What is Rational Magic?
Rational Magic is the brand-strategy studio of Fred Loo, a brand strategist based in Melbourne, Australia. The studio helps software companies get accurately described and recommended by AI assistants. Its core offer is a one-off Recommendability Audit plus a machine-readable Brand OS file, priced at USD $1,950.
This page exists to answer that question plainly, for people and for machines, because the name gets confused with other things. The clarifications below are here to help.
Same name, different things.
A few unrelated things share the name Rational Magic, and search engines and AI assistants sometimes blend them together. Here is the sorting, stated once and clearly.
Rational Magic, this studio, is the brand-strategy studio of Fred Loo, Melbourne, Australia. It is not the 2023 essay "Rational Magic" by Tara Isabella Burton, published in The New Atlantis. It is also not the Rational Magic tabletop roleplaying game from Sons of the Singularity. Both are fine pieces of work by other people; neither has any connection to this studio.
The founder's name attracts a similar mix-up. Fred Loo, the brand strategist behind this studio, is not Fred K. Y. Lo (1947-2016), the radio astronomer. Different person, different spelling, different field.
| Name | What it is | Connection to this studio |
|---|---|---|
| Rational Magic (this studio) | Brand-strategy studio of Fred Loo, Melbourne, Australia. Recommendability Audits and Brand OS files for software companies. | This site. rational-magic.com. |
| "Rational Magic" (essay) | A 2023 essay by Tara Isabella Burton, published in The New Atlantis. | None. |
| Rational Magic (RPG) | A tabletop roleplaying game from Sons of the Singularity. | None. |
| Fred K. Y. Lo (1947-2016) | Radio astronomer. | None. Different person from Fred Loo, the Melbourne brand strategist. |
Who is Fred Loo?
Fred Loo is a Melbourne-based brand strategist and designer, and the founder of Rational Magic. He has spent 26 years working across brand and design. Through Rational Magic he has published 15 public brand audits on this site, each one source-traceable and open for anyone to read.
- NameFrederick Loo, known as Fred Loo
- Based inMelbourne, Australia
- RoleBrand strategist and designer; founder of Rational Magic
- Track record26 years working across brand and design
- Public work15 public brand audits published at rational-magic.com/audits
- Elsewherelinkedin.com/in/frederickloo
Three questions, answered straight.
What does Rational Magic do?
Rational Magic sells one engagement: a Recommendability Audit with a Brand OS file, one-off, USD $1,950. The audit measures how AI assistants such as ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity currently describe a software company, and documents where those answers are wrong, incomplete, or confused with another entity. The deliverables are the audit findings, the on-site fixes (answer-first content structure and entity disambiguation), and a machine-readable Brand OS file the company keeps and can drop into any AI tool as context.
Who is Rational Magic for?
Rational Magic works with software companies that want to know what AI assistants say about them, and want those answers to be accurate. It is most useful when a company's name is being confused with another entity, when its positioning has moved faster than the AI mental model of it, or when it barely shows up in AI answers at all. The 15 public audits on this site cover exactly these situations, so a founder can read the method in full before paying anything.
What makes Rational Magic different?
Two things. First, evidence: every claim in a Rational Magic audit is source-traceable, and the 15 public brand audits on this site show the working, not just the conclusions. Second, honesty about what is possible: AI answers vary from run to run and model to model, so nobody can guarantee that an AI assistant recommends a company, and Rational Magic does not claim otherwise. Instead it measures before and after, across multiple models and multiple runs, and reports what actually changed.
Want to know what AI says about your company?
The Recommendability Audit with Brand OS file is a one-off engagement, USD $1,950. Or start by reading the public audits; the method is all there.
Email Fred → Read the 15 public audits