A note from Dane

Welcome to issue 2! So glad you’re here.

This weekend, people all over New Zealand will be celebrating Matariki - the Māori New Year. A time for gathering, sharing kai (food), stories, and remembering those who've passed. We're in London this year, which makes it feel a little like celebrating Christmas in a heatwave - strange, but no less meaningful. Wherever you are in the world, the traditions that connect you to home don't need a postcode.

Traditions remind us that the most important things - community, memory, showing up for each other, don't need reinventing. Maybe that's worth remembering as we think about AI too. The technology changes. The fundamentally human stuff shouldn't.

To all those celebrating, Mānawatia a Matariki! Hope something in here is useful as you go into this next phase of the year, however that looks for you. 

Dane Tatana, Managing Director, Journey Digital

01 — On The Horizon

Vibe-based AI spending is over

AI ROI

Over 90% of executives plan to increase AI spend this year. Fewer than half can demonstrate what the last round of investment actually delivered. The era of vibe- based AI spending is ending - and the leaders who can’t answer “what did we get?” are about to find out in the hardest possible way.

Enterprise AI investment is projected to hit $644 billion globally - yet 72% of that spend is reportedly destroying value through waste. The shift happening now: from measuring adoption to measuring outcomes. Leaders who can prove productivity gains will secure the next round of investment. Those with activity logs instead of results won’t.

So what: If your AI reporting still leads with how many people are using the tools, it’s time to change the question. What has actually changed in how your business performs?

→ Read our full take

02 — The Navigator's Take

Designing for Every Kind of Mind

UX for Neurodiversity 

Accessibility used to be the last box checked before launch. In 2026, it's becoming the first thing on the whiteboard. We're seeing more products designed with ADHD, autism, and dyslexia in mind from day one and the fixes are often refreshingly simple. Take the humble "turn off animations" toggle: built for users with ADHD who need less on-screen noise, it turns out to help almost everyone - the distracted, the motion-sensitive, the just-plain-tired. 

Our take: the best accessibility features rarely announce themselves. They just quietly make the product better for more people. That's the shift worth watching.

→ Read more

03 — In The Field

Effective Altruism - Giving ideas the stage they deserve

Last year the Journey team flew to New York to film a series of interviews with key contributors to Effective Altruism ahead of and during their annual summit. Effective Altruism is a philosophical and social movement that uses evidence and careful reasoning to find the most effective ways to help others - evaluating charitable interventions based on cost-effectiveness and scale, aiming to maximise the positive impact of time and money.

The brief was to capture the thinking, the people, and the energy of a movement that takes doing good seriously. Not a corporate production - something with real warmth and intellectual weight.

Check out some of the work →

Explain it to a kid 🎧 - New Podcast

We’ve teamed up with some extremely handsome kids* to answer the questions you might be afraid to ask. What’s an AI agent? What does [complicated digital term] actually mean? If we can explain it to a kid, it’ll surely make sense to the rest of us. Content is landing next week - watch this space.

*Full disclosure: these are Dane and Allanah’s children. Bias? Maybe. Adorable? Absolutely.

04 — From The Deck

Welcome, Irene. 
We’re thrilled to welcome Irene Fortoul to the Auckland team as Product Designer. Irene brings a sharp eye, a warm presence, and exactly the kind of thinking we love. Not only that, she brings along with her Ludo, who will be our newest office fur-baby. How adorable!

Welcome, Jack. 
Joining the London team is Jack Morris as Marketing and Content Intern. Jack’s already hitting the ground running - and we couldn’t be happier to have him on board.

Journey in London - come find us. 
We’ll be at AI LIVE: The London Summit (October), MarTech (November) and the AI Creative Summit (November). If you’re heading to any of these, we’d love to connect over a coffee. Drop me a line at dane@journey-digital.com.

04 — Currently Playing

What we’re listening to in the London studio

Closing

Thanks for making it to the end of issue two - we hope it was worth the five minutes. If something sparked a thought or a conversation, that’s exactly what we’re here for.

The team is in good shape across both studios, the podcast is almost here, and we’ve got some exciting work coming we can’t wait to share. Until next month.