“If your focus group still needs pizza and a two-way mirror, you’re already outdated.”

In this episode of The AI CEO I sit down with Felipe Restrepo—CEO & co-founder of Odaptos—to unpack the first ‘empathy-enabled’ AI that reads micro-expressions, voice tone, and body language to predict a purchase eight seconds before it happens.

We talked about:
• Why 90 % of customer truth is non-verbal—and how to capture it
• Slashing research costs from $40K focus groups to a $400 AI sprint
• The “camera-amnesia” signal that tells Odaptos you’ve forgotten you’re on film
• Building a content engine straight from raw customer interviews (good-bye writer’s block)
• The REAL future of AGI (hint: EQ > IQ) and which human skills become priceless
• Ethical lines, biased data, and why regulated banks jumped in first

Whether you’re a product lead at a Fortune 500 or a bootstrapped founder chasing product–market fit, this conversation will change how you think about research, marketing, and the next wave of AI.

00:00 Intro — “Feelings vs. Words”
01:36 From France to Techstars: The origin of Odaptos
03:49 Emotions = Customer Experience Currency
08:05 Why focus groups fail (and what replaces them)
10:32 Industrializing research with AI
20:03 Case studies: Banks, insurers & 100× ROI
29:34 What emotional AI looks like in 2025
35:11 Secret sauce: Predicting a buy 8 s early
38:07 Building a moat in the age of copy-paste AI
42:16 Turning interviews into blogs, decks & ads
47:41 Zero-UI futures & “research agents”
53:36 Human skills that matter in 2030
57:26 Ethics, regulation & the path to EQ-GPT
1:04:43 Rapid-fire + final takeaways

• Emotion > Opinion – People love products for how they feel, not what they do.

• Affordable at Scale – 20 interviews for $400 means weekly iterations, not annual bets.

• 8-Second Window – Odaptos spots the precise moment intent flips to action.

• Content Flywheel – Customer voice → AI summary → ready-to-post copy in minutes.

• EQ-GPT – The next intelligence leap isn’t bigger models, it’s emotionally aware ones.

• Odaptos (Felipe’s company) – https://odaptos.com
• Virgent AI (our show sponsor) – https://Virgent.ai
• Felipe on LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/felipelebrun/
• Seema Alexander on LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/seemaalexander

Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/seemaalexander
Newsletter + consulting – https://www.disruptive.ceo/

If this episode sparked an aha-moment, tap 5 stars on Apple Podcasts and leave a one-sentence review—helps us land more game-changing guests like Felipe!