Beyond Behavioral Targeting: Kabir Daya on Human Stories, Experimentation, the Limits of Data

ICYMI: Kabir Daya catches up with 10 Minute Martech on why data without context is meaningless.

“The level of data available is in excess. We have more listening tools, more analytics tools than we know what to deal with. Without understanding the human story though, that data is meaningless.”

In this episode of 10 Minute Martech, Kabir Daya, Chief Digital Officer and Chief Marketing Officer at Thriveworks, joins host Sara Faatz to explore how marketers can balance technological innovation with human understanding in an increasingly AI-driven world.

From changing consumer behavior and the rise of AI-powered discovery to experimentation, mental health services and the limits of behavioral targeting, Kabir makes the case that the future belongs to marketers who can translate data into human insight.

Kabir’s Big Idea: The Human Story Matters More Than the Data

Kabir believes marketers have never had more information at their fingertips. Between analytics platforms, listening tools, attribution systems and AI-powered insights, organizations are collecting more data than ever before.

But data alone isn’t enough.

The real advantage comes from understanding the human story behind the signals. While consumers are adopting new tools and changing how they discover brands, their decisions are still shaped by trust, relationships, recommendations and lived experiences. For marketers, the challenge isn’t collecting more data. It’s translating that data into a meaningful understanding of why people behave the way they do.

Kabir Daya’s 10 Memorable Moments on 10 Minute Martech

1. Consumers Have Fundamentally Changed

Today’s buyers have more research tools, more information and higher expectations than ever before.

2. Discovery Is No Longer Linear

Modern customer journeys involve multiple touchpoints, channels and moments of evaluation before a purchase decision is made.

3. Word-of-Mouth Still Matters

In Thriveworks’ research, recommendations from healthcare providers, friends and family significantly outperformed digital discovery channels.

4. Some Brands Are Over-Indexing on Discovery

Focusing exclusively on SEO, AEO and discoverability can come at the expense of the customer experience itself.

5. Serendipity Needs Space to Happen

Innovation often comes from unstructured experimentation rather than tightly defined projects and processes.

6. AI Is Lowering the Barrier to Participation

More employees than ever can contribute ideas, experiment and innovate because AI makes previously technical tasks more accessible.

7. Translating Data Into Human Narratives Is a Rare Skill

Collecting information is easy. Understanding the human motivations behind it is much harder.

8. Experimentation Is Becoming a Core Marketing Skill

The marketers who thrive will be the ones willing to test, learn and adapt continuously.

9. Healthcare Demands a Different Standard

AI adoption in healthcare requires a higher level of rigor, testing and trust than many other industries.

10. Humans Must Stay in the Loop

The best AI implementations involve real users and practitioners throughout the development and testing process.

Kabir’s Martech Hot Take

“Personalization is now expected by consumers, but current behavioral targeting tools treat people like patterns and totally overlook the human that’s actually guiding it.”

Kabir argues that many personalization strategies have become too focused on behavioral signals and predictive models. While the technology has improved dramatically, marketers still need to understand the motivations, emotions and context behind customer actions if they want personalization to feel truly relevant.

Kabir’s Inspiration List

Kabir draws inspiration from leaders working at the intersection of technology, AI, psychology and growth:

• Sol Rashidi – Widely recognized as the world’s first Chief AI Officer and a strong advocate for balancing AI innovation with human-centered thinking
• Dr. Kaitlyn Stamatis – Researcher and psychologist focused on the intersection of mental health, technology and human behavior
• Lenny Rachitsky – Product leader and creator known for sharing practical lessons on growth, product development and innovation
• Elena Verna – Growth expert whose insights on experimentation and scaling have become essential reading for modern marketers
• Ethan Smith – A leading voice on SEO, AEO and the future of discoverability

For Kabir, the most valuable perspectives come from people who combine technical expertise with a deep understanding of human behavior.

Listen to the 10 Minute Martech Episode

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Next Up in the 10 Minute Martech ICYMI Series

Allan Malcolm, CMO of Voxel AI, joins us to explore what it really means to build an AI-forward marketing organization, and why success starts with strategy, not software.

He explains why AI-generated copy often falls flat before models truly learn your brand voice, why competitive intelligence and ideal customer profile (ICP) discovery are among the fastest AI wins available today, and why the future belongs to marketers who think beyond specialization and embrace system-level thinking.

Want to Keep Reading?

Here’s the full transcript so you can explore every insight from Kabir’s conversation with Sara.

Sara Faatz: I’m Sarah Fatz, and I lead community and awareness at Progress. This is 10 Minute Martech.

Kabir Daya: The level of data available is in excess, right? We have more listening tools, more analytics tools than we know what to deal with. Without understanding the human story though, that, that tooling, those analyses, that, that, that data, it’s meaningless.

And so being able to translate that into the why is a critical, but frankly a quite a rare skill.

Sara Faatz: That’s Kabir Daya, Chief Digital Officer and Chief Marketing Officer at Thriveworks. Let’s get started.

So Kabir, let’s talk innovation, serendipity, and human connection. I know this is a topic that you are, you know, near and dear to your heart. But in this era of AI, what are things that marketing teams, martech teams can or should be doing to take advantage of this exciting space and time that we’re in right now?

Kabir Daya: Um, now what I’m seeing in the market as we, you know, go through this evolution of, of marketing, uh, as… The, the consumer is, is also evolving as well. Um, the consumer that comes to us now has gone through a multi-touch journey for discovery. Um, they have more research tools at their fingertips. They’re, uh, shopping a little bit more.

Um, they’ve fundamentally rewired how they discover, evaluate, and trust brands, which is a shift that all marketers and product teams really need to keep in mind. Uh, the knowledge baseline of a consumer has, has risen just dramatically. But again, I, I would say we do need to remember that we’re ultimately still building products or services for humans.

Yeah. I think some brands have over-indexed on the Google and the AEO side of things, um, focusing too much, uh, [00:02:00] on that discovery piece and not enough on delivery and the actual experience. For example, a recent study that Thriverse ran, uh, found that of American adults currently in or seeking therapy services, almost half would turn to their primary care provider first, followed by recommendations from their friends and family, uh, and then followed that by, uh, an insurance company’s website and customer service.

And so it’s really trailing from those three that we start to see digital discovery finally turn into, uh, the way that a client discovers us, right? It came in a- as fourth, uh, after all these human word-of-mouth intermediaries with only about 28% using Google or other search engines and 15% using AI tools like ChatGPT or Gemini.

So while we as marketers tend to index quite heavily on the digital side of that discovery, um, there’s still the human aspect that is still very, very, very much valuable, um, in how consumers, uh, find us

Sara Faatz: When you think about where we are, I, I, uh, so many organizations are moving so quickly, right? They’re evolving and they’re, they’re rapidly iterating, and it feels like we’re working at warp speed.

I read an article that you were, uh, quoted in a, a few months back, uh, a Forbes article, and you were talking about those, harnessing those moments of serendipity through that human connection and being able to find innovation through, uh, through that. Can you talk a little bit, uh, and share with some of our listeners what you, what you mean by that, and how can you have that, that human connection, that, those serendipitous moments and innovation when we are moving so quickly and when we are so, you know, really dispersed in a lot of ways?

Kabir Daya: Yeah. Um, I, I think there’s two sides of this. One is more external facing, which is for the client. Yeah. How do you, how do you weave some of that in that client experience? Um, for us, thankfully, it’s, it’s, it’s a bit easier because humans are literally part of our [00:04:00] client experience. Internally, however, as we think about how the way that we work, it’s giving space for that exploration within your teams.

For us, it’s, it’s basic things, uh, that have historically been around, um, uh, like hackathons, right? Like, like the Google 10% time, for example, or just encouraging a little bit more of this, uh, try something out, see what sticks. Um, and for us, we’re a remote company as well, right? So really being able to get that interstitial tissue between our employees and our team members to make sure that those, those innovation juices are flowing, that’s really important.

And so for us, that’s like setting up chat groups that are explicitly around this, where you’re encouraged to sort of play around. It doesn’t necessarily have a specific, uh, you know, PRD that’s, that’s scoping, this is the specific thing that you want us to do. Um, rather it’s an opportunity for people to share what they’re doing.

Within those, it’s not just product and engineers, it’s not just designers, it’s also other employees that are around the company. Um, so what we found is AI is really lowering that bar of who can play. Yeah. And that’s, that’s a beautiful thing.

Sara Faatz: Yeah. Yeah. No, that’s great. I mean, along those lines, are there specific skills that you think a marketer would need today to take advantage of that kind of, you know, growing or evolving function?

Kabir Daya: I think this is something that I’ve, I’ve learned in my past, uh, when I was at Intuit. They were very big on understanding the client journey, uh, and really understanding, uh, the multiple types of data that, that one can be, uh, interpreting. And so the skill here is the ability to translate data and tech savviness into a human narrative.

The level of data available is in excess, right? We have more listening tools, more analytics tools than we know what to deal with today. Um, and so [00:06:00] without understanding the human story though, that, that tooling, those analyses, that, that, that data, um, it’s meaningless. And so being able to translate that into the why is a critical, but frankly, a quite a rare skill.

From my angle right now, it’s, it’s less the technical skill set, it’s more the experimental skill set, right? Are you willing to try new things? Are you willing to just get your hands dirty and see what sticks, what doesn’t, what works, what doesn’t? Um, and, and be willing to get a little uncomfortable with it.

Because as we know, with all of our exper- experimentation, it’s not gonna be 100% hit rate, right? We take that same ethos within, yes, the way we work with AI on our internal processes, the way we work with AI to, you know, let’s say even create a, a, a presentation or visualize some data, but also with marketing channels that are starting to leverage AI or how we can use AI within the outward facing.

You know, whether it’s webpages, whether it’s experiences that hit our clients or clinicians. Um, it’s having that mentality of experimenting, experimenting, experimenting, and seeing what sticks.

Sara Faatz: Yeah. And do you see the, in the healthcare profession or mental health profession, are you seeing the use of the tools differently or do you s- do you still put them more in- I do

the general consumer? Yeah.

Kabir Daya: No, no, no, I do. Um, a- and I think that’s because r- healthcare is just- A bit more conservative, and rightly it should be, right? Right, right. Um, you’re dealing with human lives. There’s HIPAA concerns, you know, data privacy concerns, all of that. Particularly I see a lot of this on, for instance, the scribe side, right?

Where the benefit is you want more efficiency for the clinician. But on the flip side, right, is if you get it wrong, it’s detrimental. Uh, like, there’s the worst-case scenario that, you know, none of us really, really wanna encounter. But let’s say it’s, it’s the, um, the inconvenience scenario, right? You as an organization have brought this tool in or built this tool to give efficiencies to the clinician, but if it’s, if it’s even a little bit off, there’s a distrust that starts to grow, right?

And, and it becomes an annoyance because now, as a clinician, I have to review all this stuff because I know there’s gonna be a 1% to 2% deviation, and that’s, that’s not enough for me. I need this to be foolproof. Um, so, uh, there, there is that inherent conservatism that you will see on the healthcare side, but, uh, I think it’s on us as, you know, technologists, as people that are pushing the envelope, innovating, to really get it right and make sure they’re-- ev- everything’s tested, right?

And we show our work, and we bring clinicians along for the ride. So internally here at Thriveworks, the way that we do that is with any new piece of technology, we really make sure we do a, uh, a bit of a pilot kind of a, a model with real-life clinicians. We get, that way we get buy-in, right? Yeah. We can get the- That’s great

the kinks out of the, out of the system early on. And then when we go live, right, we have real proponents internally and champions, um, that are saying, “Hey, I was a part of this. I helped build this thing, and-” Yeah “… and I’m for it.”

Sara Faatz: And what a great example, too, of bringing humans back into that conversation, especially when you have so much, you know, technology at your, at your fingertips.

Well, I guess one more quick question, maybe two. Who do you currently follow for inspiration or information?

Kabir Daya: Yeah, so there’s a, uh, a spectrum here. I guess I’ll start with a bit more of, uh, the technologist side. So, uh, Sol Rashidi, uh, is the world’s first chief AI officer. She’s been at the forefront of AI adoption but has also consistently made an argument for the human side, which again is, is part of, uh, my ethos and our ethos here at, at Thriveworks.

Kaitlyn, uh, Stamatis, she’s a PhD, uh, licensed psychologist, ex-Google, and, uh, one of the leading researchers at the intersection of mental health and technology. Um, and then more on the marketing pure play technology side, uh, you know, there’s Lenny, Lenny Rachitsky, uh, as I’m sure, uh, you know, he’s the product podcast guy.

Um, really like his stuff. Uh, we have, uh, Elena Verna. She’s, uh, I think at Cursor right now as a growth hacker, but really like her newsletter and, and the stuff that she puts out there. And Ethan Smith on the SEO side and, uh, AGO side. I think he’s been putting out some really good stuff too.

Sara Faatz: That’s great.

What great lists. One last question, um, do you have a martech hot take right now?

Kabir Daya: Personalization is now expected by consumers, but current behavioral targeting tools treat people like patterns and totally overlook the human that’s actually guiding it.

Sara Faatz: Kabir, thank you so much. I really enjoyed our conversation today.

Kabir Daya: It was my pleasure. Thank you for having me.

Sara Faatz: Listeners, thanks for tuning in. Make sure you like and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Until next time, I’m Sarah Fatz, and this is 10 Minute Martech.

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