Shifting From Informing to Guiding

For years, brands treated data like a competitive sport. Tall dashboards, multiple KPIs, and reporting decks that began to look nightmarish. Somewhere along the way, we forgot something: collecting data is not the same as using it.

People noticed.

Because knowing your sleep score, stress index, or “vitality number” is only interesting for about five seconds, unless it actually changes something. 

Data is everywhere. Meaning is scarce.

The problem isn’t that we don’t have enough data. It’s that data without interpretation and next steps quietly shifts responsibility back onto the user. Here are the numbers. Good luck. Decide wisely.

But who are we kidding? Humans have never been great at that part.

We live in a moment where everything can be measured. Steps. REM cycles. Open rates. Touchpoints. These numbers describe reality, but brands often fall short of taking two steps further to shape the reality. Because the real power of data lies in judgement. Choosing which signal matters. Choosing when to intervene. Choosing when not to. 

That’s where the next generation of category leaders will separate themselves.

The brands that will win in 2026 understand that consumers don’t want witnesses to their behaviour. They want partners who help them improve it. 

For instance, sleep tech giant Eight Sleep doesn’t merely tell you how well you slept. It uses your data to actively adjust your environment, changing bed temperature in real time to improve sleep quality without asking you to interpret a chart or make a decision. The intelligence is embedded into the experience. 

The bottom line is not to go on an anti-data crusade. 

It is to be anti-overwhelm. Anti-meaninglessness. Anti-’here’s another graph you didn’t ask for.’

The future belongs to brands that turn tracking into guidance, information into momentum, and complexity into clarity. 

Us humans are trying to get better at being human. And if your data can’t help with that, maybe don’t collect it?