A Countertrend You Can't Ignore

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What if, after spending 10s of 1000s of dollars, sometimes even millions, on digital transformation tech stacks and AI to improve efficiency, convenience and reduce friction, which it can, but what if the unintended consequences is that consumers and customers are feeling more anxious, more divided and more disconnected. That's what we're going to be talking about today.

In today's chart of the week, we're going to be looking at the trends and counter trends around technology, and as technology is accelerating, how maybe some humans are just not emotionally ready for that, and what we need to do. And importantly, the trends and counter trends. If the counter trends, you don't pay attention to, they can become blind spots that can impact your business going forward. So let's dive in.

I want to refresh on some of the things that we talked about last week in the chart of the week, New Year's resolutions. 22% of Americans are basically wanting to put down their phones and reduce screen time, and that was up six points versus last year. So that is definitely a growing trend. Check out this LinkedIn post that I did earlier this week, there is a trend called analog bag. And what that is is, instead of pulling out your phone when you have some spare time, you actually bring things to do instead, whether it's a journal, a book and a printed magazine, yes, a coloring book, crossword puzzles, all of these things to help reduce the temptation to doom scroll on your phone. But let's look at some new data.

About half of Americans are actually highly concerned about where AI is going, and about half are concerned about the algorithms in social media, making them very anxious. But here's the counter trend, over a third, 36% are actually more excited about the possibilities and the positive impact of AI on humanity. So right here, we see this dynamic tension in this divide about those that are really concerned about humanity in the connection and those that are actually pretty excited about the innovation.

But here's the thing, within your customer base, they both exist. Within your employee base, they both exist. And honestly, sometimes within each of us, they both both exist. So those are the things that we have to watch for.

So what's the so what now what? It doesn't mean the technology is bad, or that AI needs to come to a screeching halt, or the company should stop innovating. But what it does mean is that when it comes to experience strategy, technology alone is not enough. We have to be cognizant of this counter trend and ask yourself, Where do you fall? Are you more excited about the possibilities of where technology is going, or does it make you uneasy? And how do your customers feel? How do your employees feel? And these are questions that you need to understand to be successful going forward.

If this content is interesting and you want to dig further, we're hosting a virtual Lunch and Learn on January 28 to unpack the key trends and counter trends that you need to be aware of for 2026 and those counter trends, if you're not, they can really become blind spots, so I hope you'll join us. Check out the link here to register!