Would You Know (and Care) If ChatGPT Wrote Your Birthday Card?

Your answer tells me everything about which economic lane you're in. In 2026, there's no shame in either answer. But these are two very different lanes, and this year will reward the brands that pick one with conviction.

On one hand: convenience. Good enough can be good enough. Fast, cheap, AI-generated when the gesture matters more than the craft. A card that arrives on time with a thoughtful message beats radio silence.

On the other hand: craft and the premium of human touch. Handwritten with a fountain pen on limited edition recycled card stock by someone who actually knows you. Provenance matters. The making matters. The time invested is the gift.

What's dying is the middle ground.

In Part 7 we explored how brands must flirt with algorithms to reach humans. But here's the uncomfortable follow-up: those algorithms are judging you on what you do, not what you say. Your sustainability claims? Meaningless. Your supply chain data? That's what counts.

And as we saw in Part 6 [LINK], direction beats precision. The shift toward these two economic lanes is directional and clear. The timing? Still emerging. But the organisations that sense this early enough to prepare, rather than react, will own the next decade.

The Great Divide: Two Lanes, Many Cousins

We are entering a decade defined by economic forces pulling in opposite directions. One driven by price and efficiency. The other by brand, craft and scarcity. These are not moral positions. They are economic realities shaped by what people can afford, what they value, and what the moment demands.

2026 will create ample space for both extremes and all their cousins to thrive.

There is no middle ground. But there are many lanes within each camp. AI will accelerate this divide while simultaneously creating new territory on both sides.

The Convenience Lane: When Good Enough Is Good Enough

Radical efficiency. Predictive replenishment, seamless automation, intelligent agents making purchases before users even notice the need. AI enables reliability, speed and the removal of effort. This is the world of cheaper, faster, more convenient. And hallelujah, this year she didn't forget! Sometimes that's exactly what you need. The birthday card that ChatGPT wrote but arrived on time. Much better than the handwritten one she never managed to send.

The Craft Lane: The Premium of Human Touch

Experiences that paradoxically feel more human. Intuitive personalisation, intelligent tools that give creators more time for imagination, digital experiences that elevate what makes the brand unique. Here AI brings warmth, individuality and the sense that technology is amplifying care, not replacing it.

This is the world of craft, provenance and limited editions that matter. Where the making is part of the meaning. Dr. Martens is leaning hard into this lane. You just need to set foot in the new store on Brewer Street in Soho to see how repair over replacement and durability over disposability are celebrated. They are giving craft and humanity a big push, positioning worn-in boots as badges of lived experience rather than items to replace. Love what you are crafting Neil Cummings & team! 

The brands stuck in between, offering neither exceptional speed nor exceptional soul, will simply disappear.

When You Can't Tell the Difference (And When It Doesn't Matter)

Here's where it gets interesting. AI is getting good enough that you genuinely might not know if that birthday card was written by ChatGPT or your best friend who happens to be really good with words.

For some products, the difference might not matter at all. A perfectly written thank-you note that feels sincere? Who cares if an AI helped draft it, as long as the human edited it with genuine care.

For others, the difference is everything. A wedding vow. A sympathy card. A recommendation letter for someone you mentored. These are moments where craft, time invested, and human authorship are not just nice-to-haves. They are the entire point. And the spelling mistakes are welcomed too. AI is learning how to fake those as well. Of course it is.

The question is not whether AI will get better. It will. The question is: which products and experiences demand human craft, and which ones are better served by machine efficiency? Brands that try to fake it, performing craft while delivering efficiency or vice versa, will get exposed faster than ever.

Making Your Values Tangible

Remember from Part 1: we are terrible at prediction, but excellent at sensing patterns. The pattern here is clear: authenticity wins, but only if it's verifiable. We see this in organisations who treat brand experience as the primary expression of who they are. Speaking to the brilliant Richard Bowden for Future Platforms' upcoming 2026 Digital Loyalty Index, we learned how Boots created a dedicated menopause information hub after spotting a glaring void in accessible support. They saw women before they saw a marketing vertical. That's choosing a lane with conviction.

When Bulmers launched Secret Orchard, they didn't run ads about Irish pub culture. They became it: gigs, festivals, championing emerging artists. The experience was the brand. The brand was the experience.

These are not grand gestures. They are daily choices that embody values. And in the agent-shaped web we explored in Part 7 [LINK], those choices must be demonstrable through data and facts, not just declared through language.

Digital Product Passports: When Your Jacket Tells Its Own Story

Your jacket might tell better stories than your creative agency. And soon, it will have the receipts to prove it.

Digital Product Passports arrive between 2026 and 2030. Most brands will treat them as compliance theatre. The smart ones will turn them into competitive weapons.

Nicholas Roope has been my muse on this. He sees the potential: not just regulatory tick-boxes, but theatres of provenance, delight, and transparency. Imagine your coat telling you who made it, where the cotton came from, how to repair it in 2027, and how to resell it in 2028.

Burberry is already exploring this territory. Picture comparing two identical coats: one shows you its entire supply chain in-app, the other offers vague sustainability claims in 8-point font. Which one feels trustworthy? The answer isn't ethical. It's experiential.

Products have become narrative surfaces. A jacket can now introduce you to its maker, its materials, its journey. A pair of shoes can reveal its repair history or resale potential. This goes beyond marketing collateral. Products have always communicated belonging, affiliation, identity. What's new is that now they've become literate. They can articulate their own stories in ways that are both felt and verified.

When a consumer chooses the one with richer digital provenance, they are responding to the feeling of truth embedded in that story.

The Uncomfortable Question

So back to that birthday card. If ChatGPT can write something so thoughtful, so personal, so perfectly calibrated to your sense of humour that you genuinely can't tell the difference, does it matter? 

And if your best friend used ChatGPT to help them articulate feelings they genuinely have but struggle to express, is that cheating or collaboration? The answer probably depends on whether they told you.

Transparency might be the only currency that matters in a world where craft and convenience are increasingly indistinguishable. The brands that win won't necessarily be the ones with the best AI or the most authentic craft. They will be the ones honest about which lane they are in.

Integrity, as we are learning, is the sum of choices repeated over time. And the choice to be honest about what you are is the foundation of everything else.

What Comes Next

In Part 9, we will explore how AI is reshaping the way we navigate the world, and what a productive partnership between human intuition and machine intelligence actually looks like in practice.

Because as we approach the end of this series, it has become clear that intuition is far bigger than the individual. It is relational. Collective. And increasingly, it involves machines working alongside humans in ways we are only beginning to understand.

The choices ahead are many, and they are consequential. The most important choice? Pick your lane and own it with pride.