👋 Hey friends,

It’s that time of year again — the world slows down, inboxes fill with glittering offers, and somehow even your phone feels merrier.

But here’s what most people don’t realize: behind every “perfect gift” suggestion and last-minute sale notification is a network of algorithms quietly choreographing the holiday rush.

This year, the biggest story in retail wasn’t who offered the best deals — it was how AI learned to feel festive.

Across the web, large language models and recommendation engines didn’t just predict what we’d buy.

They anticipated why we buy — and in the process, turned Christmas into the most emotionally intelligent shopping season ever.

So today, we’re peeling back the wrapping paper on what might be the most human moment in tech yet.

In This Edition, We’ll Explore:

— Naseema Perveen

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This Christmas wasn’t powered by discounts, it was powered by data that understood joy.

AI didn’t just make shopping smarter. It made it warmer, predicting not what people buy, but why they buy.

A decade ago, holiday shopping online meant endless searching, comparing, and second-guessing.

Now, it feels like the internet already knows what we need.

You open a store app, and the first recommendation feels perfect.
You browse for your sister’s gift, and it reminds you of the cozy candle you got her last year.

You pause for a second on a jacket — and an ad appears a few minutes later, “25% off — just for you.”

That’s not luck.
That’s machine learning meeting emotion.

A few numbers tell the story:

The numbers all whisper the same truth:
AI didn’t make shopping colder.
It made it more human.

If 2023 was the year AI entered the store, 2025 is the year it started decorating the shelves.

The algorithms don’t just show options — they sense intent.
They learn the emotional weight of a word like “surprise.”

When it works, it doesn’t feel like code.
It feels like kindness.

Underneath this digital cheer are models trained on patterns of behavior, tone, and timing.
AI isn’t just automating what to sell — it’s predicting how to make people feel understood.

A product designer at a major retailer put it perfectly:

“We stopped optimizing for clicks. We started optimizing for delight.”

Here’s how it’s working behind the scenes:

1️⃣ Generative persuasion
Holiday ads are now co-written by AI copywriters like Jasper and Typeface.
They generate emotional variants tuned to each user’s tone.

Every line is trained to reflect not demographics, but sentiment.

2️⃣ Recommendation systems that actually remember
Modern engines detect gifting patterns, not just purchase frequency.
If you buy educational toys each year, the model knows your audience.
If you add a second pair of mittens, it might suggest matching scarves — not because it’s seasonal, but because it fits your rhythm.

3️⃣ Predictive logistics
AI supply systems now forecast regional demand days before it spikes.
That’s how “out of stock” became almost obsolete this season.

Together, these systems don’t just sell — they serve.
What used to feel like coincidence now feels like care.

Every Christmas campaign aims for the same four emotions: joy, nostalgia, gratitude, connection.
In 2025, those aren’t guessed — they’re modeled.

Through a branch of research called affective computing, AI learns emotional resonance from language, tone, and even emoji usage.

In one campaign study, when customers mentioned “missing home,” AI shifted visuals to cozy, family themes. When they searched “quick gifts,” it swapped to fast, helpful tones.

This is personalization evolving into empathy at scale.

Behind every cheerful interface sits a complex orchestra of systems designed to make technology feel human.

Here’s what’s powering this year’s magic:

When it’s done right, this doesn’t manipulate — it multiplies meaning.

The most successful brands this season didn’t optimize for traffic.
They optimized for memory.

Because while AI has always been about scale, this year it scaled something different — intimacy.

Think about it:

That’s the real evolution.
Not automation, but anticipation with empathy.

As one growth PM put it:

“We stopped trying to make AI feel smart. We started trying to make it feel sincere.”

For product teams, Christmas isn’t just a season — it’s a stress test for emotion at scale.
Millions of micro-interactions, all happening at once.
And behind them, one question every product team should ask:

How do you design systems that don’t just perform — but feel?

AI quietly answered that question this year. The same models powering ads, recommendations, and logistics also revealed a deeper truth: technology that anticipates emotion wins.

Here’s what this season taught us about building products that grow — and resonate.

People don’t remember metrics. They remember moments.

When shoppers open an app and it instantly recalls what they gifted last year — that’s delight.
When your platform notices someone’s routine and nudges them at just the right time — that’s design empathy.

Efficiency gets you a user.
Delight keeps them loyal.

The best teams treat delight like a KPI — tracking joy events, not just clicks.
Ask yourself:

Where does your product make someone smile, pause, or feel seen?

Those are your retention loops in disguise.

We often talk about “personalization” as a feature. But the real challenge is feeling personal — at scale.

AI can help, not by faking emotion, but by identifying where emotion already exists.
Sentiment analysis tools (like MonkeyLearn or Cohere sentiment APIs) can flag frustration, confusion, or happiness in feedback.

Instead of reacting to volume, respond to feeling.
A “thank you” in a user review should trigger a different workflow than a “this keeps crashing.”
Small emotional signals often outperform large technical leaps.

Empathy isn’t about slowing down. It’s about tuning in.

Great product design doesn’t wait for users to ask.
It learns their rhythms, predicts their needs, and quietly clears friction before it’s felt.

That’s what holiday AI systems did best this year — from predicting delivery surges to surfacing the “perfect gift” just before a user searched for it.

Imagine applying that mindset to your product:

The future of retention isn’t reactivity — it’s preemption.
Your product’s intuition is your next competitive edge.

Emotions are data. Treat them as such.

During the holidays, successful teams fed emotional analytics into every stage of the funnel — from design reviews to campaign copy.
They didn’t just ask what users did. They asked how they felt while doing it.

When teams bring emotional context into sprint planning, decisions change.
A “frustrated” heatmap from customer feedback can reprioritize roadmap features faster than any OKR meeting ever could.

This isn’t “soft.” It’s strategic clarity.
Emotion is a signal of friction — or of love.

Christmas might be the most obvious season of joy, but every user journey has its own moments of meaning.
The student landing their first client.
The freelancer finishing a project.
The founder shipping a long-delayed release.

If you zoom out, product usage is a series of small celebrations.
The most resilient companies design for those, not just conversions.

Add tiny rituals, surprises, or acknowledgments inside your product.
Celebrate completion. Reflect progress. Encourage gratitude.
Because when your users feel seen — they stay.

At its core, this holiday season reminded us that technology isn’t about automation. It’s about amplification — of emotion, connection, and meaning.

The same systems that help people shop smarter can also teach us how to build more human-centered products.

Delight scales.
Empathy compounds.
Anticipation retains.

That’s the growth loop worth building into 2026.

Amazon’s Emotional Forecasting
When late-night shoppers seemed stressed, AI shifted “Buy now” prompts to “Still time to make it special.”
Conversion rose 19%.

Shopify’s Smart Holiday Engine
Shopify merchants using AI prompt-based copy tools saw 23% higher engagement during peak season.

Etsy’s Story Cards
AI-generated product stories (“crafted by a mother of three in Vermont…”) doubled time on page.
Emotional context, not discounts, drove retention.

For decades, we used tech to scale efficiency.
2025 reminded us it can scale emotion just as effectively.

Done responsibly, AI helps brands act more human — listening better, remembering longer, responding faster.

The future of product growth is this:
Systems that are as empathetic as they are efficient.

At first glance, it might seem like algorithms have stolen some of the magic.
But look closer — they’ve actually made it more visible.

When your favorite store remembers what color you love — that’s not surveillance. That’s service.
When AI helps you write a card that says exactly what your heart means — that’s not cheating. That’s connection amplified.

This year, AI didn’t replace the warmth of the holidays.
It helped us scale it.

You can’t automate empathy — but you can design for it.
You can’t outsource love — but you can give technology the tools to mirror it.

AI isn’t here to replace the human touch.
It’s here to clear the clutter so our best intentions shine through.

This season, let’s remember:
The most powerful product we’ll ever build isn’t a model or an algorithm.
It’s trust.

And that — in its own quiet, luminous way — is the real magic of Christmas.

— Naseema

Writer & Editor, the AIJ newsletter

That’s all for now. And, thanks for staying with us. If you have specific feedback, please let us know by leaving a comment or emailing us. We are here to serve you!

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