Building Around Human Behavior: Creating AI Products from Emotional Drivers

I’ve been obsessed with “insights” ever since I first learned about them while studying at Digital Invaders, a creative school from Grupo W. My teacher defined “insight” as “universal emotional motivators that give rise to a specific behavior.” They are the core for developing powerful concepts able to emotionally connect with the target public. This is what allows brands to make us feel something when advertising.

An insight isn’t a fact or statistic—it’s that “aha moment” when you suddenly understand why someone does what they do. You discover these moments through careful observation and hypothesis. It’s about uncovering what people don’t say out loud—their hidden desires, fears, or needs they might not even recognize themselves.

The power of insights

One of the first examples that I saw when studying them was related to a problem that Brazil was facing in 2013. They had a shortage of organ donors and the waiting list was endless. People were dying needlessly. It was very difficult to increase the pool of donors because there wasn’t even a box for organ donation on the driver’s license.

Brazil is a country that loves football (a.k.a. soccer in the USA). We all know the legendary Brazilian players like Ronaldinho, Neymar, Pelé, Roberto Carlos, etc. - As a Mexican, I enjoy when Mexico plays against them because that is a guarantee of a good match, but I always feel nervous for my team as Brazilian talent is superior; Mexico does what they can.

The thing is that as a Mexican, I support Mexico always, no matter if they do not play well or have an inferior team. Even if they suck and I know they suck, I will try to defend them because they represent my identity - my culture and homeland. If someday I claim to support Germany instead, despite their superior performance, I’d be lying to myself because they don’t connect to my roots. This passion reveals something fundamental about sports fans: we develop unbreakable loyalty.

This lifelong commitment extends beyond national teams to our local clubs as well. I chose Pumas UNAM as a child, and that decision became permanent. Now living in Nuevo León, I’m surrounded by passionate Monterrey and Tigres supporters, yet I remain loyal to Pumas. My team is my first love, and changing would feel like betraying a core part of myself.

Understanding this powerful emotional connection, Ogilvy Brazil saw an opportunity to fix the organ donor problem. Before finding the insight, they asked: “What are Brazilians passionate about?” The answer was football, with Sport Club Recife having some of the most devoted fans in the country. This led them to find the emotional connection that I was mentioning before (loyalty) and convert it in an insight (insights usually are defined in a single sentence):

“Sport Club Recife fans want to support their team forever—even after death.”

Using this insight, they created donor cards in partnership with the club. The cards featured powerful emotional messages that connected donation to team loyalty, such as: “I promise that your heart will keep beating for Sport Club Recife”, “Your eyes will keep watching Sport Club Recife matches.”, etc. They showed this campaign during matches, appealing to fans’ desire for eternal loyalty.

The campaign brilliantly transformed organ donation from a clinical decision into an act of ultimate fan dedication. The waiting list for organ transplants in Recife dropped to zero!!!

Insights for product innovation

Insights are most commonly used in communication or branding (at least consciously used), but they can also be used as an alternative way for creating products. The crucial distinction lies in the starting point where instead of beginning with logical solutions to functional problems, insight-driven products begin by understanding an emotional driver. So the product prioritizes connecting with emotions over just addressing rational needs.

I’ve grown frustrated watching tech companies obsess over features and functionality while completely missing what makes people tick. I know that all products solve some kind of need with some degree of emotion behind them - whether reducing stress, creating social connections, feel more freedom, etc. But there’s a real difference between developing a standard payment system and creating a tool that helps people finish work early to spend time with family.

The regular product starts with the question “What problem needs solving?” While the insight-driven product asks “What makes people behave this way, what can we create by using that emotional driver?” It’s not just about the functional outcome but about the emotional journey.

Take Spotify Wrapped as example - it’s not just showing you statistics about your music. It’s tapping into our desire to express our identity through what we listen to. The insight is about self-expression and nostalgia, not just music tracking.

Insight-Driven AI Products

I firmly believe that products built on genuine human insights will always outperform those built on technical capabilities alone. The future belongs to products that solve problems through understanding emotional drivers first, with AI serving as the powerful technology to bring these solutions to life.

Ideas born from insights have a lot more chances to succeed. For example, I worked for a startup where we used generative AI to show people how they would look with a specific hairstyle. The insight was simple: “people are afraid of trying new hairstyles because of the possibility they won’t look good on them.” So by showing them how a specific hairstyle would look on them before they do it, we could address that emotion and encourage people to try. The project worked well; it was even sold to ULTA, one of the biggest beauty brands in the USA.

This experience just encouraged me to continue thinking from an emotion-driven viewpoint. Instead of starting by trying to solve a technical problem or finding a market niche, I now focus on identifying emotions that drive human behavior (these are our insights) and building technology around them. This has become my north star as an AI engineer.

My background bridges two worlds that rarely connect: the emotional depth of marketing insights and the technical capabilities of AI development. While many AI engineers can build sophisticated technologies, they often start with the solution rather than the human emotion behind the need. Conversely, many insight specialists identify powerful emotional drivers but lack the technical skills to implement AI-powered products that respond to these insights.

I’m still early in this journey, exploring how to apply AI to products born from genuine human insights. Yet, I’m convinced that the future belongs to solutions that address the emotional drivers behind our behaviors—especially now that tools like Claude, Bolt, and ChatGPT have democratized creation, allowing anyone to build without programming expertise.

My approach is straightforward: start with understanding the “why” behind human behavior, then leverage AI as the “how.” This philosophy guides me toward creating products that forge connections at an emotional level, resonating with users’ hearts rather than merely offering technical functionality.