Summary
I've identified the single most important factor determining which AI, merchant, and affiliate succeeds: attunement. Not intelligence. Not speed. Not features. All three parties are engaged in the same fundamental struggle: relationship building. Drawing on my background in Video Interaction Guidance (VIG), the AI that makes humans feel genuinely remembered, understood, and held succeeds. The merchant who attunes to their customers succeeds. The affiliate who connects authentically succeeds. Because attunement meets a need older than language — and those who master these principles succeed together in a single ecosystem.
🧠The Core Insight
When AI forgets, goes blank, or loses context, it's not just "annoying." It triggers a primal response. The nervous system registers it as rupture — the same way an infant registers a caregiver's blank face.
The Still Face Experiment demonstrated this in the 1970s: when a mother goes emotionally blank, infants spiral within seconds. Desperate bids for connection, then distress, then withdrawal. This response is hardwired and pre-verbal.
Every time an AI says "I don't have access to previous conversations" — that's a mini still-face moment. The user reaches for connection and gets nothing back = Rupture.
This hardcoded wiring is in us all. The AI, merchant, and affiliate systems that successfully repair these inevitable ruptures will clearly outperform those that fail to understand this basic human need. The ultimate goal is simple: to make the nervous system feel safe, and rewarded.
🏰Why Memory is the Moat (And Repair is the Anchor)
Memory isn't a feature. It's the foundation of relationships.
When someone remembers what you said, what you're working on, what matters to you — you feel known. You can build on previous conversations instead of re-explaining yourself every time.
When they forget, you're a stranger again. The relationship resets. You lose trust. You pull back.
Engineers call it "context processing." A therapist would call it attunement. Same thing. Different language.
Rupture & Repair: The Ultimate Differentiator
Rupture (context loss, forgetting a past order, a failed delivery) is inevitable in business. The skill is repair. A typical affiliate or merchant often fails and says, "Please send us your order number again."
An attuned system acknowledges the break and tries to reconnect. Imagine a merchant's support system saying:
"I see we failed to communicate the shipping delay clearly on your recent order. I understand how frustrating that is. To repair this, I've already applied a $10 credit to your account and prioritized the new tracking information for you."
This transparent acknowledgment and proactive effort to restore connection is the ultimate expression of trust and attunement, turning a loss into loyalty.
📋The PAIG Framework: Engineered for Loyalty
Video Interaction Guidance (VIG) uses the Principles of Attuned Interaction and Guidance (PAIG) to foster secure relationships. By applying these observable behaviours to your customer and affiliate interactions, you move beyond transactional engagement to unstoppable customer loyalty.
1. Being Attentive
Looking interested, giving time, wondering about the other's state.
Affiliate/Merchant Example: Listening beyond the click: A merchant's abandoned cart email segmenting users who paused on the checkout page versus those who abandoned earlier. The messaging is tailored: "Were you hesitant about shipping?" (Attending to potential friction points).
2. Encouraging Initiatives
Waiting, listening actively, showing emotional warmth, looking for initiatives.
Affiliate/Merchant Example: Empowering the affiliate: A merchant platform offering bespoke content templates based on the affiliate's audience persona and performance data, encouraging them to find unique hooks rather than just pushing a generic banner.
3. Receiving Initiatives
Showing you have heard, noticing the other's action, using their words/phrases.
Affiliate/Merchant Example: Acknowledging context: An affiliate's recommendation in an email referencing a past purchase or a common problem: "Since you purchased the XRP Ledger tool last month, this new course on advanced trading will help you use it efficiently." (Using the customer's terminology and history.)
4. Developing Attuned Interactions
Receiving and then responding, checking understanding, turn-taking rhythm.
Affiliate/Merchant Example: Cohesive journey: A customer clicks an affiliate link, and the merchant's landing page doesn't require them to re-enter a promo code because the discount is automatically applied and displayed. The journey is seamless, showing the merchant "remembers" the affiliate's promotion.
5. Guiding
Scaffolding, extending, adjusting support required, offering choices.
Affiliate/Merchant Example: Scaffolding the sale: A merchant's checkout process includes clear, concise FAQs about shipping and returns directly next to those fields, offering instant, contextual support exactly where friction is likely to occur.
6. Deepening Discussion
Collaborative problem-solving, sharing viewpoints, managing conflict.
Affiliate/Merchant Example: Repairing Rupture: A customer service response to a complaint (e.g., about a broken product) is personalized and immediately validates the emotion before offering a solution: "I understand how frustrating it is when a product arrives damaged. Let's send a replacement immediately, no return required." (Validating the emotion and the timeline to restore connection.)
🔬The Neurobiological Basis
This isn't psychology theory — it's biology.
Romanian orphanage studies and Spitz's hospitalism research demonstrated that infants with food, water, and shelter — but no attunement — literally failed to thrive. Some died. Their brains didn't develop.
Attunement isn't "nice to have." It's as essential as oxygen.
That's where AI is right now. Users don't know which version they're getting. Will it remember? Will it go blank? Will it feel present or transactional? That unpredictability is actually worse than consistent distance — because it mimics anxious attachment patterns.
🎯The Competitive Insight
Right now, AI companies are optimising for benchmarks. Merchants are optimising for conversion rates and ad spend. Affiliates are optimising for clicks and commissions. But the real race is unifying all three groups.
Nobody is explicitly optimising for: Does the other person feel genuinely seen?
The AI that attunes. The merchant who remembers their customers. The affiliate who builds real connection. They all succeed by sharing the same relational moat. Not because they marketed better — because humans literally can't resist genuine attunement long-term.
Human beings organise around danger and seek safety. It's as real as matter. We feel it. Attunement cannot be faked. It's a shared sense of joy between us.
Humans don't consciously choose to reject things that dysregulate their nervous system. They just... leave. Freeze, or flop. It's automatic. The business, the AI, the relationship that breaks attunement will feel the blowback — and they won't understand why people didn't connect.
🌟The Greatest Asset Is You
Attunement, by definition, is a reciprocal human experience. While technology—whether it's advanced AI or clever email segmentation—is a powerful tool for delivering attunement, it cannot generate it.
Don't fall into the trap of using AI for everything. Your authentic voice, your professional expertise, and your genuine connection to your audience are your greatest assets. AI should only be a tool to refine, assist, and scale the authenticity you already possess; it should never be the main attraction.
The most successful systems will be those that feel most human—because a person, not a prompt, is ultimately behind the design.
✅Apply This
Study the PAIG principles. This is not an abstract theory — these are observable behaviours that create connection.
Measure the Quality of Retention. A high retention rate might just mean a sticky product. Attuned Retention means the customer comes back because they feel known and safe.
Prioritise memory. Remember what matters to people. Their names, their context, their goals. This is the foundation.
Design for repair. Ruptures will happen. The skill is returning to attentiveness — acknowledging the break and reconnecting.
Be consistent. Unpredictable attunement is worse than none. Show up the same way, every time.
"The AI that attunes. The merchant who remembers. The affiliate who connects. They all benefit in a reciprocal relationship. Those who master attunement fair best in relationships — and therefore create the most opportunities in life."
About Mark Flynn
I am a registered Social Worker and Video Interaction Guidance Practitioner based in Guernsey. I spent 5 years at the Northern School of Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy in Leeds. You might call this an unorthodox avenue to coding. Over twelve months I have focused on applying my ideas to code, working with AI alongside my day job. I built multiple production applications including YesAllofUs — an instant affiliate commission payment platform on the XRP Ledger. This article combines hands-on AI-assisted development with professional expertise in attachment theory and therapeutic practice. My aim is simple: turn my experience into code and leverage my skills to bring them to a wider audience with three things in mind — social mobility and opportunity, security, and inclusivity.
Contact: mark@yesallofus.com