Psychology of Gen AI

• Future States & AI
• Article

Finding Your Brand’s AI Niche: How Prompt Nuance Shapes Product Recommendations

• Psychology of Gen AI
• ARF; MSI

As generative AI becomes a key part of how consumers discover and evaluate products, a new question emerges for marketers: how can they ensure their brands show up in AI-driven recommendations? This ARF and MSI experiment, the second phase of the seventh study in the Psychology of Gen AI series, reveals that even small changes in prompt wording can significantly influence which brands appear—helping non-market dominant brands carve out visibility by aligning with specific product attributes rather than competing broadly for “best” status.

• Article

Is AI a Neutral Proxy for Real People?

Comparing “real” people’s opinions with those generated by AI finds that models often mistake salience for truth. Read more »

• Article

The Psychology of Gen AI: How AI Decides What's Best: The Psychology Behind LLM Product Recommendations

As generative AI tools increasingly shape how consumers search, shop, compare and evaluate products, understanding how they make recommendations has become critical for marketers. This eighth abridged report in our ongoing Psych of Gen AI series examines how large language models (LLMs), like ChatGPT and Claude, determine what qualifies as the “best” product—and reveals that their recommendations are far from neutral. Instead, they tend to rely on narrow, repetitive sets of familiar brands and structured response patterns that may reinforce existing market leaders. The findings highlight important implications for brand visibility, competitive dynamics and how marketers should position their products in AI-driven environments.

• Article

The Psychology of Gen AI: How AI Decides What's Best: The Psychology Behind LLM Product Recommendations: Deep Dive

As generative AI tools increasingly shape how consumers search, shop, compare and evaluate products, understanding how they make recommendations has become critical for marketers. This eighth deep dive report in our ongoing Psych of Gen AI series examines how large language models (LLMs), like ChatGPT and Claude, determine what qualifies as the “best” product—and reveals that their recommendations are far from neutral. Instead, they tend to rely on narrow, repetitive sets of familiar brands and structured response patterns that may reinforce existing market leaders. The findings highlight important implications for brand visibility, competitive dynamics and how marketers should position their products in AI-driven environments.

• Targets & Segments
• Article

What AI Recommends—and Why: Inside the Logic of “Best” Product Choices

• Psychology of Gen AI
• ARF; MSI

As generative AI tools increasingly shape how consumers search, shop, compare and evaluate products, understanding how they make recommendations has become critical for marketers. This seventh experiment in our ongoing Psychology of Gen AI series, is the first phase in a study that examines how large language models (LLMs), like ChatGPT and Claude, determine what qualifies as the “best” product—and reveals that their recommendations are far from neutral. Instead, they tend to rely on narrow, repetitive sets of familiar brands and structured response patterns that may reinforce existing market leaders. The findings highlight important implications for brand visibility, competitive dynamics and how marketers should position their products in AI-driven environments.

• Article

How to Prompt AI Effectively

New data confirms that AI prompts impact responses and also shows how to mitigate biased results. Read more »

• Article

The Psychology of Gen AI: Subtle Signals, Gendered Outputs Phase: Bias in Generative AI: Deep Dive

As generative AI tools become embedded in advertising and marketing research workflows, questions about bias increasingly extend beyond outputs to the interaction itself. This deep dive report examines whether gendered patterns can enter AI through subtle differences in how prompts are phrased. By systematically varying linguistic styles using psychologically grounded traits, the research shows that implicit, style-based, gender cues shape AI prompt construction more strongly than explicit, gender labels, with important implications for how bias may propagate upstream in AI-assisted marketing and research applications.

• Article

The Psychology of Gen AI: Subtle Signals, Gendered Outputs Phase: Bias in Generative AI

As generative AI tools become embedded in advertising and marketing research workflows, questions about bias increasingly extend beyond outputs to the interaction itself. This abridged report examines whether gendered patterns can enter AI through subtle differences in how prompts are phrased. By systematically varying linguistic styles using psychologically grounded traits, the research shows that implicit, style-based, gender cues shape AI prompt construction more strongly than explicit, gender labels, with important implications for how bias may propagate upstream in AI-assisted marketing and research applications.