Can Our Thought Experiments Reimagine Healthcare?

As AI becomes more embedded in how people search, shop, and engage, marketers are starting to ask big questions: What happens when algorithms guide more decisions? How do we market in a world where machines may play a bigger role in filtering, recommending, even negotiating? With the possibility of machine-centered design to rethinking brand awareness and emotional connection, the conversation surfaces early signals of change — and what marketers should be thinking about now.

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Signals of the Machine Economy: How healthcare brands can prepare for what’s next.

Domino’s Quite Rebrand

Domino’s quietly launches its first rebrand in ten years. New typeface. New jingle. Slightly different red and blue. What’s surprising to see, is that there weren’t any viral meltdowns on X, no petitions, or no viral outrage. And that’s the point.
If your rebrand doesn’t light up social media, does that mean you failed, or does it mean your audience just doesn’t care enough to fight you? Maybe brand passion reveals itself most in the backlash. We joke that if no one complains, maybe it’s time to worry. Because love and hate are both signals. Silence? That’s the danger zone.

Amazon’s Pharmacy Vending Machines: A Window into Automation

Over at Amazon, another “quiet revolution” is happening due to its installations of prescription vending machines inside One Medical clinics. The way that it works is that you see your doctor, you walk out, and you grab your meds from a machine. It’s efficient. It’s frictionless. And could it be a little dystopian? We talk about how pharmacists, who could be some of the most overworked healthcare professionals out there, might finally get to do what they’re trained for: care, not count pills. Automation doesn’t have to erase the human element. It can give it space to breathe again. That’s the future we’re rooting for.

Where Efficiency Ends and Imagination Begins

Everywhere you look, AI headlines promise efficiency — “save time,” “cut costs,” “automate tasks.” But at BPD, we keep asking the questions that not many are asking: What if AI isn’t only a tool for speed, but a platform for imagination?
That’s where the “Einstein Divide” lives — the split between using AI to do things faster and using AI to do things we’ve never done before. So we start running thought experiments — the kinds of “what if” scenarios that get your brain buzzing.

Thought Experiment #1: Marketing to Machines

Could the next wave of the internet be built for bots instead of humans? AI crawlers are already learning how to read, rank, and recommend. Platforms like ChatGPT are becoming real ecosystems where users won’t have to leave after an inquiry. You could design your presentation in Canva, book a trip with Expedia, and stream Spotify… all inside the same chat window. That means your audience could transition from being humans to algorithms. When and if websites, search, and SEO all get rewritten, we start asking: What does UX look like when the “user” is an AI agent? How do we brand for something that doesn’t feel emotion? So maybe it’s time to start thinking about how to market to machines, because they’re already marketing for us.
Thought Experiment #2: Does Brand Still Matter?

If AI is choosing what shows up on your doorstep, does the logo on the box still matter? Maybe not the way it used to. What if brand awareness turns into reputation intelligence — an evolving graph of reviews, employee sentiment, ethics scores, patient outcomes, and social proof. AI agents pull from all of it to decide who to trust. It could no longer be about emotional recall, but about algorithmic confidence. But emotion doesn’t disappear. When that supplement or sofa or pair of sneakers lands at your door, you still need to feel something. The brand is would be what bridges the machine’s logic with the human heart.
Thought Experiment #3: The Machine Economy

This is where it gets wild. Imagine AI agents negotiating with other AI agents, including buying, selling, contracting, and optimizing, all inside a closed economy of code. We’re already seeing it in contract negotiations so what happens when entire B2B ecosystems run this way? When your sales rep is an API and your buyer is a bot? We start throwing around new acronyms: B2A (business to agent). A2A (agent to agent). They sound like science fiction but the truth is, this machine economy isn’t futuristic. It’s just quietly scaling.

Culture Is the Hard Part

The biggest barrier to change and seeing these ideas come to life isn’t the technology itself. It’s humans. It’s change management, not code, that decides who wins this next chapter.

Our blog, The Einstein Divide, is available on our website. Be on the lookout for our official report, coming out soon.

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