A creative system for what Persona should mean, how it should show up, and the kind of work that could make it impossible to confuse with another AI product.
Nothing here was just dropped in. Every page was worked, written, shaped, and directed by me.
— Daniel Jay
We are Currently in the beginning of the end for what personal ai will mean to the public and who gets to own that idea
right now when you think of Personal AI you still think of Jarvis
The lines of the box that the public will place Personal AI into are still being drawn, the interpretation of this doesn't fully exist yet
I want to be in the room when the box is being written
THAT WINDOW WILL NOT STAY OPEN FOREVER
when people hear Persona, I want 2 things to happen in their mind automatically:
This is the thing that makes my life easier
and:
I feel Freaking unstoppable when I use it
that second part really matters. Persona isn't valuable because it saves you 5 minutes.
its worth while because of the feeling of always having all the little crap you've been putting off finally handled
the calls, returns, follow ups, or reservations. all the things you told yourself you'll do later
Gone.
and when all of that disappears you finally feel lighter. you can actually focus and feel like you have your crap together.
A person should have a dopamine rush when they think of Persona
that feeling needs to belong to Persona
Persona shouldn't be playing table stakes explaining why it's better than its competitor with tiny numbers and margins.
It must own one position before anyone else gets there:
The AI that actually handles it.
Making every competitor become a chatbot by comparison
THIS IS HOW YOU WIN THE RACE.
Persona hits Hormozi’s Value Equation to a tee.
Time Delay X Effort and Sacrifice. Persona’s relation to this math is symbiotic; the two thrive off each other.
the numerator is now:
The Dream Outcome X Perceived Likelihood of Achievement.
THIS IS WHAT MARKETING MUST HANDLE, the technology has already been handled, the success in this product lies in the marketing.
Primary: Relief -> the weight coming off.
Supporting: presence -> you get to be where you are instead of in your phone micromanaging your life.
I care what their customers do
each of the companies mentioned below all market productivity. All while their customers share victories.
nobody post screenshots of their AI saving them 14 minutes. They post the refund Instinct fought for, money it found them, the problem they finally stop avoiding.
Utility gets bought, victories get repeated
Persona must use the angle of the customer stories worth retelling
The tech Buyer says yes once. everyone around them gets a vote everyday
this is the reverse effect of visual products like Whoop and Oura
They all compete on table stake intelligence specs. Users Judge the experience around it.
who has the better specs:
Apple or Android?
Android
who has the better user experience?
Poke made people more tolerant of latency simply by moving the AI into texting. Instinct gets users by weirdly high levels of authority because users trust it with money and decisions. Omi now feels like something you have to build around yourself. Persona should feel like it was built around YOU.
People dont experience the intelligence in benchmarks. They experience it in the frictions, confidence, trust, speed, and how the product naturally flows into their life.
The entire interface comes down to how the intelligence is something people actually want to use.
No average person wakes up wanting an AI agent. They wake up wishing the problems in their way would disappear.
People are sick of AI, but they're even more sick of the Crap they dont want to do everyday.
a mundane life is made miserable by the things we wake up to dreading, no average person wakes up wanting an AI agent.
They wake up wishing they didn't have the problems that are preventing them from being free..
Imagine a person that wakes up dreading their phone call to an insurance company.
we need ads that triggers a Viewer's ptsd, something they can feel in their body.
(like when you hear the ringtone to your alarm from high school and you enter fight or flight)
Trigger that feeling that the person dreads and then show it disappear live..
if the ad spends time explaining tech memory and integrations, the viewer now has to activate their brain to do the thinking of how this will help them.
Instead show a person fresh out of bed tapping his Persona saying
"hey Persona please take care of the insurance adjuster and make sure I get a good rate"
Persona: "done, let me know if theres anything else I can help you with Aarav"
show their burden dying and the product explains itself live.
“New Meta competitor? Or just another friend.com? We shall see”— Instagram comment
“new apple competitor”— Zach Yadegari · ’26
Apple’s best advertising was never about the technology, it was about what the technology let you do, said as simply as possible.
"1,000 songs in your pocket"
If Persona wants Apple’s piece of the pie in someone’s day, thats the strategy Persona needs to "Borrow"
take something intriguingly complicated and fabricate it into one idea a person repeats to a friend.
"Good artists copy, great artists steal" - Steve Jobs when he was asked about his break thru in interface tech that he got from Xerox.
Well then Jobs, let's do as you say.
these were made without a photographer, set, or stylist.
these exist to show direction, not finish.
these are just quick snapshots of my brain’s art direction, ideas, copy, and insight.
by all means hand these over to the photographer, set designer, editor/retoucher and you'll get campaign level work.
my pitch is not I’m here to make these all on my own, I'm pitching that I know exactly what to ask these people.
Job: turn Persona's capabilities into stories with stakes.
The iPhone wasn't born a necessity
in the beginning, it was for the people who were into tech
Early adopters
then it stopped being a “tech product"
it became life.
Persona should be introduced the same way, because its more than a cute AI trick performer.
Introduce it by showing how the same device thrives in completely different lives.
And its done all in one video, with people wearing persona bands
A doctor getting ready before the sun is up,
The camera pans into his shirt until it goes black and the entire frame disappears,
Then it pulls back out of a construction workers shirt as he's getting ready for his day.
He walks thru a doorway
on the other side, were now suddenly following a founder in the back of an uber
the camera passes behind his seat
it comes out in a moms kitchen
match cut to a realtor between showings
Then a student running late
a lawyer leaving court
a athlete stretching
a creator walking into her shoot
one life continuously blends into the next
the viewer moves through completely different people, jobs, routines, and problems.
each one asking Persona to handle something different. Each one using the product in a natural way.
Doctor has records that still haven't shown up before his first patient
The construction worker getting materials rerouted before the crew gets there
The founders flight changed and his meetings didn't
The Mom needs an appointment moved while getting the family out the door
The realtor needs a showing rescheduled in between the five others
The student can't remember his teacher's office hours
The lawyer catching his practice up to date after his hearing ran long
The athlete reminding his manager, he has box tickets waiting for him
The creator updating her to do list for another brand deal
all different positions, routines, and problems
fixed by the same product:
"Persona, handle it."
Put the demos aside and show the versatility.
Not by listing features, but by making the product feel like it belongs everywhere
Job: make friction the villain and Persona the clean exit.
this is where we create the common enemy that creates a cult like following.
The Persona website tells how arguing fees, canceling subscriptions, sitting on hold, or dealing with customer service is a pain
cool
make these things the villain of everyones story, show how its holding them back from their dream life of success.
life is filled with problems, there will always be a new issue for Persona to solve
think of billboards outside of DMVs saying:
"you have better things to do"
-Persona
Billboards and screens in and outside of the Airport saying:
Your Flights changed
Your plans don't have to
-Persona
This is the type of advertising this company could really own
congratulations, unlimited content
Job: make the Band mean less phone, not more technology.
People are becoming less and less amused with a new piece of tech that goes on a new limb every month.
but Persona isn’t another tech piece that you wear, this is THE piece that is the final destination to no longer needing the annoying amount of tech that we keep ending up with.
the band has no screen, and not only takes us away from our phone, but brings us one step closer to a world with less to do, all from one piece of tech.
Now thats a product worth having on you at all times.
Have video campaigns that explains you no longer need your phone,
"Zero Screen time": an entire Persona commercial shot without a single phone screen, yet the person has been more productive than ever
make it more than an assistant, make it the utopia that people are wishing for in a world filled with unneeded technology.
Job: replace claims with receipts.
This is where the nitty gritty gets shown.
Start the video with a person holding down their Persona band and telling it to cancel their Planet Fitness membership while they are at a bigger and better gym
The video cuts to split screen: on the right, the person finishes their workout; on the left, Persona deals with customer service and everything that takes time.
Give it the vibe of Julius Caesar:
"veni vidi vici"
translates to
"I came I saw I conquered"
“Asked. Called. Cancellation confirmed.”
By the end, they have finished their workout showing how much time they have saved, create undeniable proof.
Job: define the larger idea Persona can own beyond “assistant app.”
An AI assistant is a commodity.
Persona can never be seen in that realm
dont worry, the name helps out a lot in this situation
Persona should become a part of the person that wears it every day: Symbiosis. You cant commoditize that, even if you tried.
the long term version needs to be that Persona is the ai brain on hand 24/7, the AI you cant live without. like Tony Stark and the arc reactor in his chest.
make them need the personalization, because no matter how much you use Claude or ChatGPT it's only with you so much,
Anthropic and OpenAI don’t join you when you take a shower
Persona does though.
Job: make the Band a recognizable cultural object, not generic hardware.
when you see a Whoop you sense a visual Virtue signal.
you instantly recognize that the person wearing one is:
into the health space
into tracking sleep
into making their body recover
You don't need to know anything about what the sensor is saying about their health, the band itself communicates something about the person wearing it
Persona must be on the same level of culture signal.
A month from now when you see someone with a Persona, it should tell you:
this person has their crap together:
They value their time
They move quickly
They delegate
They protect their attention
The Persona band should be a statement, it's for the people who refuse to spend the little time on earth that they have on things that don't require their attention.
This is a shift in how the product should be marketed
Put the features aside and show the people that wear the Persona
CEOs
Athletes
Executives
Parents
Doctors
Lawyers
Politicians
Creative directors
Leaders
Winners
Whoop signals that I take my health seriously
Persona signals I take my time seriously
hurricanes, national disasters, and airport delay meltdowns have the most press year round, there is always something to report in these moments
“snowstorm at JFK leaves everyones flights canceled and delayed on Christmas Eve”
plans have been ruined and people have been left stranded
so a small team of “angels” hands out hundreds of Persona bands to passengers.
that night you pull the numbers while the press is still reporting on the matter:
918 people, 6 figures in fixes, 5 figures in time saved.
Don't hand out water and blankets, fix the actual problem. the problems that no human wants to touch
imagine the video, its not meant to be polished, make it shaky, motion blurred, zoom ins like The Office. make the people watching it feel how hectic things were in the moment. keep it raw and authentic like its lost footage (think of Project X and how that movie was filmed)
and at the end after the Personas have been handed out there is a calm, the music is relaxing, no more stress. fade into a white screen with text showing all the stats and how Persona fixed the problems.
thats the feel good stories that news and press look for during these moments.
not only press but also social would love this. think of Wasted posting:
“tech company saves peoples vacations during holidays”
dont get me started on how it would live on X.
Bloom energy has a live counter of how many cans have been sold (and counting)
this format can be done in so many ways:
Imagine a wall with a live and counting number that tracks the money Persona has recovered in refunds, reversed fees, and dead subscriptions. and it's all going up while you look at it
This can be on the landing page of the website. This can be on billboards. This can be in terminals. This can be anywhere that allows advertising.
And right next to the eight figure number you put: Persona, starting at $219
That is the highest price to value discrepancy I have literally ever seen
Have a third party verify it, this is a number that reporters can fact check. Facts get cited.
remember the rapid response campaign? Imagine how much money each disaster would bring back for the customer, this is the way you fast track the numbers on the billboard
Maybe you don't wanna talk about money? That's fine. Just switch everything out for time.
You can be “street smart”, “Booksmart”, or just plain stupid but at the end of the day people recognize that time is money and money is time.
Both systems deliver numbers that creates a shift in brand perception. Money talks
personaHave the research team do deep dives on verifiable numbers, and statistics relating to the average Americans time wasted on hold and planning.
Talk about what the average American spends on hold each year by state, and regional small news stations each cover their own number, Free local press, in 50 markets.
Imagine an ad of a record player with the needle being dropped, and on it are the records and releases every major companies hold music loop as a real album on vinyl. While the record is spinning, text slowly starts, dropping down like the end of a movie credits, citing every song and next to it 1996-2026
This would be really, really, funny if Persona made an actual album for this labeling it as history, and sending the album to space on a weather balloon in hopes that one day a future civilization will see the dead history of hold music.
create a full and real funeral for Hold music or chores
have founders that you personally know in the crowd crying
go live on instagram explaining how Persona has slaughtered the chores and wasted time that are setting you back in life while Zach is burying the casket
at 17 I ran digital and marketing for a winning mayoral campaign
I literally wasn't even old enough to vote for my guy
the city??
the #6 best place to live in America
that campaign kept me in rooms I had no business being in at 17. rooms filled with people who were only a phone call away from the president.
I learned pretty fast I love rooms that feel a little to big for me
and somewhere in between the World Records I broke, award wining directing, and risky ventures I realized:
I love the type of work that there isn't a playbook to hide behind, I like the problems that make you invent an answer beyond the solution
Persona is just early enough that most of its important jobs and solutions probably dont exist yet.
im more driven and intrigued in finding out the parts of Persona that hasn't been figured out yet, and bringing all my value there.
Nobody asked me to make all this
and being honest, I haven't had this much fun working on something in a while.
since the announcement, everyday ive sat down at my desk to work on this, ive actually been excited to do it. Ive been thinking more creatively, working faster, thinking better, and constantly finding another direction Persona could go.
Another campaign.
Another headline.
Another way to get in front of people
THERE IS SOOO MUCH HERE
and I want to be in the room while it gets figured out.
