User identity shouldn’t be left behind

The Open Graph #7

Welcome to The Open Graph, a newsletter by Gravatar that’s all about helping you create better user experiences on the internet.

Are you treating users like strangers?

Every time a new user hits your platform, they’re starting from scratch.

Mom opens your customer support chat: “My subscription charged twice this month.”

Your bot responds: “Hi! I’d be happy to help. To get started, could you provide your name and location so I can look up your account?”

She just wants her money back. Now she’s wondering why a chatbot needs to know where she lives before it can explain why she got charged twice.

This is the cold start problem. New users can’t just get help – they have to build their identity from zero first.

The real cost of AI amnesia

Here’s what’s happening behind the scenes:

Every new user interaction starts with an identity interrogation instead of solving their actual problem.

Your support chatbot (or human!) collects the same basic info over and over because it doesn’t know who’s talking to it.

You’re either building lengthy onboarding flows (users hate this) or accepting that your AI experiences will always feel impersonal.

The speed of AI development right now is wild. Just last week at Google I/O 2025, we saw announcements of Gemini 2.5, new agentic capabilities, and AI models that can process 480 trillion tokens monthly – that’s 50 times more than just a year ago. The entire industry is moving at breakneck speed.

What if users brought their context with them?

That’s exactly what our AI Profile Builder does.

Users create one structured profile on Gravatar – their basic info, communication preferences, and relevant background. Your AI gets instant context without awkward interrogations.

Instead of asking “What’s your name and location?” your support bot already knows it’s talking to Jennifer from Portland who prefers quick, direct answers.

Three key benefits for your platform:

Skip the friction – Users bring their identity, you skip the awkward introductions
No creepy profiling – Users control what you know, transparent and trustworthy
Works everywhere – One API, consistent context across all platforms

Simple integration, rich context

Here’s the technical bit: https://gravatar.com/{EmailHash}.md

That’s it. One API call gives you structured user context that actually travels with them across the web.

javascript// Get user's AI profile
const profile = await fetch(`https://gravatar.com/${emailHash}.md`);
// Your AI now knows their basic info, preferences, background

No hidden behavioral tracking. No mysterious algorithmic profiling. Just transparent, user-controlled identity that makes your AI features actually useful.

Why this matters now

AI personalization is becoming table stakes. Users expect systems to understand them.

But here’s the thing – they also expect transparency about how systems understand them. The creepy black-box approach might work short-term, but it’s not sustainable.

Getting ahead of this trend positions your platform as privacy-forward and user-respecting. That’s going to matter more as AI becomes ubiquitous.

Ready to give your AI actual context?

Our AI Profile Builder API is live with REST endpoints and mobile SDKs. Whether you’re building chatbots, content recommendations, or AI workflows, user-controlled identity takes just a few lines of code.

Get your API key and ship better personalization in 10 minutes →