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Anabel Maldonado

Anabel Maldonado is the founder and chief executive of PSYKHE AI, a New York-based technology company that builds personalization systems for ecommerce and fashion retailers [1]. She has discussed the company's work across a range of industry podcasts and interviews focused on retail technology, marketing, and the psychology of consumer behavior [4][5][6][7][8]. Her public commentary centers on the argument that most existing product-discovery tools fail to expose the real depth of a retailer's catalog to individual shoppers, leaving large portions of inventory effectively invisible [2].

Maldonado has characterized conventional ecommerce personalization, which relies on carousel-based recommendations built around visual similarity to items a shopper has already viewed, as a rudimentary approach she terms "personalization 1.0" [2]. She contrasts this with PSYKHE AI's method, which reranks a retailer's entire catalog for each individual user in real time rather than surfacing a fixed set of bestsellers or visually similar products to everyone [2]. In her account, this matters because a product that would convert well for a specific shopper can otherwise sit unseen deep within category listings, for instance on a page far removed from the first results a customer encounters [2].

A distinguishing feature of PSYKHE AI's system, as Maldonado describes it, is the incorporation of personality data alongside other behavioral and product signals to inform recommendations [3]. She has been careful to frame personality as one input among many rather than a dominant factor, noting that the platform still accommodates straightforward shopping intent, such as a customer searching for the lowest-priced version of a specific product in a specific size [3]. Discussing outcomes, Maldonado has cited conversion rate increases of three to five times for clients using the platform, along with a reported increase in engagement metrics of up to 168 percent in one instance [3].

Beyond product-focused interviews, Maldonado has also spoken about the broader relationship between personality traits and consumer decision-making in fashion, extending her company's technical premise into a more general discussion of shopping psychology [6][8].

Insights & ideas

Anabel Maldonado argues that ecommerce personalization has largely stalled at what she calls "personalization 1.0", relying on simple carousel-based, visually-similar-item recommendations that only rearrange a narrow slice of a catalog rather than reordering the whole thing per shopper [2]. She contends this leaves much of a merchant's inventory effectively invisible, since a product that could convert well might sit buried on page 212 and never be surfaced to the right person [2]. Her proposed alternative at PSYKHE AI is to rerank an entire catalog and category set individually for each user in real time, using personality data as one input among several rather than as a dominant signal [1][2]. She emphasizes that this multi-input approach still accommodates straightforward, utilitarian searches, like finding the cheapest version of a specific product in a specific size, while also capturing deeper personality-driven buying behavior, and she points to conversion increases of 3 to 5x and engagement increases up to 168% as evidence of the approach's effectiveness [1].

Experience

Media & appearances

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