Instagram AI, Tinder troubles, Perplexity’s new ad plan
Plus: WhatsApp’s 100m milestone, why Japanese design works, Apple Maps on the web
The DoP Weekly Briefing is a product-led perspective of what’s happening in tech and why it matters to the people who build products. Welcome to the 250+ new subscribers who joined us this past week!
Hi product people 👋,
Is there really a market for AI devices that record everything you say? Despite the failure of other products launched earlier this year and the pushback against Microsoft’s Recall feature which kept a record of everything you do on a Windows device, a new startup called Bee AI has raised $7 million in seed funding for a wearable device that records all of your conversations.
And Bee wasn’t the only company to announce a new AI recording device this week, though. A pendant called Friend also launched to much fanfare with a gen-z style video to promote its device that listens to its surroundings and mimics the interactions of a real human ‘friend’. The normalization of recording everyday conversations is pretty worrying from a privacy perspective and early indications seem to suggest that users aren’t too keen on the idea either.
But as the loneliness epidemic continues to grow, maybe non-human friends will play a role in the future?
Meta certainly wants to give the idea a try. This week, Instagram started rolling out Meta AI which will allow users to create one of two characters: either an AI version of themselves or a different character based on their interests. After reportedly ditching the celebrity versions of AI avatars, the company is now focused on enabling non-celebrity users to create clones of themselves. Meta may also be keeping an eye on lawsuit in California against OnlyFans which claims the company is engaging in unlawful deception practices after it emerged that models were using outsourced agents and AI bots to interact with paying users.
Coming up in this week’s product briefing:
Why Japanese design works
A new 4D model from Stability AI
A study which demonstrates the risks of ChatGPT dependency on learning
The 2024 Global Engineering Survey on the technologies, process and attitudes of professional developers
Enjoy the rest of your week!
Articles, resources and tools for product teams
New from the Department of Product Substack this week:
The Knowledge Series - Open source explained
Meta recently unveiled a series of new open source AI models and at the same time, Mark Zuckerberg published a public letter on the subject entitled “Open Source AI is the path forward”. But what exactly is open source and how does it work in practice?
Everything you need to know, explained. (Department of Product)
UX - Why Japanese web design works
Japanese websites are often information dense, cluttered, and confusing to non-Japanese users. Designer Phoebe Yu explains why underneath the overwhelming UI lies some fundamental design psychology. (YouTube)
Strategy - How to build the foundations of a product go to market (GTM) strategy
“When you try to do everything at once, what ends up happening is you actually drive standards down over time.” says veteran GTM advisor and strategist Tom Levey. (Greylock)
Skills - How to ask smarter questions
With organizations of all sorts facing increased urgency and unpredictability, being able to ask smart questions has become key. But unlike lawyers, doctors, and psychologists, business professionals are not formally trained on what kinds of questions to ask when approaching a problem. (Harvard Business Review)
Career development - Why you should have a brag document
Is a brag document your secret weapon to finding your next role or getting a pay rise? UX Collective’s Ted Goas outlines all of the reasons why you should have one - and how to make one. (Medium)
Tools you can use
Datatables - browse, edit, analyze and export your user feedback
Offlight - to do’s, schedules and calendars all in one place
PageUI - a collection of high converting landing page components
New product features and innovation
OpenAI has finally unveiled the product it has long been rumoured to be launching: its new search rival, aptly named SearchGPT. The launch makes sense from a strategic perspective as it looks to put a dent in rivals Perplexity, Bing and Google but just like its counterparts, it too is prone to making mistakes. If the problem of hallucinations is never solved, perhaps the future of search won’t quite be as revolutionary as we might hope, for most use cases at least.
Figma has rolled out a bunch of new features for its newly released presentation product, Figma Slides. The new features include the ability to hide specific slides, more transition controls and the addition of rulers in slide decks.
Stability AI has launched a new 4D video model that allows users to upload a single video and receive dynamic novel-view videos of eight new angles/views, delivering a new level of versatility and creativity. Stability says it expects use cases for the new technology to include video game development and virtual reality environments.
Perplexity has announced a new revenue sharing model for publishers after it came under fire for allegedly stealing content without permission. The model will see publishers get a share of ad revenues once ads start to roll out. It’s a seemingly smart move as it seeks to differentiate itself from Google - and potentially eat into its ad revenues, too.
Apple Maps is now available on the web - 12 years after its initial launch. Does this mark a strategic shift towards the web for other Apple products, too?
📈 Product data and trends to stay informed
3 of the top 10 AI apps in the US are Chinese-owned. One of these is an app called Talkie which lets users converse with digital versions of Elon Musk, LeBron James, characters from “Harry Potter” and others. One user featured in a report from the WSJ says he uses it to develop romantic relationships.
Meta has announced that WhatsApp now has over 100 million monthly active users in the US. WhatsApp is throwing the kitchen sink at its marketing efforts in the US with the installation of a 200 foot bubble in LA - and it seems to be working.
75% of knowledge workers are now using AI at work - and that adoption rate has doubled in the past 6 months.
Passkey adoption has increased 400% in 2024 so far. Amazon is the world’s leading platform for passkey adoption growth. If you’re not sure how passkeys work, our Knowledge Series on the topic might help.
Tinder has reported a significant 8% decline in paying users to 9.6 million, marking the steepest decline the brand has reported yet. Hinge, which has become Match’s fastest growing product, saw paid users up 24% to nearly 1.5 million.
Javascript is still the most popular programming language for professional engineers. Read the Stack Overflow Survey in full.
A new study shows that Students who had access to AI subsequently get it taken off them perform 17% worse than those who never had access in the first place. What does this potentially tell us about the impact of AI tools in the workplace?
Other product news in brief
Reddit is cracking down on AI search engines - unless they pay.
Twitch is still losing money - but a rollout of a new TikTok feed could help boost revenues.
X’s latest feature which trains its Grok chatbot is “very likely” in breach of EU law, according to a privacy group.
The DoP Weekly Briefing is a product-led perspective of what’s happening in tech - and why it matters to product teams.
Paid subscribers get access to the full Department of Product Substack which includes: in-depth DOP Deep dives to learn from the experiences of top tech companies, The Knowledge Series for sharpening your tech skills and Chartpacks to feed your product brain and stay ahead.
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!