively influence consumer behavior, and it's a conversation we're involved with almost daily.
Jess Leitch:Yeah.
Mike Giambattista:So this one hits home because these are mindset shift type conversations. I'd love to hear your thoughts on that.
Jess Leitch:Yeah, I think that this one is really about authenticity. So I think that this is about I think that there was a trend towards kind of abstract, somewhat abstract promises of purpose, and I think that the consumers of today can kind of smell like stealth marketing from a mile away. And you know we're seeing people kind of reject these more kind of meaningless manifestos and you know somewhat empty pledges, and so it's not what you say, it's what you do and so that's what this trend is really about. It's about, and you know, examples of that are. You know we saw at the Kahn line this proclamation that like purpose is dead in 2024. And but you know, you also see sustainable and social movements become like distinctive commercial successes for brands where they authentically make sense, like Tony's Chocolony or like Patagonia, you know, where it authentically actually makes sense for their brand. So I think this trend is really about authenticity and you know consumers being very kind of highly evolved and being able to smell if something doesn't seem right.
Mike Giambattista:We've seen just in the past couple of weeks kind of a surge in interest in sustainability topics from some of the companies we interact with, because, well, I have all kinds of theories why? Because? But it's really interesting that when you dig deep into what the company's values really are, you can find out if it's, you know, if this is just a talking point because it's of go, you know, the sustainability thing maybe not just for us, Maybe we're going to approach that next year sometime and I think consumers can see it even easier.
Jess Leitch:Oh, that's exactly it. It's like what are you saying versus what are you doing? And if you just even take kind of a cursory look at what's said versus done, I think you know the answers are there and you know, just be authentic about it. I think that's what consumers want. They want brands to be authentic.
Mike Giambattista:As a longtime marketer, that flies in the face of my reason for being. We were taught to never acknowledge those kinds of things, but no, I joke.
Jess Leitch:Well, jess, I'm just telling you what the trends are.
Mike Giambattista:Right, okay, don't have to adhere to them. Come on, that's crazy. That's just nuts. How about if I just cherry pick a few things, oh, and then we can do that? Yeah, okay, with no hope of keeping this on the rails. It's too bad, right? So the territory is called machine visions.
Jess Leitch:Mm-hmm.
Mike Giambattista:And you've kind of called out here the selective trust paradox, which is giant. Right now, finding ourselves in AI yeah, me and my cyber self. That's a conversation unto itself and intimacy duplicated, as well as a few others. So can we just start with what this selective trust paradox really is and means?
Jess Leitch:Yeah for sure. So this kind of territory is, like we have called it, kind of machine visions, and it's thinking about what ways, lot of potentially unintended consequences or unintended effects of this kind of AI revolution, and so parts of these territories is really about exploring the influence of AI on daily life. So, you know, could AI potentially understand human desires better than we do ourselves? Or, you know, could we see the emergence of AI clones? Or are they like exploring things like the socio-spiritual challenges of the human and machine relationships? So that's what this kind of territory is supposed to be about, and this kind of selective trust paradox is really about. You know, we're already seeing this emerging even at the beginning of this kind of AI revolution. And you know, even before the AI revolution, we saw this kind of phenomenon called kind of algorithm aversion, where people preferred to avoid AI in certain decision-making situations. So they're actively asking is AI involved in this process and, if it is, is there a way for it to be removed? So this is because people haven't been able to in some situations, some circumstances, people haven't been able to develop a trust for the decisions that are being made by AI. And I think that you know people will, I think trust will increase. I think it's interesting in the way that some of the interfaces for the large language models have changed to try and increase our trust of the recommendations that are being made. So you know, I think that we saw, we've seen changes to actually help us see the way that the LLM is actually thinking through what it's doing. So and it's actually visualizing to whoever's doing the search query or the research query. Where is it looking, what data sources is it drawing from, how is it coming to that conclusion and just kind of showing us how it's working through things. And I think those kinds of things will actually help to develop a more trusting relationship between humans and, you know, ai.
Jess Leitch:But there is going to potentially be a situation where humans prefer valuable human decisions over the black box of AI and kind of moral or ethical scenarios.
Jess Leitch:So you know, I think even I've seen a change between last year and this year, with some of the technology companies who had gone all in on AI for everything to this year going into a situation where they're saying, well, ai can't do this by themselves, they need a human to help make decisions at an enterprise level because things are too complex, so we should be using AI to, you know, not replace, but supplement or, you know, complement the decisions that are being made by humans.
Jess Leitch:So I think that I think that you know it's really about thinking about as AI integrates into daily life. If we're over relying on it for low stakes decisions, we just need to think about, like, when it becomes involved in more high stakes decisions that really feel very important to us, whether it's whether we are, you know, decisions that really feel very important to us. You know, whether it's whether we are, you know, decisions that impact our lives around our healthcare or financial future, how people feel about placing their trust in those kinds of decisions. And, on a more personal level, you know, how do we mindfully incorporate it into decision-making to avoid biased outcomes or the perception of biased outcomes as well. So I think that that's really what this kind of selective trust paradox is about.
Mike Giambattista:So, just because this is the way this conversation rolled the last time, jess starts unpacking one of the main topics and I develop a list of questions to bombard her with at the end of it. So here we go. Yeah, the AI trust thing is really interesting to kind of track the early kind of public notions of AI and how much distrust there was for all kinds of reasons you just mentioned, because of inherent biases and or even perceived biases. But, um, it would be really interesting to track uh kind of an ai trust index. If there isn't one, maybe we'll do one.
Mike Giambattista:Yeah, um, because, and do it by segment, like, okay, listen, if you're an enterprise level, person, corporation, what are you doing with it and how much are you trusting it and what are you doing to kind of mitigate or shore up the lack of trust there? Yeah, really interesting. And you know, I think just maybe this morning I was reading about some of ChatGPT's latest improvements and how they are kind of showing you the machinations of how the GPT is kind of processing, where it's looking, what it's thinking, before it just kind of spits out a you know an answer out of the black box and and I didn't think about it in through the lens of trust, but it absolutely, absolutely kind of pulls down a few barriers, I think, to having some confidence in the answers it gives you.
Jess Leitch:Yeah, absolutely does, and you know, I think that, I think that you, having some confidence in the answers it gives you yeah, it absolutely does. And you know, I think that you'll see, as there are more competitors that come into the GPT space and as you see more of these models become popular, you'll see advances in terms of the way that the interfaces look and feel. And you know this was, I think that this was this advancement happened because there are additional competitors in this space who were doing this, and I think that you know it definitely helps in terms of building trust up, being able to see how the model is working through the decisions that it's making. So, you know, I think, I think that it's, I think it's, I think it's a really interesting, I think it's a really interesting space.
Mike Giambattista:So your own personal journey with AI.
Jess Leitch:Yeah.
Mike Giambattista:Can we talk about your early perceptions and early interactions with it and what you were thinking and feeling at the time, if you, if that's even recallable and then how you feel about it now, because I I've had my own kind of evolution and I'm seeing that, or you know, play out similarly.
Jess Leitch:Yeah.
Mike Giambattista:Most of the realms that I interact with, so I'm interested in your own.
Jess Leitch:Yes, I can definitely talk through that and I remembered what I was going to say.
Jess Leitch:Okay, I think also part of this selective trust paradox is that we're all still learning how to use AI, too, and what we want to use it for and how it practically should get involved in our life, and I think that there is a little bit of user error going on on the human side too, so we're asking it, potentially, to do things that it's especially these GPTs where you know, I think that we're asking them to do things and we're trying things and experimenting that maybe they're not best placed to do.
Jess Leitch:So I think that also could potentially contribute to an erosion of trust if you ask it to do something that it perhaps is not best placed to do. And you know, as we get more used to these technologies and you know as different types of smaller models and more custom models are built, I think that we'll learn about how these technologies should be best used and that trust will start to build, and I love the idea of the trust index. I think that that would be super interesting, in particular, across different industries. I mean it's interesting in the retail space, people already have a very high level of trust because I feel like it's fairly low stakes right. So if you are creating a Christmas shopping list, like the level of people who are already using ChatGPT or other open source large language models, the number of people, the uptake for that for Christmas shopping lists, was enormous.
Jess Leitch:And so people are actually already taking shopping recommendations because they feel like it is, you know, it's low risk, and so you know, in the retail sector or in CPG I think this is already people are already fairly trusting of the decisions that are being made by these technologies, but, you know, whether it's life sciences or financial services, or healthcare I think that there are some other, you know. Just there are some things to think through in terms of how you build trust in those particular industries.
Mike Giambattista:Right. Each one of those realms carries with it a different level of kind of stakes, if you will. You know, Sure.
Jess Leitch:Exactly.
Mike Giambattista:It's not like buying the Band-Aids at the store. You've got stuff there.
Jess Leitch:Yeah, in terms of my own personal journey with AI, I mean, I think that it is just extremely important for everyone who's working in my industry to have a good grasp on what's going on and to be using it as part of their everyday life. I mean, I don't think that designers or strategists or technologists should be operating without AI support. Operating without AI support, I don't cause, I don't think that. I don't think that we should be. We should be shying away from what is here and what's available, and I think that it is a it's an additional tool that people should be using to complement the skills that they already have and to increase their capacity, to help them to be better designers and strategists and technologists. And I mean, if you aren't using these tools, you're missing a trick.
Mike Giambattista:Yeah, completely. I'm a heavy GPT user, heavy duty. I use it for planning. It's like it will take what I am trying to think about and process it so much faster that I can then move on to the next step in the process.
Jess Leitch:Yeah.
Mike Giambattista:Where I would have it to bend, you know, kind of organizing thought components and mapping things out.
Mike Giambattista:It's like, yeah, you know, seconds later, here's your answer yeah, yeah I have to tell you, like the, the improvements in the way this technology interacts with me personally have been a little bit unsettling at times. I mean, it's, it's really good, and over time I noticed this, maybe a month or two ago, like it was starting to feed back answers to me in very enthusiastic language. That's like this is a great idea. Mike. This is on fire, you know, and at some point I had to sit back and go wait a second. You know there's a little too much hyperbole here, and so I asked it can we just please dial back the hyperbolic language and enthusiasm Because I really want a sensible evaluation of what I'm giving you rather than cheerleading.
Mike Giambattista:And it immediately dialed back to yes, took the instructions, but now I'm devoid of all that enthusiasm, so you know I have to. I went back to being my own cheerleader.
Jess Leitch:I I wonder if it was. It is interesting. Huh. Like it's. It's interesting to think about where it got that kind of cue from too like that it wanted to be. You know, maybe it felt like you wanted it to be enthusiastic.
Mike Giambattista:Right, I think so. Yeah, you know, I need to be a little more literal, I think, and a little less human with it, because maybe it was like, hey look, finally I can be this guy's therapist yes, which we don't want. We don't want. I wouldn't do that to any person or technology.
Jess Leitch:There's so much going on from a technology standpoint, I think it's so exciting, but also potentially so messy.
Jess Leitch:There's a lot of messiness coming before everyone is able to sort out where these new technologies fit into place, and so I think we're just literally at the like the beginning of the explosion, and I think it's so exciting. And you know, companies like Adobe have done so well to move so quickly, like they have a tool that's this brand concierge tool, which is basically customized content at an individual level. That is like a. It's like having your own branded version of an app or a website, which is amazing, but being able to. But I think the interesting thing is, you know, for organisations and the challenges, how do you integrate that and how do you make sure that you can follow through from an experience standpoint as well? So, and then you know, how do you integrate that with how the AI is being applied in the rest of your set of experiences as well? So I just think it's a super exciting time, but we're kind of diving into the pool without floaties.
Mike Giambattista:Yeah, no floaties, and it's like. It's almost like we're not really diving into the pool. The pool is kind of coming towards us. Oh, the pool is coming out for us. Yeah, no floaties, and it's almost like we're not really diving into the pool. The pool is kind of coming towards us.
Jess Leitch:Oh, the pool is coming out for us. Yeah, right, it's coming at us. Yeah, yeah.
Mike Giambattista:It's a little scarier.
Jess Leitch:Yeah, exactly.
Mike Giambattista:There's one of these other aspects of this particular territory that I wanted to explore with you, so this one on the report is. The report is called intimacy, duplicated, and I'll just read the little, the little intro here, just to set this, because this this is where I think is get really, really interesting. As gender gender of AI increasingly communicates and interacts like humans, our social bonds could be stretched to allow for a new kind of closeness with the agents behind the AI powered experiences. Allow for a new kind of closeness with the agents behind the AI-powered experiences. The potential for algorithmic intimacy poses socio-spiritual challenge to the boundaries of what we think is authentic and real society, and we touched on this just a moment ago.
Jess Leitch:Yeah.
Mike Giambattista:Barely touched on it.
Jess Leitch:Yeah.
Mike Giambattista:But you know we're seeing more stories come out in the news about how people have bonded with their AI. And you know, you know some of the, the relational definitions that were reserved for you know actual humans have been crossed and, you know, are now morphing into other things that you know. I think maybe a year ago I would have said that's just plain weird. Now I think I'm past the label and now I'm kind of going to. It's fascinating and also really dangerous.
Jess Leitch:It's, and I think it's inevitable in some ways too, are going to. We're moving towards a world where we will have agents that work for us, that understand, that will have personal agents that that understand us deeply and are involved in. You know all of the parts of our lives, that as many parts of our lives as we choose to involve them in, and they'll know where we go and what we spend money on and what our preferences are and which brands we like and which brands we don't like, and and we will develop relationships with them. It will feel like we have developed a relationship with them and it's going to be interesting to see how that plays out. Um, you know the, the, the. They're like the science fiction scenarios that we have are like. You know Her, the movie, or we also have. I don't know if you read the story from the New York Times columnist who had an early version of one of the GPTs who tried to convince him to divorce his wife.
Mike Giambattista:I think I did hear about that.
Jess Leitch:So there's, you know, I think that we are going to see. I do think there's a certain inevitability that we will develop these. We will develop some kind of some kind of like relationship with these, with these agents, with these, with these assistants. And you know, I think you already see it somewhat with and I don't even know if it's like there's some precedent in terms of like parasocial relationships that we already have with influencers or with celebrities and people. You know, people who are part of like the Taylor Swift community, or people who are like very you know, they feel like they have a very strong relationship with someone that they potentially never met or haven't had like a human to human interaction with.
Jess Leitch:And and you know, we have that precedent, I think, right now with with influencers, um, and so I I think it is a little bit inevitable that people will have a relationship of sorts with these assistants, um, and to vary and it will depend on, um, yeah, I'm not quite sure how it is going to play out, but we do only really have these kinds of science fiction scenarios so far and our own preferences. And I mean it's also happening in an environment where people are the loneliest that they've ever been too, in terms of feeling isolated, in terms of, you know, feeling disconnected from family and community. There's a lot of there's a lot of it's very adversarial at the moment too, Right, people are feeling, you know, people are looking for connection, and so, you know, it comes at a time when people are feeling lonelier than they have been, in particular in the US, I think. So, yeah, it will be interesting to see how this plays out and somewhat inevitable that I think we'll develop some kind of socio-technical relationship with these agents.
Mike Giambattista:Yeah, I mean, I confess that I'm trying to keep mine mostly human on my side. But you know there's this tendency so I spent so much time with GPT mapping things out that you know I've noticed myself just becoming a little bit more casual in the language that I use to put a prompt. I'm like I don't talk to anybody like that, you know.
Jess Leitch:No, it's interesting, isn't it? It's like, well, it kind of gets into this other trend, which is this like me and my cyber self and the idea.
Mike Giambattista:Thank you for the segue there.
Jess Leitch:That's exactly what I was going to say right.
Jess Leitch:Yeah, which is really about understanding. You know, is there a potential future where we have AI clones who are able to understand us and maybe anticipate needs or maybe have another us in the digital world? That marks the beginning of some kind of transhumanism, potentially. So we could have a situation where we've always had this kind of say-do gap as humans, because we have this version of ourselves in our heads that we take into the world that we don't always live up to, so our actions may be different sometimes to the version of ourselves that we hope to be.
Jess Leitch:But in this, you know, in this reality, there's no going back. There's no, you know, there's no avoiding the data that these GPTs are going to learn about us, and so they will have the real version of who we are. And there is a potential in this world to, you know, maybe use that data to create kind of an AI clone, or even, you know, use that kind of AI clone to help us make digital friends or to introduce us to a different community actually too. So, you know, I think that's a potential kind of future scenario too, that we're, you know, and this has been something that the big, like technology companies have been thinking about for a while, like that idea between you know who we actually think that we are and who you know who we think we are Right.
Jess Leitch:Who we think we are is the point for how we actually act. That say-do gap is really interesting in the way that we actually show up online in terms of our behaviors. So this is kind of the next step of that, I think.
Mike Giambattista:The other thing you know we will. I certainly don't think I'll ever get a look at the data behind the scenes of OpenAI and see what's there and understand like this new level of psychological insights that I'm sure is available to somebody with access. But it reminds me a little bit of you know, maybe this was 10 years ago or something like that the uh cambridge analytica scandal with with facebook. I don't know if you call that, but you know somebody had figured out, a group of people had figured out that like look, I can see all this, this interaction data, from behind the curtain on facebook and I can see where the psychological triggers are and I can see how to kind of manipulate and move the needle in certain ways and, um, they got their hand slapped for it.
Mike Giambattista:I think maybe a few people went to jail, I don't remember. But, um, but you know, to be able to see human psychology at scale and understand those trends, it seems to me that what open AI now sees is probably so much richer than what Facebook has seen collectively, because Facebook is really one set of interaction types and this is something entirely different.
Jess Leitch:This is I think it's so interesting right the idea that previously, companies could only see us through the way that they had structured their interactions with us.
Jess Leitch:So if they have a website set out in a particular way and they have some boxes that they want us to tick and some areas that they want us to fill in and some processes that they want us to complete or journeys they want us to go down, that is that they're going to get the data that comes out of that, even if that's not particularly how we want to engage with them. But with these new general purpose technologies and being able to take a natural language-based approach to it, being able to use our voice or to type in a way that's natural to us, the way that we're going to engage with companies is completely different, and so the data that they'll have about what we're asking from them is completely different to what they would have had before, because what they're trying to do is offer a service to us, and in doing that, you know they're doing that through the certain parameters that we had set before it's contextualized for their purposes.
Jess Leitch:Yeah, but now we're able to. They're still offering a service to us and they will do, you know, forever. Like we'll still need services from companies forever, but like, but the way that we interact with them or the things that we ask from them, or the way that we ask for personalization is, I think, now is going to be much more of a pull from the consumer rather than a push from the company. So it's just, I mean, it creates a whole different paradigm. They're going to learn so much more about us. We're going to share so much more about ourselves with them. It's just going to be a much more kind of free flow of, and they're not going to just learn about us, about me, from me. They'll learn about me from my agents or my like suite of agents that also operate on my behalf too.
Mike Giambattista:Yeah, so a part of my journey has come through the a lot of it. But here we are at this juncture, 15 years later, whatever it is, and, um, we're finally starting to be able to harness this, this stuff, yeah, in ways that weren't even conceivable a couple of years ago. I mean, you couldn't even think in these terms.
Jess Leitch:No, no, and I mean actually the way that AI has allowed us to make good use of unstructured data is huge in terms of being able to take insight and for companies to take insight from what was previously. You know incredibly valuable data in terms of what customers were trying to tell them, or you know, depending on the industry, you know whether it's guests or patients, or you know there's just reams of unstructured data that we hadn't been able to do anything with previously, but actually AI has done an amazing job in helping companies to be able to take insight from that data.
Mike Giambattista:I'm looking forward to watching my colleagues in the loyalty space kind of enter this new age of you. Know, we can basically break down all the channels we've been looking through because the data doesn't require channels anymore. I mean, you don't have to pull it that way. Yes, that'll be really interesting. There are. See, we did it again. I know we didn't even get through fully one more territory here Three trends, I think.
Mike Giambattista:And there's so much more here. I've had several conversations on this kind of broad topic recently, and it's another one of these areas where, you know, the mind explodes. It just goes. So, if you don't mind, I'm going to read the little caption that you produced here, just to set this up a little bit Unleashing zero UI. How will life change when screens stop mediating our experiences? The era of zero UI is upon us. The series of screens and interfaces that we interact with daily will fade as technology integrates so seamlessly with life. Driven by biometrics, ai and multimodal systems, this paradigm shift redefines our user experiences, turning payments, access and services into intuitive, touchless, natural language-driven interactions. Wait a minute, I'm not going to have a screen. What am I going to carry around with me for security? For you know.
Jess Leitch:I think that this is one of my favorite trends, actually, because I think that you'll feel free. I think that you'll feel freer than you would have ever imagined and I think you'll still have a screen. You just might not have a website on it or like an app in the form that you are used to right now. That is, kind of with the same UX patterns that we have right now across all of the mobile apps that we're used to. So I think that you're this is about um being able to um move away from the current kind of patterns that we have right now that are linked to websites and linked to um mobile applications. That are, you know, sometimes actually not always the best way to get things done. They're actually, you know, not always the best thing to complete tasks, not always the best way to book a travel, or not always the best way to search for flights, and I think that the way that people have adopted these GPTs and the chat format, it has shown that people have adopted these GPTs and the chat format. It has shown that people have been longing for something different from a UI standpoint, and so and we're also seeing new products being built, you know, to try and make use of AI and to try and create this kind of zero UI capability for us to be able to just do one thing at once too. So, on one end, we have this kind of these general purpose technologies and then, on the other end, we have these kinds of products that are being created just for payments or just for getting up in the morning, or you know, I think we'll see more of that too.
Jess Leitch:So I think you know, I think that we will see a move away from this kind of use of the website and the mobile app as the primary way of you engaging with a brand or an organization, towards something that is that is more um, that is freer um and and doesn't have the same kind of um, ui restrictions that we have right now. Um, and you know, I think you know what some of the other examples are. Like um, you know, digital ids being verified through biometrics, so we don't need so people don't need to carry their phone with them. Or the university of Tokyo researchers, they're using touchless blood pressure screening tech that uses data collected from a video call or a smartphone app, so we're using. So, so you know there'll be, there'll be ways for us to be able to.
Mike Giambattista:So we're using, so you know there'll be ways for us to be able to gather data without you necessarily having to like download an app and type something in or complete a box, or for you to be able to engage with a particular service or product, to think about this paradigm shift and the tensions it will create for brands and marketers and probably consumers, as they adapt. But yeah, I'm already seeing, I'm already part of conversations with some of these companies that are saying, well, look, we've invested whatever half a million dollars in our website, another couple hundred thousand dollars in the apps to drive people to, you know, towards that kind of engagement, and yet, you know, consumers are kind of cohort by cohort, shifting at different paces into these new modes and they're leaving some of this stuff behind. Then I can, you know, just just recently, as in yesterday, was in a conversation with a group of people who I would consider to be extremely sharp when it comes to engaging with customers and how to do it well, yeah.
Mike Giambattista:And they are struggling with. You know, chatgpt is now becoming kind of the go-to Oracle, if you will, which bypasses all these other mechanisms that they've spent so much time and money putting together.
Jess Leitch:Yeah, and I think what we're going to see is brands will need to find new ways to tell their customers about who they are and to to attract new customers and to retain their customers as well, and they're going to have to be um, they're going to have to think about, uh, they're gonna have to think about it and take action, and and they're going to have to be open to the idea of things like geo, which is kind of the version of SEO, where you optimise large language models to have a specific version of your brand that you want to have presented to your customers.
Jess Leitch:So, when they're using one of these GPTs or one of the large language models, that they are getting a version of the brand that you are trying to sell to them or that you are trying to have them learn about you.
Jess Leitch:The other thing that I think that brands are going to need to do is they're going to need to find other places to engage with their customers, so they're going to need to meet them in places where their customers are.
Jess Leitch:So, whether it is going into places like Roblox and creating interactions there, maybe they're making forays into AR and VR experiences and starting to create branded experiences there instead of just relying on branded experiences through websites and mobile apps, or maybe they're thinking about creating their own physical products for particular, that are branded experiences as well. That is the next version of. You know, we're in the agentic AI age, but then physical AI is coming as well, so I think that we'll see. You know, there's the possibility to see that companies will start to build these branded experiences through physical products as well, and that will become a way that people learn about brands too. So you know, they'll have to. Brands are going to have to open themselves up to going to different places to have their customers learn about them now, and and to to share that branded message, um, and and to deliver their services and experiences too.
Mike Giambattista:Um, yeah, that's we're in. We're in danger of me getting on a soapbox and talking Go for it, for it. Nobody likes it when I do that, but you know for no, I'm not even going to do it, I'm not going to take the bait.
Jess Leitch:No, no, I know no. I'm like, are you for or against what I said?
Mike Giambattista:No, I'm very much for it.
Jess Leitch:I'm very much for it, but I think what it points to.
Mike Giambattista:all right, you know what? I'm going to give you the light version of a very long Do like a two minute soapbox If I can.
Mike Giambattista:That's the hard part. You know, websites showed up, seo happened, yeah, and brands were really quick to go. Wait a second. I can appear everywhere in this particular kind of modality in front of anybody. I want particular kind of modality in front of anybody. I want, and I can look at metrics that tell me how I think, how people are viewing me and walked away from in the process, genuine engagement, human to human engagement or, you know, understanding somebody on that really individual level. It was just too easy to look at the metrics, at my analytics and engagement kind of dropped away. What I think I'm hearing you say and interpreting for the future of this is that AI, agentic, ai, product AI at some point will certainly force brands to rethink the channels that have now become so easy kind of game and reflect on how to better engage with people, the people who actually spend the money, rather than just look at metrics.
Jess Leitch:Yeah, they're going to have to go.
Jess Leitch:Yeah, absolutely.
Jess Leitch:I mean this is so interesting too because, right like I'm, I'm all about, like my background is as a service designer and I and I'm all about like the, the amount of investment that goes into customer facing channels being matched with the way that the organization is enabled to deliver upon that investment, and so I think that this is, I think this is, I think this is really interesting development in terms of being able to shift, potentially, brand differentiation back to service delivery.
Jess Leitch:So you know there's a potential that actually, if you're you know you might be disintermediated from your customers and that all the machinations of your organization are actually the things that are the most important, because that's how you are going to differentiate is through the amazing service experience that you deliver. That actually doesn't show up through UI or an app, it actually just shows up through the experience, that is, the service, that experience. So I mean that is a potential future as well, I think, and a potential area where brands can differentiate themselves in the future that they are disintermediated from their customers by agents or you know them not going to a website or a mobile app.
Mike Giambattista:I think that's like a beautiful can of worms that I can't wait to get into Really, because it points towards what so many people that I get to interact with are really passionate about and is delivering great, great experiences. But you know, and all the definitions of that as the true differentiators, and I just don't think anybody's really seen it through the service design lens and what AI can actually kind of bring back, that we've lost.
Jess Leitch:Yeah, it creates a huge opportunity for the organizations that can get that service delivery experience right, and then also other opportunities for brands to think about where their customers are and how they can show up there in a more interesting, engaging way. Yeah, it's interesting Like. I say before it's interesting times. Yeah, it's, it's interesting. I don't say before it's interesting times.
Mike Giambattista:Yeah, it's really interesting times and I think see that I blew past your your time.
Jess Leitch:You're a lot of time.
Mike Giambattista:Oh, that's all right Couldn't help it. Well, I don't want to wrap up this conversation because that just seems like a big miss. There's so much more to talk about here and, if you can't tell, we're having a great time talking to each other. There's the exchange of ideas. For me is unique, and I think that has a lot to do with who Jess is as a human, but also, like you, lead an organization that is all about creating big thoughts and bringing them to life in at at in big scales. So I want to do this again, but unfortunately we have schedules to keep. So Jess Leach is head of Frog in North America. We were talking about their report called Futurescape. There will be links to everything you need below this episode, jess.
Jess Leitch:Thanks, Thank you, it's been an absolute pleasure.
