In Consumer Behaviour, students study how factors such as motivation, perception and culture influence purchasing. Galvin had found that being able to define a cultural influence did not necessarily help a student investigate why an unfamiliar consumer might choose a particular product.

Arranging conversations with consumers across different countries and backgrounds was not always practical within the time and resources available to diploma students. He developed Global Voices to give them a supplementary setting in which to practise questioning and interpretation.

The activity starts with fictional consumers generated through artificial intelligence. Students decide what to ask about their motivations, preferences and buying habits. They then use established consumer behaviour theories to interpret the responses and build a consumer profile.

That profile informs a subsequent product design task. Students propose a product or marketing response, explaining how their choices relate to the needs they have identified. Later activities extend the work into simulated retail decisions and consideration of how a Malaysian brand might adapt to another ASEAN market.

Galvin designed the learning sequence and its resources so that an early investigation would inform later decisions. Lectures, tutorials and feedback remain part of the process. The simulated interaction gives students material to examine; their reasoning has to connect it to what they are studying.

He also makes the simulation’s limits explicit. AI-generated responses can be inaccurate, superficial or culturally stereotyped. A fictional persona is not evidence about real consumers, nor can it represent everyone from a particular background. Students are encouraged to question what it says.

_{Galvin built Café Conquest: Beach Breeze so students could test business decisions without real financial risk.}

_{In Café Conquest, a choice that looks sensible on its own can create difficulties elsewhere in the business.}