personalize

Personalize is a verb meaning to tailor something to the individual characteristics, preferences, or needs of a person or group. In business and technology, it refers to adapting products, services, or content based on data about an individual, such as past behavior, stated preferences, or demographic information.

Applications include personalized marketing (advertising and emails tailored to a recipient), personalized recommendations on streaming or shopping platforms, and personalized user interfaces that adjust layout or features for a user. Techniques often involve data collection, user profiling, and machine learning methods such as collaborative filtering and content-based filtering to predict what a user will prefer. Dynamic content and real-time adaptation are common features.

There is a distinction between personalization and customization. Personalization uses data and automatic algorithms to modify content without explicit input, whereas customization is when a user manually selects settings or options. Privacy and data protection considerations are central to personalization, including consent, data minimization, transparency, and the ability to opt out.

Beyond consumer technology, personalized approaches appear in fields such as personalized medicine, where treatment plans are tailored to individual genetic or biomarker information, and personalized education, where learning experiences adjust to a learner's pace and needs. Limitations include privacy risks, the potential for incorrect inferences, and the risk of overfitting to a user’s past behavior.