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FQ AI Summit 2026

Give the Customer a Quiet Mode to Pause or Stop Suggestions

My notes from attending the FQ AI Summit in New York, November 10, 2026.

Recommendations and Shopping Experiences

How can an anticipatory experience respect someone who does not want more suggestions?

Someone who's pausing recommendations shouldn't lose an order update along the way. That's the heart of a quiet mode: separate what the service has to tell people from what it's only suggesting, and let them turn down the suggestions without leaving.

The anticipatory discussion centered on welcome assistance, and I'd say welcome includes the choice to hear less. A service can send relevant things and still send them too often.

Start by sorting your messages. Some are necessary for an active service, like an order update. Others are optional suggestions. Make that line clear to the customer too, so nobody pauses the suggestions and misses something important.

Then put the controls where people look for them at the moment they need them. Depending on the service, they might want to pause, cut the frequency or stop one category. Deleting the account shouldn't be the only exit.

Check every channel the preference should cover. If someone declines one stream, an equivalent stream turning up somewhere else is a bad surprise. When you review how it's going, look at whether customers can manage the experience, alongside engagement. A quiet mode may lower immediate activity and make the service easier to live with. The practical test is whether a person can pick the amount of assistance they want without negotiating with the system every time.