In this week’s edition of the Trend Taster, we round up the snackable trends, stats and insights from around the world, including:

• • Agatha Christie's AI-powered writing course

  • AI-generated avatars help marketplace sellers

  • The world’s longest train journey

  • Explainer: quiet cracking

  • The rise of "screen fatigue"

In this week’s edition of the Trend Taster, we round up the snackable trends, stats and insights from around the world, including:

• Durex India's "The 🐔 Blocker"

• Slow travel

• AI-powered addiction recovery

• Explainer: Dirty Soda

• China's emerging plus-size modelling scene

I had a really enjoyable chat with Ray Poynteron his 'Talking AI' podcast about using LLMs for cultural insights.
His questions made me realise how we are all moving through the GenAI adoption curve at different speeds.
Working as an independent researcher forced me to find new ways to challenge my assumption, so I accelerated my own learning to use LLMs as a thinking partner.
And I very quickly realised that using Ai isn't about replacing human insight, but amplifying your ability to ask better questions when you don't have a team around you.

Labubu dolls have somehow convinced grown adults to hand over £15 for a mystery toy they might absolutely hate – and we're queuing up for more.

Using YouScan's social listening data, I mapped the conversations around mystery boxes. Consumers aren’t just buying products, they're buying emotional rollercoasters, micro-doses of hope, and escape from algorithmic predictability.

In a world obsessed with precision targeting, we're still hungry for serendipity.

In this week’s edition of the Trend Taster, we round up the snackable trends, stats and insights from around the world, including:

• Reddit's time spent is surging

• Gen Z's travel 'icks'

• Gen Alpha's influence on their parents' shopping

• Foreca$ter puts a dollar on Canada's snowfall

• The misunderstanding of gluten sensitivity

I wrote a piece for @Greenbook on a common research dilemma: what to do when cross-cultural fieldwork clashes with holiday seasons. We’ve all heard the usual advice: pause, delay, avoid. But in a world where people are online 24/7, does that still stack up?