Utilizing AI as an opportunity, self-care & psychology, startup excitements📱🧠🤖

The rundown of this week’s newsletter:

1. mooch news & startup learnings

2. my thoughts and notes on AI (from the pov of a designer and a ballerina)

3. self care check-in

What’s new at Mooch 👀

Exciting news!! Introducing Mooch 6.0 that we just shipped on Wednesday that includes our brand new revamped onboarding flow powered by AI ⚡️ 

What led to this decision:

• Partners want to feel heard and crave personalization in the apps they use (esp when it comes to money apps)

• There are so many factors into what makes an appropriate and sustainable budget (which varies from person to person)

• Hence, budgeting and personal finance is not a one size fits all

We decided to utilize AI to bridge the knowledge gap. With AI, we’ll be utilizing it as a tool to generate everybody a personalized budget in Mooch..

• to build their plans

• and to adjust their plans

This new onboarding results in:

1. A faster onboarding

2. A more catered experience

3. Giving partners a sneak peek into the app sooner (before going into KYC)

On the topic of Artificial Intelligence…

I’ve been making it a weekly goal of mine to learn more about the technology and potential of AI. Hoping to share a few of my biggest takeaways in my newsletters so we can learn together <3

To start, these were the 2 conversations/events that shifted my mindset on AI:

1. Conversation on technology and AI with Jules Terpark 
   We connected back in March thanks to a Google project and it was a blast!

   • We exchanged a lot of ideas on how we, as gen-zs view and use AI in our daily lives, and what we think about it.

   • In a separate group conversation with us and high schoolers, I witnessed how the younger gen-zs were using AI in their daily school lives, which was pretty eye-opening.

2. AI workshop by Dr Linda from Microsoft at UX Copenhagen

   • Dr. Linda is one of the speakers I had the honor of connecting with at the conference we were both speaking at (read more on ux copenhagen here!) and she quickly became a role model and inspiration to me ❤️ 

   • My biggest takeaway from her workshop was this: Very often and from observation, some designers fear AI or see it as a threat. However in this workshop, we talked a lot about the potential we as designers have to mitigate this fear. How can we set people up for success if they are using AI tools?

   • Our goal as designers (esp. those that are working in or with AI tech) should be to change the narrative and see it as an opportunity, and strive to design AI to do good.

Now, some of my own thoughts and questions while I keep learning about AI:

• Inevitably with AI, we are moving into the age of intelligence

• Going back to the whole idea of “fear” mentioned above from Dr.Linda’s workshop, I was one of them. Especially coming from an arts background, technology sometimes scares me.

• AI could be looked at as scary but then again going back to the shift of narrative, it’s up to us to design AI for good. There’s a responsibility for everyone including consumers, designers, and developers:

  • to stay educated

  • the need for accountability in using and developing AI technology

  • designing AI tools for good

• And as for a question from me that I’m still trying to research more about: How are ethics being considered in the growth of AI?

Cool AI learning!

• Computers use numbers to represent various aspects of data to capture meaning. For example:

  • In natural language processing: use of numerical representations of words and sentences in order to understand human language

  • In computer vision: use of numerical representations of images and videos to recognize objects, people, and scenes.

Other fun things that happened: excitements & self-care routines

1. This week was a research heavy week at Mooch! But I love talking to our partners—It always fuels me and reminds me to keep pushing!

   • This research round was focused on our new fortune teller 🔮 feature we shipped in March. My goal was to talk to our partners to understand if the feature is effectively solving the problem we aimed to solve, then to consolidate my findings to brainstorm our short term and long term solutions in optimizing this feature.

2. Ballet class on Saturday ❤️‍🔥 

   • Currently learning to unlearn bad habits: cleaning up my technique, executing my lines faster and sharper, and maintaining my connection throughout my whole body

3. Learning about psychology and how the brain functions 🧠

   • Did you know that our brains have a healing area?

   • Bilateral stimulation allows the emotional and the logical parts of our brains to communicate which activates this healing.

     • Emotional located on the right hemisphere

     • Logical located on the left hemisphere

   • A bilateral stimulation exercises I’ve been implementing: 🦋 Butterfly hug

On a concluding note…

here are some questions to check in with yourself to stay on top of your growth:

1. What obstacles are you currently facing? (in work or in life in general)

2. What challenges are you facing as a startup? (it’s good to reflect on these now so you can look back later and see how you later overcame this challenge as a team)

3. Are there any skills you would like to learn that’s currently slowing you down at work or blocking you from the things you want to do? What are they?

4. Try some bilateral stimulation exercises ❤️ 

Reply to this email with…

1. How you currently feel about AI

2. What was your favorite part of this week’s newsletter?

3. or just a hi!