This week, I sat in a round table discussion with about a dozen other product design leaders from various industries. Someone asked the group, “Are your users actually asking you for all of these AI features?“

There was a good chuckle around the room. No, absolutely no one is asking for AI.

But just like old Ford quote, no one was asking for a car.

People are asking us to smooth out clunky workflows, automate mundane tasks, and enable them to do more in less time. AI is one of many options in our tool belt to solve these challenges. Whether it really should be the solution in the context of your product or service, depends.

And although none of us in this roundtable discussion had heard a single ask from our users for an AI feature, we did hear about it daily from our boards and executive suites. Why? Why are investors so hungry for that AI sparkle? What brings that to the top of priorities when many teams are drowning in a backlog to get their product merely up to par?

I’ll be the first to admit that I have been frustrated by this dissonance in the past year. Especially as a designer, my background is steeped in being the voice of the user. But I had an epiphany this week. Not a particularly ingenious one, but certainly a pivot in my mentality, so I figured I would share it here in case it hits home with you.

Whether we like it or not, disruption is different today than it was just a few years ago. Individuals and tiny teams are launching AI products that are toppling successful, engrained businesses in just about every industry right now, and it’s happening quicker than ever. Up until quite recently, I couldn’t imagine a life without Google’s search engine. And yet, within a few months of the ChatGPTs, Claude’s, and Perplexity’s of the world coming to market, countless people I know aren’t even using Google at all anymore. And that’s just Search. The fact that we can use AI to code and ship apps with fewer barriers and fewer people, is leading to an exponentially fast reorg of every industry.

I hate to sound dramatic, but my nerdy anthropology background can’t help but feel that we’re not just inventing a new crop, but rather an entirely new system of agriculture that will change how every restaurant operates. And I’d like to stay in business.

If it hasn’t happened to your product or your industry yet, it’s only a matter of time. AI startups have and will continue to disrupt every industry, from the easy targets like consumer products and enterprise tooling to the harder markets like legal, health, and education.

So yes, our boards are constantly prodding us about AI, but it’s not (or shouldn’t be) to just incorporate cute sparkles here and there. Rather it’s about disrupting ourselves deeply before someone comes along and does it for us.

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