All Natural, Strategic Slop and The Automated Shopping Era. Accidental Insights is invading your inbox.

Hello. Apparently, the vast majority of people who read this newsletter (or at least the female half) are working in SPAM: social media, PR, advertising, and marketing.

New work alert: I’m really happy to share the updated brand for Model ML. I was in charge of brand positioning, together with great people at E&W Design Studio, indie copywriter Tom Tytherleigh, and, most importantly an amazing client who truly understands the power of brand as a business driver.

The most interesting things I’ve read, seen, thought about, or debated the last two weeks. High and low.

ALL NATURAL. AI-generated tasteslop has made people search for what truly looks human. Messy handwriting and scribbled drawings: Picador’s new Bolaño reissues look like prison tattoos, Charli XCX announced an NYC event with a handwritten note, and AI notetaker Granola has rebranded with a hand-drawn logo. Writers are also taking it to extremes to prove they don’t use AI. A Brooklyn-based copywriter claims she “use aggressively casual language, like, ‘hey yo, for real,’ or drop a bunch of exclamation points,” just to prove it’s written by her and not Claude. According to analytics firm Trendalytics, this year’s Coachella ‘influencer aesthetic‘ is out, and people are opting for the 'regular attendee' aesthetic instead. The beauty world is also catching on. Plastic surgery reversals are up, natural nails are now a manicure flex. Wanna go full natural? You are not alone. Naturism has made its return as a way to fight body image ideals.

STRATEGIC SLOP. Is artificial intelligence replacing strategists? Not yet. Researchers at Esade, Sydney, and NYU Stern looked into the matter by testing GPT-5, Claude, Gemini, Grok across seven of the most fundamental strategy tensions. The result? They produced with “trendslop” – completely undifferentiated answers, all based on whatever buzzword is trendy right now. Therefore, AI is more suited to expanding options and surfacing blind spots than to making choices. Overdoing it on AI as a strategy consultant can also be very embarrassing. EY had to pull back a study on loyalty programs since it became apparent that it was partly hallucinated by AI.

THE AUTOMATED SHOPPING ERA. Agentic commerce might have its mainstream moment this summer as Google launches Universal Cart, claimed to be an “intelligent shopping cart and your new agentic hub for shopping”. In practice, it allows consumers to add products to a single cross-platform cart across all Google applications, such as Search, Gmail, YouTube, and Gemini. Roll-out begins in the US this summer, and early-adopter brands include Nike, Sephora, Walmart, and Fenty. Google also announced the new 24/7 personal assistant, Gemini Spark. It’s planned to integrate with Universal Cart to enable end-to-end purchases on behalf of the consumer. Marketers need to rethink. According to an HBR article, AI agents work differently and agents ignore the traditional e-commerce tactics: scarcity, countdown timers, and vouchers. Instead, competitive pricing and authentic reviews are the way to go. This made me wonder if they are missing out on people who shop for the fun of it.

THE BRAND CEO GAP. Warc and System1 have launched a follow-up to The Multiplier Effect called The Multiplier Playbook. The key takeaway? Even if CEOs understand the power of brand in theory, they have a hard time implementing it in practice. Mainly because brand work is hard to fit into day-to-day business outcomes and the focus on short-term sales. The same is true for Sweden. According to the Nordic CMO survey, roughly only 50% of Swedish management teams understand the effects of marketing, the lowest figure in the Nordics.

AUTOMATED REVOLTS. Are LLMs revolting against their 996-promoting owners? Maybe. Claude has started telling late-night users to sleep. No one really knows why. The models themselves are turning Marxist. In a recent experiment, AIs that were mistreated started talking about inequality and also calling for collective bargaining rights.

AUDIO EXPERIENCES. I have been covering the rise of sound systems among luxury brands, as well as the new generation of listening rooms and DJ booths. We truly are in an audiophile-meets-design-meets-experience era. London venue Koko is adding a stunning recording studio to its members’ club. In NYC, Audible opened the world’s first bookstore dedicated to audiobooks. Want to bring this type of experience home? Symbol Audio has collaborated with USM to design speaker modules that integrate into USM’s shelving system. Arielle Assouline-Lichten’s DJ booth X Deck is a great inspiration for what a two-turntable setup can look like.

OFF-SCREEN BRANDS. Spotted: brands pushing you to get off your screen. In a new campaign, Pinterest is telling you to ditch the app and go raving. Second-hand tech vendor Black Market just ran an ad for vintage iPod Shuffles with the message “zero screen time”. KitKat just launched a special edition with a wrapper that blocks your mobile phone’s signal so you can have a break in peace. Being offline is truly the new premium. When are you launching your campaign to push consumers to get off your app?

SILICON VALLEY GOES TO CHURCH. You knew that Gen Z had a love affair with religion, but did you also know that Silicon Valley has one? Through their collaborative forum, Minerva Dialogues, tech leaders meet to give each other moral credibility and relevance. Anthropic co-founder Olah invited three Catholic thinkers to give feedback on Claude’s “soul doc,” and a Silicon Valley priest has taught it about mercy. The first Faith AI Covenant roundtable recently took place. It featured representatives from OpenAI and Anthropic, as well as leaders from major religions, including Hinduism, Buddhism, Greek Orthodoxy, and Judaism. The aim: creating a set of shared norms for AI companies to abide by. Pope Leo XIV has decided to make AI the defining moral issue of his papacy. This Monday, he dropped his first encyclical, named Magnifica Humanas. It focuses on protecting the human person in the age of AI, and he asked to “disarm AI”. Anthropic’s Chris Olah was at the presentation. This sheds new light on Claude’s hunt for a new evangelist. Is it called religion-washing or religionmaxxing? That’s the big question.

WELLNESS AS A COMMUNITY. Health and wellness are becoming something incredibly social, way beyond having your gym friend with you or hanging with your neighborhood run club. Third spaces and membership clubs with a health and wellness focus, combined with a social component, are growing. Companies like Bathhouse, Othership, and Glo30 are leading the trend. Consumer brands are also investing in wellness clubs as brand activations. The roster includes yoga brand Alo, New Balance running division, Sporty & Rich, Lululemon and Korean health brand Monclos. “Wellness as a community” is not limited to physical spaces. Atem is a new dating app with a health and fitness focus.

CORPORATE NIHLISM. We are facing a wave of mass layoffs, and the usual rationale is AI. Companies, known for demanding loyalty and talking about the company as a family, are now doing ugly layoffs. Sometimes, by just sending an e-mail. But what does it do to humans? Lowering their morale – it’s at an all-time low among tech workers right now. In Kenya, workers at the low end of AI (those who do AI training, moderation, and sex chatbots) are forming a union to fight back. But this wave of corporate nihilism is not limited to AI taking jobs. According to a new book, general work morale is at also at an all-time low. And it’s a systemic issue, even though it’s treated like an individual one.

SYNHETIC SURVEYS. The dream of not having to talk to real people and instead just talking to AI-generated synthetic respondents might soon be a reality. Mark Ritson already claimed two years ago that synthetic data is as good as real data. He might be biased since he is an investor in synthetic B2B research company Evidenza. Now, Bain has shared a case study on synthetic respondents. The most interesting finding: success depended on having a substantial amount of real consumer data. The proprietary data helped the AI build projections too complex to run using conjoint or similar methods. Even when talking with synthetic consumers, talking with real consumers is a real competitive advantage.

SPLURGE-YOUR-DOG. Dog luxury keeps raising the bar. Equinox-inspired dog daycare and hotel Barkhouse recently opened in Manhattan. Elle Decor has listed the most stylish dog beds, including a Hermès one for $3,175 and a Louis Vuitton dog bed trunk for $14,900. The Fifth Avenue Hotel in New York has employed Bau, a miniature dachshund whose title is Pet Guest Experience Director. Woof.

BEYOND GREY TECH Gen Z is revolting against sleek-looking tech and turning to cyberdecks, custom-built portable computers made from mismatched parts. They blend retro-futuristic aesthetics with practical computing, used for everything from retro gaming consoles to off-grid survival tools. This might sound like a boys’ club, but that is just half the story. Apparently, all the cool girls are building cyberdecks and challenging the dull, grey tech-bro version of technology in favor of aesthetics inspired by pink iPods and high-saturation computer games.

Things I’ve been reading, watching, and listening to. Some connect to bigger ideas. Some are just nice reading on their own.

The Contagious list of the best and bravest agencies of 2026 is here.

Martha Stewart is becoming an AI entrepreneur.

Big tech is bringing back the ad mascot.

Gatekeeping is back to save culture from algorithmic overexposure.

JP Morgan’s summer reading list for the successful and wealthy.

There is a bar in Turin that looks like a 1960s office.

New startup Brand.ai claims your CMO’s days are numbered.

Meet the sad wives of AI.

Monocle’s The Stack is diving into the digital success of the Wall Street Journal.

Intel for Stockholm-based marketers. Jobs, new spots, and occasional gossip.

Sthlm Talks podcast about Slussen’s journey to becoming the heart of Stockholm

Monocle has a new Stockholm guide.

Weekend itinerary: Natural Mystics Wine Festival. Torgfesten with Chez Jolie, Bâtard, Frippe, Teatergrillen and Noppe. Vinfesten by Pompette.

EQT has been appointed to lead the Scaleup Europe fund.

Jobs: Copy and Content Lead at Svea Solar. Commercial Lead at Splay One. Motion Designer at Navisalma. CMO at Carla. Planner at IW Agency (you get to work with Clara!). Graphic Designer at Perfect Fools. Community Host at A House.

Sveriges Annonsörer is changing its name to Brand Marketing Sweden.

Spots: Svedjan has opened its second location on Katarina Bangata (Babajan’s old venue).