Briefing: Figma Slides, Retool External, Slack superpowers
Plus: A new way to write documentation, Notion sites, VR funding plummets
Hi product people 👋,
Welcome to the 240+ new subscribers who joined us this past week!
Documentation is super helpful if it’s kept up to date. But the problem is that plenty of teams don’t have the capacity or discipline to keep it up to date. This week, we came across a new startup which has a different take on documentation: it’s called Multiplayer and it automatically tracks all important code changes and creates documents and diagrams based on those changes. It’s a smart idea. Not just for ongoing dev work but new starters to onboard, too.
In other news, Figma kicked off its annual Config conference yesterday and the biggest announcement was the release of a new Google Slides competitor, Figma Slides. It’s a collaborative tool that works in a similar way to Google’s offering but allows teams to embed Figma designs natively into a Slide. While many of us will welcome the new product, designers might be feeling a little wary about the potential of being roped into designing slides as well as products. Watch it in action here.
Meanwhile, Retool is best known for its core value proposition which allows product teams to build internal tools. This week, it released its first feature dedicated to building external apps. They’re still B2B-oriented but they allow business users to create apps that can be shared with their clients. Early adopters who took part in the preview included a fitness studio which offered a tool to its studio managers, for example. The company’s CEO also confirmed that product teams have used Retool’s external capabilities for creating MVPs to test in the market - something to bear in mind if you’re looking for a quick way to test some ideas out.
Finally, if you’re looking to add some super powers to your Slack, this tool might help.
Enjoy the rest of your week!
Key reads, tools and resources for product teams
New from the Department of Product Substack this week:
Deep - API product strategies explored
In this DoP Deep dive, we dig deep into the API strategies of top tier tech companies including Uber, Shopify, Reddit, Twilio and more so that you’re fully up to speed with what API product strategy looks like in 2024.
(Department of Product)
UX - How to design data tables
A table is made up of three things: data, columns, and rows. It’s important to balance these elements effectively based on your product needs to maximize the benefits of tables. This piece from Luda Boss will guide you through how to design data tables in products. (Medium)
Skills - Why “it’s a balance” isn’t always the right approach to decision making
Resolve decision-making conflicts by selecting the right approach: Make a bold choice, synthesize a new solution, or find the balance. (Smart Bear)
Strategy - The growth playbook
Written by ex-Miro’s Kate Syuma, this playbook aims to provide fresh perspectives and inspiration for anyone interested in Product-Led Growth (PLG). Insights from 100+ companies and industry leaders from Dropbox, Canva, Loom, Amplitude and more.
Tools you can use
Private Notes - add private notes to your Google Calendar
Relay - AI powered automations to your workflows
ElevenLabs Reader - listen to articles, PDFs, ePubs, newsletters and more on the go
June 4.0 - free and simple analytics for product teams
Podcast - Developer tool UX in the age of AI
Design engineer Alasdair Monk joins a16z’s Yoko Li and Derrick Harris to discuss how generative AI is changing how developers — and the those building for developers — interact with the tools of their trade
New product features, launches and announcements this week
Google is rolling out Gemini across Gmail and Workspace apps with capabilities including email creation and thread summarization. Generative abilities will be helpful in an email creation context however, CIOs are quickly realising that taking full advantage of AI summarization capabilities is only possible if the underlying data sources are structured effectively. Even then, if the summary is still wrong, relying on a summarized version of the data might simply not be worth the risk for many workers.
Pinterest is launching a new feature that allows users to transform their pin boards into videos. Despite being over 10 years old, the company has been remarkably successful at continuing to appeal to Gen Z. Over 40% of its users are now Gen Z.
A new CRM startup called Day.ai has raised $4m in seed funding. It was founded by 2 former Hubspot execs and unlike modern CRMs, which are essentially giant spreadsheets that somebody needs to populate and keep updated, Day learns everything about a person from conversations they had with the company, emails and public records such as LinkedIn.
Notion has launched a new feature called Sites which allows users to turn databases into fully fledged websites with custom domain support, visual customization, and analytics For product teams, this could transform internal wikis and PRDs.
AI startup Synthesia has announced full body avatars that can move - along with hands that gesticulate at the appropriate time during a conversation. Watch it in action here.
Apple has confirmed it will not be releasing its upcoming AI Intelligence features in the EU due to regulatory compliance issues with the bloc’s new Digital Markets Act. Regulators this week confirmed it will charge Apple with issues relating to the App Store. With the power to issue fines of up to 10% of global revenue, it’s not difficult to see why Apple decided the EU wasn’t worth the risk for its upcoming AI feature set.
Anthropic’s Claude has unveiled new ways to share AI generated research. Projects and Artifacts allows teams to curate documents, code and components - ideal for product teams.
📈 Product data and trends to stay informed
A new survey shows enterprise adoption of AI has increased across the board. Software development is the category where enterprise customers are most likely to use an off the shelf solution with 44% of respondents saying they’re more likely to use an off the shelf AI product rather than build one in-house. Full survey here.
Netflix’s gaming business is struggling to gain traction. Less than 1% of Netflix users have interacted with a game and since launch, the average Netflix game has been downloaded 2.7 million times according to new analysis.
Traffic to traditional news websites is plummeting with just 22% of global respondents saying they rely on traditional news publications for their news.
1,699 U.S. tech sector employees were laid off last week according to the latest Crunchbase tracker figures.
Younger TikTok users are less influenced by “influencers”. Just 20% of younger TikTok users aged 25 and under say they trust celebrity endorsements of a product vs 44% of older TikTok users (over age 25). Report from YouGov.
Funding for AR and VR startups is continuing to plummet. YTD funding sits at $460 million and will struggle to get above $1bn in 2024 vs a high of $4bn in 2021.
UberEats orders in Seattle fell 45% last quarter from the same period a year earlier after the company imposed a $4.99 fee on each order to cover the city’s new pay requirements.
Other product news in brief
Stability AI has secured new funding from Sean Parker.
Brex’s head of compliance has left to join Andressen Horowitz.
OpenAI’s CTO says AI will take away some jobs in the creative industry that maybe shouldn’t have existed anyway.
Perplexity’s CEO has hit back against accusations of plagiarism.
The DoP Weekly Briefing is a product-led perspective of what’s happening in tech - and why it matters to product teams.
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The Department of Product’s weekly briefing is written by Rich Holmes. Thanks for reading and if you enjoyed this week’s briefing hit the like button ❤️ below!