---
id: "quote-hypotheses-to-test"
type: "quote"
source_timestamps: ["¶4"]
tags: ["marketing-science", "testing"]
related: ["concept-human-centric-persuasion", "claim-fixed-strategies-expire"]
speaker: "Authors"
speakers: ["Jafar Sabbah", "Oguz A. Acar"]
sources: ["geo"]
sourceVaultSlug: "hbr-seg-geo"
originDay: 3
articleStem: "hbr-tier2-06-ai-shopping-agents"
sourceUrl: "https://hbr.org/2026/05/research-traditional-marketing-doesnt-work-on-ai-shopping-agents"
sourceTitle: "Research: Traditional Marketing Doesn’t Work on AI Shopping Agents"
---
# Persuasion principles are now hypotheses

> "The mechanics of persuasion were built on human subjects: on loss aversion, anchoring, scarcity bias, social proof. For AI buyers, these are not reliable principles. They are hypotheses to test. And findings may expire with every model update."
> — [[entity-jafar-sabbah|Jafar Sabbah]] & [[entity-oguz-a-acar|Oguz A. Acar]] (¶4)

**Why it matters:** Compresses two of the vault's load-bearing ideas into one line: (1) [[concept-human-centric-persuasion|persuasion tactics]] are demoted from *principles* to *testable hypotheses* for AI buyers, and (2) results are perishable — [[claim-fixed-strategies-expire|fixed strategies expire]] with model updates, which is why [[concept-continuous-ai-simulation-infrastructure|continuous simulation]] is required.

**Related:** [[concept-human-centric-persuasion]] · [[claim-fixed-strategies-expire]] · [[prereq-behavioral-economics-d6]]