Would You Like Fries With That Data?

Click here to watch the video!

Someone in a meeting last week put a number on a slide. Big number. Confident number. The room nodded.

Then I asked where it came from.

Silence. Not the guilty kind. The honest kind. Nobody knew. Somebody had found it, somebody had pasted it, and by the time it reached that slide it had the shine of a fact. It wasn't one.

We've built a drive-through for data. Pull up, place your order, grab the bag, hit the gas. Nobody checks what's inside until they're already three exits down the road.

And the thing about a drive-through is that speed is the whole point. You're not supposed to slow down. You're not supposed to ask what's in the sauce.

I get the appeal. There's more information within arm's reach than at any moment in human history, and it feels like a superpower. It feels productive. It feels fast.

And fast is exactly the problem.

In the age of AI, this problem has only become worse.

But there is a trust issue with AI! 54% of consumers don't trust AI for complex tasks, since it makes mistakes on simple tasks! For executives, that jumps up to 64%!

And 7 in 10 consumers say that AI is making it increasingly difficult to figure out what is true or not true!

So slow down at the window. Just for a second. Ask the three questions:

Where is this from?

Who took the survey?

How are the questions asked?

The best people I've worked with are the ones who pause and read the label before they put it on a slide with their name underneath.

Grab-and-go is a fine way to buy lunch. It's a terrible way to build a decision that matters.

So the next time a number lands in front of you, clean and confident and ready to serve — do the one thing the drive-through was designed to make you skip. Ask what's in the bag.

Source: Lisa W. Miller's proprietary research, The Business of Joy, comprised of nearly 100,000 U.S. representative sample consumer interviews

Lisa W. Miller is a consumer insights researcher, strategist, and founder of LWM Associates in 2008. She's a former VP of Innovation at Brinker International and VP of Insights & Strategy at Frito-Lay/PepsiCo. Since 2020, her ongoing Journey Back to Joy research has surveyed more than 97,500 U.S. consumers, tracking economic sentiment, Gen Z, consumer behaviors, and workplace dynamics, as well as custom research she's conducted directly for client companies. Her work has been featured in the Wall Street Journal and in more than 300 media appearances. She hosts the podcast and newsletter The Business of Joy, exploring how leaders and consumers navigate an uncertain world. Her latest research, a 6,500-person study fielded January through June 2026, tracks how GLP-1 adoption is reshaping consumer behavior across 30-plus industries.

For interviews, contact Lisa at Lisa@lwm-associates.com.