AI Products - 2

It’s a Huge Opportunity for Product Designers — and It's Not Because AI Can Code for Them


I just finished reading the Marginal Revolution email, "Kevin Bryan and Joshua Gans Have a New AI Educational Project" (link).


The sentence I found interesting is:

"In a perfect world, we want every student to have individual-level assistance, at any time,
in any language, in the format they want (a chatbot TA, a question bank, a sample test grader, etc.)."

In a perfect world... It reminds me of a talk by Brian Chesky, where he describes the 1, 2, 3... 10-star experience that a user of Airbnb can have (link). When I first listened to that talk, I thought: This is a great framework to think about and design a new product or service. It aligns with the Human-Centric Design principle and can be executed using the Double Diamond Design Process or the IDEO Design Thinking Process. But, at the end of the day, it felt like you would never truly reach the 10th star...


Well, now it feels like you can — or at least, AI is helping us move closer to it. There are countless processes that can be significantly enhanced thanks to modern AI, much like what All Day TA does for teaching.


Examples of 10-Star Experiences

  1. Online Grocery Shopping: Imagine an AI dietician, chef, and accountant that listens to your (and your family’s) food desires and creates a shopping list from Whole Foods. It could account for the right quantities, budget, health guidelines, expiration dates — and even teach you how to cook.

  2. The Obvious and Still Unsolved Holiday Planning: An AI that truly plans the perfect trip for you, down to the smallest details.

  3. Employee Onboarding and Learning & Development (L&D):
    A 10-star experience could include:

    • Tailored company introduction material personalized to your name and role.
    • Videos, first-day schedules, and meeting arrangements.
    • An AI assistant (like All Day TA) that answers any questions you might have on your first day, facilitates introductions to the right people, and helps you set and track your progress.

  4. Integrated Development Environments (IDEs) (e.g., Cursor):
    What if, in addition to everything Cursor already does, it also helps me learn more in-depth about the code, libraries, or systems I am using? What if it explores relevant topics for me, teaches me new skills, and even guides me toward an AWS certification?


What’s Holding Back LLM Usage?

I believe it’s this: there aren’t enough Product Designers developing new products!

2024-12-17