Hello Reader,

Here's what we're talking about with clients this week...

1: Our robo advisor: A lesson in skipping UX research

​Source: LogRocket​

A fintech team learned a costly lesson after spending four months building a robo-advisor feature that flopped, achieving less than 3% user adoption. The failure stemmed from assumption-driven development rather than understanding actual user needs and behaviors.

• Research beats assumptions: The robo-advisor was built on stakeholder hunches and competitor envy, while a research-backed in-app feedback feature achieved 30-40% engagement and boosted app ratings from 3.0 to 4.5 stars.

• Listen to understand complexity: User research revealed the customer base had shifted from tech-savvy millennials to Gen X users who needed guidance, not automated recommendations—a nuance that stakeholder assumptions completely missed.

• Simple solutions empower users: Instead of complex AI-powered quizzes, contextual feedback prompts and automated re-engagement emails addressed real friction points, fixing hidden process issues and creating continuous improvement loops.

2: Sam Altman said, “Don’t make ChatGPT your therapist”, so I designed MindBubble — An UX Case Study

​Source: Medium (@design-bootcamp)​

Sam Altman’s warning about AI therapy inspired the creation of MindBubble, a thoughtfully designed mental wellness app that prioritizes genuine human connection over artificial intelligence.

• Human-Centered Design: MindBubble emerged from recognizing the limitations of AI in mental health support, focusing instead on facilitating authentic connections between users and qualified therapists.

• Thoughtful UX Process: The designer employed comprehensive user research and iterative prototyping to create an interface that empowers users to access mental health resources without sacrificing the spontaneity and joy of genuine human interaction.

• Accessible Mental Wellness: By curating the right tools and eliminating unnecessary complexity, MindBubble demonstrates how smart design can make professional mental health support more approachable and less intimidating for those seeking help.

3: The future of customer experience: Embracing agentic AI

​Source: McKinsey & Company​

McKinsey explores how agentic AI—autonomous systems that act on behalf of users—is poised to revolutionize customer experience by creating more personalized, proactive, and efficient interactions across industries.

• Intelligent automation transforms service delivery: Agentic AI moves beyond chatbots to anticipate customer needs, execute complex tasks autonomously, and resolve issues before customers realize problems exist—creating abundance in service quality while maintaining simplicity in user interactions.

• Personalization reaches unprecedented scale: These systems analyze vast behavioral data to deliver hyper-personalized experiences for millions simultaneously, understanding diverse customer perspectives and filtering decisions through multiple viewpoints to serve communities more effectively.

• Strategic implementation requires thoughtful design: Success depends on balancing automation with human oversight, ensuring AI agents operate within ethical boundaries while empowering both customers and service teams to accomplish their goals with greater joy and spontaneity.