A study recently published in the journal Journal of Marketing Research suggests something many Italians already knew—certain hand gestures really do make people seem more competent and persuasive.

When people talk face to face, they don’t rely on words alone. They move their hands, raise their eyebrows, or nod to help express what they mean. These gestures often carry meaning and help listeners ...

In the new study, Apple taught an AI model to recognize hand gestures that weren’t part of its original training dataset.