Are vibe coded apps an asset or liability?
Plus: New Live AI features from Microsoft and Google, Figma gets a new MCP server, the real world limits of AI agents
Hi product people 👋, Rich here with the weekly briefing.
Coming up this week, Microsoft and Google reveal new live AI assistant capabilities, OpenAI’s former head of research asks whether vibe coded apps are an asset or liability and a new study demonstrates the real world limitations of AI agents.
Plus, grab a collection of design assets, languages and systems from world class companies, how Anthropic built its multi-agent research system and why GEO could now be the genuine alternative to SEO…
More: Watch on YouTube / Follow on Substack Notes / Unlock the Full Newsletter
Microsoft and Google launch new Live AI experiences
First up, Microsoft has started to roll out its new Copilot feature, Vision. It’s pitched as an AI companion that “works with you, sees what you see, and helps you get things done”. When you choose to enable it, Copilot Vision can see what you see and talk to you about it in real time. Privacy concerns are a real issue but OS-level AI assistants like this could become the ultimate version of an AI Assistant. If Apple ever manages to ship Apple Intelligence, their interpretation of an OS-level assistant will be interesting to see.
Google is continuing to experiment with wildly different ways to Search (at this point they have no choice, of course, but their bets are bold). Search is getting Search Live - a new mode that allows you to have a direct conversation with your results. Google’s Director of Product for Search explains how it works in a post announcing the new feature and says that it’s designed to work in the background to allow users to multi-task if they want to.
Search is also getting Audio Overviews (the podcast-style feature in NotebookLM). Instead of relying on uploaded sources, Audio Overviews in search use search queries to generate the audio output. I’m not completely convinced I’d ever want or need to use this - but I’d happily give it a try to find out. In Workplace, Google also started to roll out the new ability to import Slides directly into Google Vids.
Figma, Stripe and others get new MCP servers
Figma launched a new MCP server for Dev Mode that connects Figma directly to AI coding assistants like Copilot, Cursor and Claude Code. Instead of just giving an AI a screenshot or a vague API response, the MCP server gives it rich, structured data about your Figma designs. This guide talks you through how product teams might want to use it.
Other new MCP servers released recently include:
Stripe testing for payment testing and simulating real world scenarios
Asana’s MCP server - for managing your to dos and getting status updates
ElevenLabs’ Conversational AI for speaking to voice agents and asking them to perform tasks like sending emails on your behalf
If you want to learn more about MCP servers, what they are and how they can be used by product teams, this guide should help.
Are vibe coded apps an asset or a liability?
Lovable made its premium product free for the weekend to allow indie projects to build on the platform. After the weekend, it hand picked a bunch of vibe coded apps as winners - and here they are.
OpenAI’s former head of research isn’t convinced that vibe coded apps are a suitable replacement for products built by software engineers just yet though. “"If you are given a code base that you don't understand — this is a classic software engineering question — is that a liability or is it an asset?” If an app is vibe coded, he argues, the answer is likely that it’s a liability.
The comments came as part of a talk at Sequoia Capital Here’s some other insights and predictions from his talk:
Reads and resources for product teams
New from the Department of Product Substack this week:
Knowledge Series - How to use AI browsers at work
AI browsers are finally here. 5 ways to use them including: Market analysis in minutes, write documentation, teach yourself anything, keep up to date with competitors. In this Knowledge Series, we’ll explore how product teams can use AI browsers at work to transform common tasks and workflows like conducting market research, getting to grips with technical documentation, staying ahead of competitors and writing up PRDs / other documentation.
We’ll also explore the brand new concept of AI browser “skills” that are gaining popularity right now and how you can use AI browsers to analyse data and spreadsheets in ways that Google Gemini and Copilot simply can’t match. (Department of Product)
Case study - How Anthropic built its multi-agent research system
The multi-agent research system developed by Anthropic is designed to handle open-ended, complex research tasks that are too dynamic for traditional, single-agent AI approaches. This case study explains more. (Anthropic Engineering)
10 rules for making interfaces more human (Apple’s Bill Atkinson)
The Gentle Singularity - a new piece on the emergence of super intelligence (Sam Altman)
Spotted in prod - a collection of real world mobile app UI you can use as inspiration for your own product.
Tools you can use
Scrappy - a tool specifically designed to help you build scrappy, simple tools you can use every day.
Liveblocks - ready made Copilots you can add instantly to your product.
Den - describes itself as a better Slack+Notion built for AI agents.
📈 Product data and trends to stay informed
The performance of AI agents on longer tasks leads to an exponential decay in success rates. For example, if an agent has a 50% chance of finishing a 1-hour task, it would have a 25% chance of finishing a 2-hour task (since it must succeed in both hours):
This rapid decline could have a major impact on AI agents' coding abilities since humans appear to perform better over a longer horizon. Research paper.
A new report this week showed steep declines for organic traffic across Netflix (down 23%), Trip Advisor (down 34%) and Starbucks (down 41%). And it looks as though “GEO” or generative engine optimization may actually be an official term now. Adobe is using it in the press release for their latest product called LLM Optimizer - designed to help companies boost their GEO performance and one of the startups in the latest YCombinator Batch is designed for the same thing. GEO tools are just getting started, it would seem.
Consumers say they are most influenced by friends and family - and least influenced by social media. The new McKinsey report on consumer trends is worth a read to stay up to date with how users are thinking.
In a letter to workers, Amazon’s CEO says it will reduce its workforce because of AI. "It’s hard to know exactly where this nets out over time, but in the next few years, we expect that this will reduce our total corporate workforce." he said. This week, the so-called “Godfather of AI” warned that AI will likely lead to mass joblessness. His advice to his grandchildren? Become a plumber.
Netflify’s CEO says that there are 10,000 new websites being built every day on its platform - with many of these being used internally by businesses, threatening the traditional SaaS model. Companies are increasingly building their own apps with the top categories including HR and training, revenue operations / business dashboards and marketing tools.
~60% of generative AI app users are male but for persona-based products like Character AI, this trend is reversed with 70% of users female. 90% of these are aged <35.
Other product news in brief
🔈Spotify’s lossless audio may finally be coming soon according to a new leak.
🎨Figma has acquired Payload - the headless CMS, bridging the gap between engineering and design
⛓️💥Further cracks are emerging between Microsoft and OpenAI
Happy Friday and have a great weekend!
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