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Half of you got a test email yesterday

2026-05-12 · 15:01 UTC ·Hiten Shah ·1 min read

Brief

Hiten Shah (Product Habits) ran an A/B email test on 2026-05-12 — half of subscribers saw one version and half another, with some calling one variant AI-sounding. Facing a year-long drop in click rates, Shah hypothesizes readers detect “empty” AI-style prose and will run a live Reddit AMA to probe responses and defend human writing.

Why it matters

On 2026-05-12 Hiten Shah (Product Habits) sent an A/B test email: half of recipients received one version, half another, and some readers identified one variant as “AI-written.”

Key details

  • Shah says click rates have fallen over the past year, suspects readers detect empty/AI-like copy, and is running a live Reddit AMA (https://www.reddit.com/r/crazyegg/comments/1tajl4t/) to answer questions and test more human writing.
Cleaned source text

Some of you noticed. You were right.

Yesterday, I sent a test. Half of you got one version of an email. The other half got another. One of them sounded like AI wrote it. Some of you called it out.

You were right.

I did it because I’ve been trying to understand something that has been bothering me for a while. Over the last year, click rates have dropped a lot, even when I haven’t changed much about what I send. That made me wonder if the problem is bigger than subject lines, timing, or topics.

People are getting better at sensing when writing looks fine but feels empty. AI can make that worse. So can we, when we let it sand off the weird, specific, human parts.

So tomorrow I’m doing something harder to fake.

I’m answering questions live on Reddit.

Ask me anything about AI, marketing, Crazy Egg, startups, self-funding, venture, selling a company, or why so much business writing has gotten boring.

The AMA is already open for questions, so you can ask yours now: https://www.reddit.com/r/crazyegg/comments/1tajl4t/ama_with_hiten_shah_ceo_of_crazy_egg/

Hiten

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