Microsoft's new Agentic teams tool, Google Maps gets Gemini superpowers
Plus: Miro layoffs, A new tool to help you get stand-ups done, Waymo growth surges
Hi everyone 👋, Rich Holmes here with the weekly briefing and I hope you’re all doing well! Welcome to the 250+ new subscribers who joined us since last week.
Coming up this week, we look at how a new product from Microsoft could allow product teams build groups of AI agents that can work on multiple tasks together to achieve common goals and what impact this might have on the product design process. Plus, Google Maps gets boosted with further Gemini features, a new tool to help you get meetings done more efficiently and Perplexity raises more funding that could see it triple its previous valuation.
And as always, if you’d prefer to watch / listen to the briefing you can watch it on YouTube here.
Enjoy the rest of your week!
Key reads and resources for product teams
New from the Department of Product Substack this week:
Knowledge Series - API endpoints explained
If you’ve ever worked with engineering teams on integrating with third party APIs or building your own APIs, you’ll likely have worked with endpoints. But some of the terminology surrounding endpoints can be super confusing at times. Plus, the emergence of GraphQL has further complicated the picture. We cover everything you need to know. (Department of Product)
Design perspectives - In defence of the Apple Mouse’s bottom charging port
Apple unveiled new peripherals including a USB-C mouse last week. Many people (including me) were reasonably annoyed that the refreshed mouse kept the same charging port location. In this piece, John Gruber argues a case for keeping it where it is. (John Gruber, Daring Fireball)
UX - Mobile app UX trends Q4 2024
Baymard Institute’s Mobile App UX benchmark includes ratings of 8,000+ UX elements and 7,000+ implementation examples across 26 leading mobile apps. (Baymard Institute)
Case study - How GitHub developers integrate Figma into their workflow to streamline collaboration
Discover how GitHub’s open-source design system, Primer, ensures consistency, accessibility, and efficiency across projects. With a focus on Figma’s dev mode, in this talk you’ll learn how GitHub bridges the gap between design and code, making it easier to build and iterate on components. (Figma YouTube)
Strategy - Why product innovation doesn’t have to be disruptive
Disruptive innovation has proven to be such a powerful idea that the word “innovation” is often equated with the broader idea of market disruption. But that’s not always the case. INSEAD strategy professor Renée Mauborgne says there is a way to create new markets without destroying jobs, companies, and communities. She calls this idea: “nondisruptive creation.”
New product features and innovation this week
Microsoft has launched a new piece of open source infrastructure called “Magentic-One” which allows users to direct multiple AI agents to work together to complete user tasks.
Magentic-One (a play on Microsoft and Agentic) employs a multi-agent architecture where a lead agent, the Orchestrator, directs four other agents to solve tasks. The Orchestrator plans, tracks progress, and re-plans to recover from errors, while directing specialized agents to perform tasks like operating a web browser, navigating local files, or writing and executing Python code.
Agents available include:
Orchestrators - the lead agent responsible for directing the task
WebSurfer - the LLM-based agent that can surf the web in a browser
FileSurfer - the agent that can navigate files and folders
Coder - the agent who can write new code
ComputerTerminal - a console shell where code can be executed
In this example, multiple agents are configured to work together to perform a series of individual steps which comprise a single task. If AI agents start to perform tasks on behalf of users, what does this mean for the future of product design? Watch it in action here.
Meanwhile…
Google Maps is getting new features powered by Gemini. The new updates will let users find new places to visit and answer questions about different locations. Gemini in Maps will also work as a social diary planner of sorts, allowing you to ask it about things to do in your local area based on preferences like “speakeasy” or “live music”. Is every product eventually going to get its own dedicated assistant? Google says Search is next on the list to get conversational assistant features.
Amazon is adding a new AI feature to Prime video called X-Ray Recaps which will summarize an episode you’ve already watched. But unlike traditional episode summaries, X-Ray Recap will be personalized based on how much you’ve watched so far.
A new startup called MealMe has raised $16 million in funding for its API, which allows websites to embed food and retail ordering directly into their existing UI. But it started as an API built for internal use for a very different B2C proposition. Then, the founders realized how valuable that API was and pivoted to a B2B infrastructure via APIs instead. It now provides inventory data on over 1 billion products.
At the same time as we recently said goodbye to FourSquare's consumer product after their pivot from consumer to B2B API product, this is another case study in understanding when to pivot your product strategy to API-first.
In other news…
Doordash has announced a strategic partnership with Lyft which will add ride sharing services to its DashPass membership program. The new partnership is a direct attack on Uber’s Eats and Ride products and will see subscribers get monthly benefits like 2 free priority pickups per month.
Meta has released the open-source MobileLLM which allows product teams to develop on-device AI features for mobile apps. MobileLLM is optimized for on-device use, which reduces latency and enhances the user experience by processing data locally rather than in the cloud.
OpenAI launched its first search product, ChatGPT Search. This head to head with Google Search where both tools are pitted against each other declares a clear winner.
Tools you can use
Listy is a productivity tool that lets you add all of your favorite things in one place. It supports saved items from Google Maps, Keep, Pocket, IMDb, Goodreads, Safari and more.
Feta helps product and engineering teams run efficient standups, document discussions for actionable insights
Buzzabout lets you conduct user research from billions of discussions on social media to inform your product strategy.
📈 Product data and trends to stay informed
Google and Apple have seen their reputations as future leaders in AI drop over the past year with Microsoft mostly maintaining its reputation as a future leader in AI. Google’s reputation as a future leader dropped 15%.
Generative AI use in the workplace has almost doubled from 37% of respondents saying they use generative AI once a week in 2023 to 73% in 2024. Product and engineering respondents' usage of generative AI grew from 40% to 78% while categories like. Full report from Wharton.
Ad revenues at major products are up. Meta and Amazon grew 19%, Snap and Google’s ad revenue is up 10% and Reddit grew 56%. Report by Sherwood.
More than 25% of Google’s code is now generated by AI. The code is produced by AI and then reviewed and approved by human engineers, according to Google’s CEO in their latest earnings update.
Substack’s mobile app downloads have shot up from 7,752 global daily installs to 17,382. Substack now says their mobile app drives more growth for newsletters than recommendations.
Waymo is now driving more than 1 million fully autonomous miles and over 150,000 paid rides each week. That’s about 50% more than what the company announced just last quarter. It has recently raised $5.6 billion in new capital, led by Alphabet and outside investors like Andreessen Horowitz and Fidelity and is valued at a massive $45 billion. Where are its competitors?
Other product news in brief
🫡 Miro is planning to lay off ~18% of its staff, impacting around 275 employees.
💵Perplexity is looking to raise another $500 million, trebling its value to $9 billion
🧑💻OpenAI has hired the co-founder of Pebble to work on a secret project
📈Reddit is now worth more than Snapchat
The Weekly Briefing is a product-led perspective of what’s happening in tech - and why it matters to product teams.
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