GoHenry — Product / AI Experience
GoHenry — Product / AI Experience
Overview
An emotional AI-powered blink challenge that ages a child to 18 in seconds. Parent and child lock eyes — the moment the parent blinks, their child is 18. Built to live inside GoHenry's app, on web, and as a physical installation. The business goal: grow Junior ISA sign-ups and give existing customers a reason to stay.
The Challenge
Competitor kids' debit cards were multiplying fast. GoHenry needed a clear point of difference — and investing was it. But Junior ISAs are abstract and jargon-heavy, and most parents don't understand them or are too intimidated to start. Future returns, compound growth, 18-year horizons: none of it lands. We needed to make them feel the urgency before we could sell them the product.
The Idea
Let the kids make the ask. A child's childhood is just 18 years — blink and it's gone, along with your chance to invest in them. Instead of GoHenry selling the message, we handed it to the children. The Don't Blink Challenge is the hero activation of that idea. The parent thinks it's just a game. Then they blink — and suddenly their child is 18. The trick lands the message that no pitch deck ever could.
The Approach
We built an AI experience that ages a child to 18 in real time — inside the GoHenry app, on web, and as a real-world installation. We paired that emotional gut-punch with what £5 a month could actually grow to by the time they get there. Emotional string first. Numbers second.
Digital Experience
Don't blink challenge
Built to scale
In-app, web, and physical installation — plus rebrandable for Acorns Early in the US. Three surfaces, one codebase. That constraint shaped every UX decision from the start.
Zero friction
Fewer screens, smarter defaults. Get the parent to the wow moment as fast as possible, then get out of the way. The AI had render latency — so instead of a spinner, we used sleight of hand to keep it feeling instant.
Getting the magic right
Many iterations to get the ageing transition right. Too fast and it's jarring. Too slow and you lose the moment. Magical, not uncanny — that was the brief to ourselves.
User testing
Two things had to be true: users understood what they were doing, and the wow moment landed. If either failed, the JISA prompt at the end would feel forced rather than earned.
Trust & privacy
Parents were handing over photos of their kids. The UI had to make it clear — images not stored, experience safe — without making a big deal of it and killing the mood.
Always JISA
Every exit pointed to one place: JISA sign-up. We also designed for two users — a prospect and an existing customer — each with different entry points and expectations, but one seamless flow.
Visual treatment
The Don't Blink challenge needed its own visual identity — distinct enough to feel like a standalone product experience, but still sitting clearly under the Invest in Me campaign umbrella.
We landed on eyes. The idea came directly from the GoHenry brand — the two O's in the logo became the foundation for the eye characters. It meant the visual felt genuinely native rather than designed-on-top. From there we pushed them into something more playful: animated, characterful, a little unpredictable. Simple enough to scale across app, web, and physical installation, expressive enough to carry the whole interaction.
Tech
Ageing a child's face is harder than it sounds. Children wearing hats, glasses, with disabilities, across different ethnicities — every edge case is a potential failure point, and in an AI product aimed at families, failure isn't just a bug, it's a trust issue. We spent significant time stress-testing the pipeline for bias, edge cases, and safety, building guardrails that made the experience feel effortless while carrying a lot of invisible weight underneath.
Experiential
Similar to the online and product experience, we're bringing it into the real world.
Kids and parents are invited to compete in a don't blink challenge. That's all they know as they take their positions either side of a small booth — a screen between them. When the parent blinks, their child suddenly looks 18.
We end on a reassuring note. There's still time to invest in their child's future — with a direct link to the product.
Installation in the works — come back soon.
Results
Still collating the results.
Watch this space.
Part of something bigger
The product experience sat at the heart of a wider integrated campaign: 650 OOH locations across the UK, lenticular bus ads, TfL Underground, digital screens, connected TV, social and influencer. Invest in me was the idea. The campaign gave it scale.
GoHenry