tldr; for many old UX’s, there exists an AI capability threshold that amplifies the value prop
Everyone has had a good experience with a product recently. When your AirPods arrive in the mail, you flick the case open and place them tentatively in your ears. The noise-canceling headphones stream Anderson Paak in his distinctive soulful sound. A good product makes an indelible impression on its user - initially in terms of delight but also value over time. You are both excited to use AirPods and can use them to get more work done.
And there are bad user experiences - printers suck. You buy a printer for a few hundred dollars and keep a massive hunk of grey on your shelf for many years. If you get lucky, it works for a couple of weeks. You can print return labels and tax forms. But then it dissolves in your hands, and repairs and parts quickly become expensive enough that it is not worth saving.
Now reflect on your experiences with ChatGPT. Is it delightful to use? My own experience is no. Text is an effortful medium. Parsing and understanding large amounts of it is unnatural. Then why is it valuable?
The reason is simple: delight and value are sometimes disconnected. Many use ChatGPT to write emails faster. I use it to code faster and understand concepts more quickly. Saving time is an objective metric. Productivity is the value created. We use ChatGPT as an exoskeleton to complete more things in the same amount of time. Everyone mentioning models and moats for ChatGPT misses the point - the goal is to create user value.
Of course, productivity is just one measure of value - there are many others! But for many old UX’s, no matter how awkward, there is an AI model threshold at which real value is created. Many ideas come to mind:
- Character gives you an AI companion
- Replika gives you an AI girlfriend
- Harvey allows lawyers to understand large documents faster
- Copilot lets you code faster
And there will be more! This is a growing space. Clippy will return, coding assistants will become ~much~ more valuable, and more structured repeated tasks will be automated.