Briefing: Figma's new strategy, Instagram steals another Snap feature, Threads is beating X
Plus: How are companies using AI internally? Spotify’s $9bn payout, how Stripe built its new ledger
Hi product people 👋,
Nvidia’s CEO made a bold claim this week that is likely to raise a few eyebrows in product teams. He told an audience at a conference in Dubai that younger people shouldn’t bother to learn how to code because it’s likely that programming will be made obsolete in the near future.
Recent new product developments seem to back this up. Figma confirmed this week that it is to acquire Dynaboard - a no-code platform that allows designers to quickly transform their designs into web apps, marking a strategic shift towards becoming a full stack product-building tool, not just a design tool.
Plus, a controversial new startup called Magic said it aims to build not just a Copilot - but a Coworker. The company is building an advanced engineer that can write code and reason over entire codebases. One investor was so impressed that they invested $100m after a demo of the AI engineer’s capabilities. If Copilots become Coworkers, how long do we have before bots become managers? One study suggests 16% of Americans are open to reporting to a chatbot at work.
Meanwhile, as Arc gobbles up most of the airtime for new browsers, this week we came across another browser worth checking out. Kosmik is a new tool that allows users to browse the web through canvases called ‘universes’. Universes contain browser windows and pinned objects which creates an experience that feels like a mix of Miro boards and traditional browsers.
Finally, if you’re looking for some design inspiration for your product, here’s a handy summary of 2024 design trends to explore.
Enjoy the rest of your week!
Essential reads for product teams
New from the Department of Product Substack this week
DoP Deep - How are tech companies using AI internally?
Shopify says its internal AI efforts have boosted engineering productivity by 37% and Deel says its now realised that its internal AI tools were “something that our own internal organisation really needed”. We previously looked at the features that leading tech companies are building for their users, but in this DoP Deep dive, we’re going to look at something slightly different: how companies are using AI internally.
Knowledge Series #25 - How to make API calls
The anatomy of an API call and the different ways you can make API calls explained. Plus, practical, real world examples using open APIs from NASA and Pokemon.
(Department of Product).
Free guide - Asking your customers to use a Zapier connection?
It's not enough (you know that deep down). Relying on Zapier pushes users outside your product and offloads extra cost to your customers. This guide will walk you through the risks of relying on Zapier for your integrations, versus embedding the integrations directly in your app (either through building in-house or an embedded iPaaS)
(Paragon*)
Process - Snap’s ex-VP of product on how to hire product teams
Will Wu is the CTO of Match. Prior to Match, Will was VP of Product at Snap Inc. As the 35th employee, Will spearheaded the creation of Snapchat’s “Discover” content platform. He also led the creation and growth of the “Chat” messaging feature, which today is a primary Snapchat engagement driver that connects hundreds of millions of people each day. (20VC)
UX - Should you run a product survey?
Surveys are one of the most frequently utilized research methods by UX designers and researchers. But are they actually worth it? This piece talks you through the pros and cons of running surveys for product design.(NN Group)
Technical case study - How Stripe built its new ledger
Each day, Ledger sees five billion events and 99.99% of dollar volume is fully ingested and verified within four days. In this blog post, Stripe’s engineering team shares technical details on how they built this state-of-the-art money movement tracking system, and how teams at Stripe interact with the data quality metrics that underlie their global payments network. (Stripe engineering)
Tools you can use
Layer - conduct market research in minutes
Mito - automate repetitive spreadsheet work
Luminai - delegate mission critical work to machines
*Sponsored content
New product features, launches and announcements this week
Google Docs is getting a new feature that will allow users to hand write and draw on documents using a stylus. The new feature is designed to act as a new way of providing feedback suggestions on drafts. It looks super helpful but is currently only available on Android devices.
Arc Browser is launching a pinch to summarize feature on its mobile app which allows users to quickly summarise web pages - in a pinch. The company is doubling down on its efforts to differentiate itself and it does feel as though the rise of generative AI is giving product teams permission to experiment with new user interactions again.
Meta is testing the ability to cross post content from Facebook to Threads. Threads now has triple the number of daily downloads as rival X and appears to be building momentum.
GitHub announced the roll out of the Enterprise version of Copilot. The new version, priced at $39, has a number of new features relevant for product teams in the pipeline. One of the most intriguing is its ability to build team-specific knowledge bases. What this means in practice, is that new developers can quickly get on board with how specific processes (like deployments to production) work. The creation of knowledge bases is now one of the most powerful ways product teams are deploying AI internally. Our latest deep dive covers this in more detail.
Stability AI has launched the latest iteration of its text-to-image model. Stable Diffusion 3 can create images with parameter sizes ranging from 800 million to 8 billion. Parameter size in this instance roughly corresponds to model capability in terms of how much detail it can generate. You can see how it performs based on specific prompts here.
Instagram is reported to be planning to steal another Snapchat feature. After successfully copying Stories back in 2016, the next feature on the list is a friend map which allows users to share their location in real time.
📈 Product data and trends to stay informed
Spotify paid out $9 billion to artists in 2023. Roblox paid developers $750 million in 2023, suggesting that the metaverse isn’t quite dead yet. Here’s how other creator company payouts compared in 2023:
32% of all engineering questions are now answered by Shopify’s internal chatbot. Read more in the DoP deep dive.
Nigerians are most likely to say social media is good for democracy with 77% agreeing. Americans are least likely to agree, with just 34% agreeing. Full report by Pew.
Search engine volume will drop 25% by 2026, due to the rise of AI and virtual agents according to a new report by Gartner research.
Klarna says the company’s chatbot has handled 2.3 million conversations, representing two-thirds of Klarna’s customer service chats. This is the equivalent work of 700 full-time agents. The company is laying off workers as a result.
48% of news websites are now blocking OpenAI’s web crawler, raising questions about the quality impact on ChatGPT.
Other product news in brief
Google’s CEO says Gemini’s performance is “completely unacceptable”.
Snowflake’s CEO is stepping down.
Bumble is cutting ~350 staff following a weak Q4 2023 performance. The cuts represent 30% of its workforce.
The DoP Weekly Briefing is a product-led perspective of what’s happening in tech - and why it matters to product teams. If you want more than the weekly briefing, paid subscribers also get access to The Knowledge Series, in-depth DOP Deep dives to learn from the experiences of top tech companies and Chartpacks to feed your product brain and stay ahead.