Finding Audience-Message Fit

Behavioral economist Daniel Kahneman observed that “a compelling narrative fosters an illusion of inevitability.” In other words: a great message makes your success feel like a done deal — while a bad one makes every door a little harder to push open.??

This is especially true when you’re talking about complex technical domains like AI, robotics, biotech, or deep tech, where the layers of detail can stack up fast. If you don’t tailor your message to the right audience, it’s game over before you start.

The duck-rabbit magic trick

Deciding what part of your story to go deep on—and how deep to go—are the core challenges of nailing audience-message fit. Here’s one way to look at it: the classic rabbit-duck optical illusion (yes, this sounds strange, but bear with us).?

Viewed from one perspective, you may see the duck first. Tilt your head, and the rabbit appears first instead. Or perhaps what jumps out first is correlated with other factors, like environment, age, or occupation. Your job as a communicator is to prime your audience to see your intended animal first—be it the roundabout rabbit or the direct duck. That’s audience-message fit in action.

Below is a simple framework to break this down. Segment your target audience into niche and broad on one side, and your message into technical or simple on the other:

What usually happens

Most of the time, technical messages default to a niche audience. For instance, when we’re talking about Anyscale’s open source AI/ML computing framework Ray, we’re usually targeting ML engineers and technical builders. When we’re dreaming up stories about Netflix, our audience is broad—just about everyone can follow along. That’s the default: technical = niche, simple = broad.

Where it gets more interesting—and challenging!

The real magic happens when you flip the script: how do you take a very technical message and reach a broad audience? Or take a simple, broad message and make it resonate with a more niche group of people??

This is where audience-message fit becomes a creative superpower, helping you shape a story that feels custom-built for your audience’s brain.

Some concrete ways to sharpen your audience-message fit:

• Refine the headline: First impressions matter. When communicating a technical breakthrough to enterprise decision-makers, lead with the business impact—not the technical guts. Our client You.com’s recent release of professional research agent ARI is a good example of this positioning in action (VentureBeat; Forbes). We framed the story around how the tool enhances business-critical research, not just how it works under the hood.
• Tailor the vocabulary: Different audiences speak different languages. Technical domain experts love precise terminology and deep dives. Broader audiences need clear, jargon-free language. Your phrasing can bake in significant amounts of assumed knowledge, so use it strategically.
• Adopt an "iceberg" approach: Show the "tip" of your messaging iceberg—the simplest, clearest version of your story—and leave the deep technical detail for the curious few who want to dive. The right “tip” depends entirely on your audience. For fundamental AI researchers, you might actually lead with the architectural innovations underpinning a breakthrough in model training.
• Find your golden analogy: Analogies are secret weapons. The right one holds ample explanatory power. The computer as a brain, data as oil, the internet as a road system, software as a recipe—these are effective because they instantly click. From Steve Jobs' “the computer is a bicycle for the mind” to practical explanations, such as “LLMs are autocomplete on steroids,” good analogies simply stick.?

Nailing audience-message fit will give your success the “illusion of inevitability,” but this isn’t a set-it-and-forget-it process. Your audience’s mood shifts — sometimes thanks to hype cycles, sometimes thanks to headlines. Pay attention, and keep evolving your fit.?

Want to partner with us to create that message? You know where to find us.

What we’re reading:?

The Government Knows AGI is Coming

If you haven’t heard about this piece yet, consider this your invitation to check it out (or listen in). Ezra Klein hosts an in-depth and wide-ranging conversation with Ben Buchanan, the Biden White House’s top adviser on A.I., diving into how—and when—transformational AI may impact the economy, cybersecurity, national security, labor. Klein’s thesis is that Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) seems to be within grasp over the next 2-3 years, and we—and the US government—are not adequately prepared for the gargantuan shift.?

Ezra Klein’s new take on AGI – and why I think it’s probably wrong

On the flip side, Gary Marcus jumps into the fray to comment on Klein’s widely-read opinion piece, laying out why the expedited timeline and its world-changing impacts will take longer than anticipated, and are therefore less of an existential threat to our current way of life. He also posits that our current trajectory focused on large language models is the wrong path to AGI, which will delay us further.

Stories we’re proud to tell: