Shiva Manjunath.
Senior Web Product Manager, CRO at Motive / Co-founder & Member at From A to B
1) Al in CRO: Genius or Garbage?
The biggest mistake is thinking “AI output = fully factual”. I’ve seen it hallucinate, ignore instructions, and go rogue.
But... it can be your extra set of eyes — just never your only one. Don’t replace your analysis. Augment it.
2) CRO Best Practices: Real or Rubbish?
Best practices? More like basic guidelines.
I removed form fields. Conversions tanked. I added form fields based on research. Conversions rose.
TL;DR: “Less fields = more conversions” is BS. Context is king.
Amrdeep Athwal.
Founding Member at POC in Experimentation & CRO / Senior Performance Analyst at HMRC
1) AI in CRO: Genius or Garbage?
The worst use of AI? Firing great copywriters and designers. That’s not how you win.
The best use? Handling scale: data patterns, UX research… things that take weeks, done in hours. Creativity? Still very much human territory.
2) CRO Best Practices: Real or Rubbish?
Website speed? Overhyped. A client shaved a second off load time and got a 10% lift, sure… but the effort could have been used for 5–10X bigger wins.
The best practice that actually works? Clarity. If your homepage doesn’t tell me in 30 seconds why your product is useful, you’ve already lost me.
Slobodan Manić.
Co-Founder at Web Performance Tools / Podcast Host at No Hacks
1) AI in CRO: Genius or Garbage?
The mistake? Trusting AI with too much.
The best use? Focused tasks with clear context and goals.
That’s where AI shines.
2) CRO Best Practices: Real or Rubbish?
Going meta here: best practices.
Applied blindly = BS.
Applied with user understanding = gold.
What always works? Knowing your users and how they interact with your site.
Tracy Laranjo.
On-Demand CRO Strategist & Coach for eCommerce
1) AI in CRO: Genius or Garbage?
Replacing a strategist with AI is like swapping a chef for a microwave. Fast, yes — but you don’t want to serve that dish.
The smart move? Use AI as your sous chef. Let it chop data and summarize insights, while you design the real experiments.
2) CRO Best Practices: Real or Rubbish?
Copying Apple or Amazon? Total laziness. Their traffic, budgets, and audiences are nothing like yours.
The wins come from listening to your customers — what they want, what annoys them, what they need. That’s where the real tests live.
Juliana Jackson.
Cloud Director Data Science at Jellyfish
1) AI in CRO: Genius or Garbage?
Optimization still assumes clean intent, interface-only friction, linear journeys. Useful, not sufficient. Users arrive mid-narrative, primed off-domain. To leverage Brand Moments, shift to perception-led segmentation — group by what primed expectations, not by funnel drop-off.
2) CRO Best Practices: Real or Rubbish?
‘Best practices’ = survivorship bias from a web that no longer exists. Interfaces aren’t the experience — endpoints. If TikTok asks ‘is this legit?,’ you’ve got a trust-perception gap. Start with legitimacy signals (visual cues, transparency, UX proof points).
Brand Moments expose narrative to repair or amplify belief.
Rommil Santiago.
Sr. Dir., Product Experimentation at Constant Contact / Founder & Owner at Experiment Nation
1) AI in CRO: Genius or Garbage?
The mistake? Letting AI run the whole process. Context still matters.
The smart use? Speed. Use AI to generate code, test variations, and POCs — just review before shipping.
2) CRO Best Practices: Real or Rubbish?
Best practices? Great as idea starters — BS if followed blindly. The only one I trust: be skeptical of best practices. Critical thinking wins.
Mike Fawcett.
Senior Web Product Manager, CRO at Motive / Co-founder & Member at From A to B
1) AI in CRO: Genius or Garbage?
Don’t use AI (or stock) avatars for testimonials — people spot fakes instantly.
AI is ‘spicy autocomplete.’ One clever use? Ask it for headline ideas, then avoid them all to stand out.
2) CRO Best Practices: Real or Rubbish?
Simplifying design doesn’t always reduce cognitive load — clarity does.
What works? Designing for irrational, busy humans: answer their anxieties, solve real problems, and treat your site like a top salesperson.
Ruben de Boer.
Lead Experimentation Consultant at Online Dialogue / Owner at Conversion Ideas
1) AI in CRO: Genius or Garbage?
The mistake? Using AI just because it’s there. New tools only add value when tied to clear goals and workflows.
The smart play? Use AI as an assistant: cluster survey data, check hypotheses, add ideas — while humans focus on strategy and insight.
2) CRO Best Practices: Real or Rubbish?
Most best practices are misleading without context. Copy-paste tactics waste learning opportunities.
The best practice that works? A strong experimentation process. Research-driven ideas, solid hypotheses, and structured learning — that’s what compounds long-term impact.
Gertrud Vahtra.
EU Team & Operations Lead at Speero / CRO & Growth
1) AI in CRO: Genius or Garbage?
The mistake? Using AI as a shortcut for insights. It can’t replace real users or research.
The smart use? Speed and support: spotting patterns in qualitative data, summarizing learnings, and highlighting trends faster — while humans keep the insights actionable.
2) CRO Best Practices: Real or Rubbish?
Universal best practices don’t exist. Trust badges won’t fix unclear pricing or confusing plans.
The only one I trust? Root tests in customer research. If that’s missing, fall back on heuristics: value, relevance, clarity, friction, motivation.
Brian Massey.
Conversion Optimization Expert at Conversion Sciences
1) AI in CRO: Genius or Garbage?
AI is great at heuristics — but only if you feed it context. Most skip this step.
Train your model on industry and analytics data; that’s how you turn AI from a ‘best practice generator’ into a real strategist.
2) CRO Best Practices: Real or Rubbish?
The ‘goldfish attention span’ myth? Total BS. People read good copy.
My favorite test: fix your navigation labels. ‘Products’ tells me nothing — ‘Shirts’ or ‘Belts’ does. Clear words convert.
Iqbal Ali.
Text-mining and user research with AI at Ressada
1) AI in CRO: Genius or Garbage?
Biggest mistake? Treating a chat box like it has infinite memory. Overstuffed prompts = shaky answers = shaky decisions. Don’t ‘chat’— engineer workflows with validation and transparency. Use AI to scale (e.g., creative variants), then human-review.
2) CRO Best Practices: Real or Rubbish?
Tactic-led ‘best practices’ (e.g., ‘use numbers in the hero’) are superficial. Use best practices for how to test, not what to test. Start problem-first: identify the real blocker (authority? confidence?), then back it with qual research and deeper analysis. That’s how programs get meaningful.
Paul Randall.
Associate Director of Strategy at Speero
1) AI in CRO: Genius or Garbage?
Pair AI with research and your past experiments. Expecting great ideas without context is like asking a CRO pro to ideate cold — you’ll get noise, not insight. Give AI the full scenario and it shifts from chatter to genuinely valuable, data-informed ideas.
2) CRO Best Practices: Real or Rubbish?
I’m not big on blanket ‘best practices,’ but one principle I’ll defend is isolating variables.
When you change too many things at once, you’re left guessing which element actually made the impact. Moving quickly with bolder ideas comes at the expense of a lack of insight and repeatability. 
Deborah O’Malley.
Founder & Head of Product Strategy at GuessTheTest / Professor Product MKT Analytics at Queen's University
1) AI in CRO: Genius or Garbage?
AI isn’t a magic wand. CRO isn’t pixie dust— it’s context, behavior, psychology. Use AI to shortcut thinking and you’re automating mediocrity. Smart play? Meta-analysis. Let AI scan past tests, surface patterns, and reveal where conversion potential is. Then it stops being a gimmick and becomes a partner.
2) CRO Best Practices: Real or Rubbish?
Universal ‘best practices’? Mostly myth. Every site and audience is different — that’s why we test.
One principle that does pay off again and again: reduce friction. Kill unnecessary fields, fix confusing microcopy, and simplify painful checkouts. Strip it back, smooth it out, watch conversions rise.
Gerda Thomas.
Co-Founder at Katsed / Co-Founder at Koalatative
1) AI in CRO: Genius or Garbage?
Biggest mistake? Treating AI like a trendy fix-all. Impressive demos ≠ real solutions.
Most ‘AI for CRO’ just parrots best-practice blogs. CRO is human behavior + context — use AI to assist, not replace.
2) CRO Best Practices: Real or Rubbish?
Best practices’ are fine as inspiration —terrible as a copy-paste playbook. Every context is different. What works: deep research, customer understanding, consistent testing — and skip sleazy quick wins if you care about long-term brand health.
Simon Girardin.
Director of Experimentation at ConversionAdvocates / Strategy Consultant at SG Consulting
1) AI in CRO: Genius or Garbage?
Ideation flops when teams give AI little context — it just rehashes popular web takes and tanks backlog quality. Use richer prompts + refinement.
Best use I’ve seen: feed your finished test data, insights, and planned iterations, then ask the model to challenge your thinking from different perspectives.
2) CRO Best Practices: Real or Rubbish?
No tactic always wins. Reframe best practices as program practices — process, rigor, governance:
- Write clear, scientific hypotheses.
- Define measurement before launch.
- Analyze with power/sig/CIs; track program health.
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