It is 11:47pm. You open an app you have used for years. A message appears: “Hi Hussain, we picked these just for you.”
What follows is a carousel of products you do not want, offers that do not make sense and a tone that feels slightly off. You pause – not because you are impressed, but because something feels strange. The brand knows your name, your history and your behaviour. Yet, somehow, it does not know you at all. You scroll past it, ignore it and close the app. In that small, almost invisible moment, trust begins to erode.
I have seen this gap play out repeatedly. Organisations invest heavily in data and technology with the right intent. They want to be more relevant, more precise and more personal. Yet, the outcome often misses something fundamental – not because the data is wrong, but because the experience lacks understanding.
This is particularly visible in fast-moving, digitally advanced markets such as Saudi Arabia, where expectations are evolving quickly. Customers in the Kingdom are highly engaged and highly perceptive. They can easily distinguish between a convenient experience and one that actually understands them. The bar is no longer functionality; it is relevance with meaning.
For more than a decade, personalisation has been positioned as the cornerstone of modern marketing and customer experience. The premise has been simple: the more data we collect, the better we can serve the customer. And to a large extent, that promise has been delivered.
According to McKinsey & Company, companies that excel at personalisation can drive meaningful revenue uplift. Yet, many customers claim that they feel treated as numbers rather than individuals.
The disconnect is not in capability; it is in interpretation.
Most personalisation today is built on pattern recognition, not human understanding. It tracks what customers click, what they buy and what similar users tend to do. But it rarely captures context: why the decision was made, what the customer was experiencing and what they actually needed in that moment.
Inside organisations, this creates a structural gap. Personalisation often sits within marketing, while customer experience is owned elsewhere. One function optimises targeting and conversion, while the other manages journeys and interactions. Both aim to serve the same customer, but they are not always designed together. The result is relevance without resonance.
A recommendation can be technically accurate and still feel disconnected. A message can be well targeted and still arrive at the wrong moment. Over time, these small misalignments build into something larger: disengagement that rarely announces itself.
Decision-making is not purely rational; it is situational and emotional. Research published by Harvard Business Review (HBR) shows that emotionally connected customers are significantly more valuable than those who are merely satisfied. Despite this, most personalisation systems are not designed to account for emotional context.
They do not recognise frustration after a failed transaction. They do not sense uncertainty during a delay. They do not respond to the fatigue of navigating a complex journey. Instead, they continue to optimise outputs: more recommendations, more nudges and more messages. Over time, what was designed to help starts to feel like pressure.
There is also a psychological layer to this. When a brand demonstrates partial understanding, it raises expectations. It uses your name and recalls your history, but misreads the moment. When those expectations are not met, the reaction is not neutral. It creates a disconnect that is difficult to ignore. This is the empathy illusion.
As artificial intelligence continues to advance, this gap may widen. Systems will become more predictive and more precise. But precision alone does not create trust. Customers do not disengage because your algorithm failed. They disengage because the experience made them feel unseen.
What is emerging is a shift towards something more deliberate: earned relevance.
Earned relevance is not about how much data is used but how it is applied. It starts with context. Understanding what matters to the customer in a specific moment, not just what they have done in the past. It requires better judgement on timing, knowing when to engage and when to step back, and a level of empathy that cannot be automated, but must be designed into the experience.
This is where the future of personalisation becomes more interesting. In a digital-first world, empathy must be translated into systems and signals. That means moving beyond static personalisation toward adaptive experiences that respond in real time. It also means recognising when to reduce interaction rather than increase it. In many cases, the most effective experience is the one that removes friction entirely.
At the same time, in-person interactions become more important. As digital experiences scale, physical touchpoints become moments of differentiation. Whether in retail, hospitality or service environments, the expectation is continuity. Customers expect the experience to feel connected across channels, with awareness that carries from digital to human interaction.
The brands that will lead in this next phase will not be those with the most data. They will be the ones that connect their data, decisions and experiences around a clear understanding of the customer. They will know when to act, when to pause and when to do nothing at all.
Customers do not expect brands to know everything about them but they do expect consistency between what is promised and what is delivered. If a brand claims to understand its customers, that understanding needs to be felt in the brand experience.
Ultimately, personalisation is not about being smarter; it is about being more human.
By Hussain Abdrabalnabi, Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer, Alat.
