Uncertainty is paralyzing.

It’s been true in government for a decade. Elections decided by a few basis points – a relatively recent commonality – leave politicians playing defense, worried more about who they alienate than who they inspire. The result is inertia, and nobody being inspired.

Corporate America is inflicted too. When’s the last time you remember a major brand taking a big risk? Maybe e.l.f. Beauty spending gazillions on a Super Bowl commercial? Or NBC hanging their Olympic hopes on Snoop Dogg? Exceptions prove the rule.  

You could say people are swinging bold at AI, but are they really? There’s been such a tsunami around it, the only precarious move would be to jettison the bandwagon altogether. Nobody’s getting fired for investing in AI – at least not now – even if they have no idea how to monetize it.  

And that’s the operative criteria: Could I get fired for this? 

We belong to an industry group called Outsell which, among many other valuable services, surveys hundreds of businesses like ours to spot trends. In one of their recent reports, they asked respondents about their biggest sales challenges. The top answer by a mile was “slow customer decision-making.” It’s a growing phenomenon. And we see it in spades, both in our own sales and in the decisions our data steers clients to make. 

What used to fall under the realm of unilateral decision-making now involves extensive consensus-building, not necessarily because it’s required, but because people making the decisions want air cover. It’s safer to fuck something up if others are culpable too. They can’t fire everybody, right?

Two things are driving this paralysis: First, the steady drumbeat of RIFs and reorgs across brands, media, and tech have reminded everyone of their professional mortality. It’s best to keep your head down. This condition is compounded by investor demands for frugality, such that every dollar spent is under far greater scrutiny. That’s normal business-cycle stuff.

Second and unprecedented is, well, how unprecedented everything is. From the first day of the pandemic, all the rules, all the truisms, flew out the window. Historical patterns you could set your watch to shattered. Even the most reliable economists and prognosticators have been flipping coins for four years.

Thus, business leaders remain flaccid because their crystal balls are broken. Meanwhile, their employees are uninspired – and laying low – because looking for a new job sucks. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a slow-down in new startups, at least once the AI chickens come home to roost. 

Why take the risk? 

(Answer Key: Because risk-takers win)

Here’s what we’re seeing: 

Consumer confidence did exactly what you should’ve expected over the past two weeks. After a historically steep climb in its last reading, our Economic Sentiment Index was flatter than my singing voice when I drink too much. It verifies what we suspected two weeks ago – that the big jump in confidence, driven mostly by Dems, was an emotional reaction to the Biden-Harris swap. We’ve reached equilibrium. The underlying numbers reveal a bit more nuance, with views on the job market cooling, while expectations for major purchases and housing improved (due to rising hopes for rate cuts before year-end).

The impact of GLP-1 drugs is beginning to show up in apparel. With now over 115,000 active Ozempic or other GLP-1 users in our database, the insights we’re able to uncover are getting richer by the day. This week, we previewed a couple of findings from our most recent GLP-1 Consumer Tracker, including a noticeable increase in the number of users who order the drugs online and a significant uptick in their consumption of fruit, vegetables, and protein. We also teased some of our latest data about clothes-buying among GLP-1ers – highlighting a big jump in those who plan to purchase new items, especially skirts and dresses in the next 3 months. To see the results by retailer, demographic group, or more, inquire about it here.   

A majority of Americans, across all party lines, supported the recent U.S.-Russia prisoner swap. In our 3 Things to Know this week, we looked at public reaction to the 24-person prisoner exchange that brought home journalist Evan Gershkovich, among others. Despite some of the unsavory individuals we swapped in return, U.S. adults approved of the move by over 2:1, albeit with much higher numbers among Democrats. We also dug into the results from a couple of food-related surveys we ran, namely the recent listeria outbreak in sandwich meat and revelations about heavy metal contamination in dark chocolate. Sadly, those are two of my favorite things. 

As sports betting continues to grow and grow, the average size of online wagers is shrinking. The results of this study won’t surprise you if you think about them. It stands to reason that the earliest adopters of online sportsbooks would be your heartier and more experienced gamblers. Now, as the more casual newbies wade into the pool, they’re playing for smaller stakes. Naturally, the economic climate is likely playing a part in that trend too. The other thing that won’t surprise you is the extent to which the NFL absolutely dominates other sports when it comes to the betting action it attracts. College sports are a distant second.

Americans have a french fry obsession. In a bit of lighter (if fattier) news, we published data this week on the nearly ubiquitous affinity for potatoes among our fellow countryfolk. A whopping 96% of U.S. adults say they enjoy spuds in some form or another – off the top of my head, I can’t think of another food that would score that high. Among those tater-lovers, french fries are the most popular type, followed closely by mashed potatoes (my personal ranking goes: tater tots, french fries, hash browns). Also, McDonald’s destroys the QSR competition in the fry popularity department. Read more about the rising favorability of sweet potato fries and other potato factoids here.  

We launched an exciting new AI-powered product this week to take pressure off short-handed newsrooms. You can read all about DataScribe here. We initially built it to field all the requests we get from media outlets for data to support their stories. Instead of asking us, they can now simply query DataScribe with a prompt like “Write me a 400-word news article about the most popular sports betting apps, with a focus on the differences by age and region.” It then crawls our database for stats and produces a rough draft for writers to edit and adapt at will. Our publisher partners can also use it to produce hundreds of pieces of “evergreen” content to generate free search traffic while they sleep. No, I won’t be using it for this email. Or maybe I will. You’ll never know. 

More awesomeness from the InsightStore™:

The most popular questions this week: 

Do you think artificial intelligence will someday fully replace human weather forecasters?

Which of the following types of airline passengers are you?

Are you typically patient or impatient at stoplights?

How often do you play golf?

Do you wear ankle, quarter, or crew socks?

Answer Key: Yes; Desperately seeking legroom; Very impatient; Not nearly as much as I used to or want to; ankle or no-show.

Hoping you’re well.

JD