Perplexity Sonar, Calm product design and Zoom's new Cobrowse
Plus: New agentic offerings from Microsoft, Zapier and Postman, ditch Chrome cookie banners and AI tools to transform your text into visuals
Hi product people đ, welcome to the 230+ new subscribers who have joined us since last week!
Coming up this week, we take a look at Perplexityâs new API product, Sonar, which it hopes will boost its revenue streams by allowing product teams to embed real-time search capabilities into their product.
Plus, a fascinating new certification for products that rewards distraction-free design, a tool to transform your notes into visuals at work and a surprising new channel SaaS companies are using for lead generation.
Enjoy the rest of your week!
More here: Watch on YouTube | Follow on Substack Notes | Upgrade to unlock the full newsletter
Key reads and resources for product teams
New from the Department of Product Substack this week:
Knowledge Series - How product teams can use Synthetic Data
Synthetic data is not just helpful for training AI models; product teams can use synthetic data at work to enhance their products in ways that were unimaginable just a few years ago. One startup even allows product teams to conduct user testing without real humans. In this Knowledge Series, we explore what synthetic data is, how it works and how you can use synthetic data in the product development process with some real world applications from companies like Uber, Grammarly, Spotify and more.
Database - The Workplace Productivity 30
30 hand picked products designed to boost your productivity at work. Create presentations in seconds, rewrite your resume, automate repetitive work, connect your different knowledge sources and block out distractions.
(Department of Product)
UX - How to design a login code screen
If your product texts/emails login codes for authentication purposes, the experience better be amazing, argues UX designer Brad Frost. (UX Design Weekly)
Strategy case study - How Nokia viewed the threat from Appleâs iPhone in 2007
An internal deck from Nokia from back in 2007 shows how the company viewed the threat of Appleâs iPhone. They recognised the touch screen would likely be the future - but also (incorrectly) assumed that a cheaper model would follow. Fascinating reading for lessons in product strategy. (Aalto University)
Design - Why Calm developed a certification that rewards distraction free design
This is a fascinating new development in product design. Calm has developed a new certification that rewards distraction free design. The Calm certification includes 81 points that span six categories: attention, periphery, durability, light, sound and materials. Some of the certificationâs specifications are quite stringent. It outlines minimum standards for user interface (UI) design, such as consistent use of icons and font typography, asks that all but the âmost crucialâ notifications be turned off by default.
Recently certified products include Remarkable tablet and Mui Board, a smart home device that looks like a piece of finely finished decorative wood. (IEEE Spectrum)
Podcast - Amazon AWSâ CEO on org structure and product development philosophy
AWSâ CEO explains how the company organizes around small, independent teams focused on specific services or features, allowing for agility and fast innovation and why they insist on using what he calls the âtyranny of the orâ principle - refusing to choose between two options and instead insisting on doing both. (The Verge)
New product features and innovation this week
Perplexity has released a new API called Sonar that allows product teams to use Perplexity to power the search functionality in their products. Perplexity says that Zoom, along with other companies, is already using Sonar to power an AI assistant for its video conferencing platform. In Zoomâs case, Sonar enhances their AI chatbot to give real-time answers with citations without requiring a user to leave the window.
APIs continue to be a major revenue source for AI companies - but as giants like OpenAI, Anthropic and Google all launch similar real time search capabilities with citations, it does start to feel as though Perplexityâs unique value proposition isnât as unique as it once was.
Speaking of Zoom, the company has this week announced the launch of Zoom Cobrowse. A new SDK that allows users to navigate the web together. It also allows users to annotate each otherâs screens - very helpful for when you need to debug something or point a user in the right direction.
If the rumours are to be believed, then OpenAI is also about to launch its own co-browsing product called âOperatorâ.
MeanwhileâŚ
Microsoft has released the latest version of its agentic framework, AutoGen 0.4
Hereâs some of the most important changes to be aware of:
Asynchronous events - this means agents can work on tasks concurrently without having to wait for other agents to complete theirs. For example, one agent could be making API calls to collect data while another one parses it and a third creates a report.
Modular Design: The framework offers pluggable components, including custom agents, tools, memory, and model
Community extensions - AutoGen v0.4 includes an ecosystem of extensions, including advanced model clients, multi-agent teams, and tools for agentic workflows
Improvements to the AutoGen Studio - the low-code interface enables rapid prototyping of AI agents including the release of a drag and drop interface which allows users to build agent teams.
In other newsâŚ
If you really donât enjoy dealing with cookie banners, a secret new Chrome feature might be exactly what youâre looking for. Itâs called âPermissionsAIâ and it analyzes a usersâ previous responses to pop-ups and uses this to guess how you might respond to new ones. If youâre likely to decline, the pop-up gets blocked and is hidden in the corner of your screen in case you want to change your mind later.
Postman has launched an AI agent builder that allows users to create agent workflows using a visual, no-code canvas. The companyâs CEO says Postman is perfectly positioned to leverage the AI wave since agentic architecture inevitably needs API integrations. A growing number of Postmanâs users are non-engineers, too.
Zapier has launched its own AI agent builder, too. The agents work with over 7,000 of the existing integrations that Zapier supports across products like Notion, Jira, Asana and Google Docs. The founder of Zapier outlined his thoughts on what adoption of AI agents could look like this year.
The end of SaaS?
Tools you can use
Napkin - transform your text into visuals you can use at work
Formularizer - a Google Sheets assistant that helps you write formulas and generate SQL queries
Astropad - a phone case that turns your phone into a Kindle-like reader
đ Product data and trends to stay informed
64% of enterprise companies are using OpenAIâs API as their main AI provider and the most popular type of AI product built is document parsing and analysis with 60% of respondents citing this as their top use case. The State of AI Development Report 2025 from Vellum surveyed 1250 enterprise companies.
79.5% of music streams are from songs released in 2010 or later. Annual 2024 Luminate Music report.
Robot density has doubled in the past seven years. South Korea is the worldâs leading adopter of industrial robots with 1,012 robots per 10,000 employees. Wall Street firm Morgan Stanley has estimated that the number of U.S. humanoid robots could reach 8 million by 2040 and 63 million units by 2050. What does this mean for product teams? In the future, a large proportion of âusersâ could be non-human.
Netflix added 18.91 million new paid subscribers, bringing their total global streaming paid memberships to 301.63 million. This represents the biggest quarter of net additions in Netflixâs history. Europe, Middle East, and Africa are the companyâs biggest regions. Their ad supported strategy is working too: In Q4 2024, the ads plan accounted for over 55% of sign-ups in countries where itâs available.
Pricing models are evolving thanks to AI - and a shift to usage based pricing is the latest trend. But a new approach may be needed where power users pay more for 1 or 2 features they love with the rest remaining free.
Waymo is taking dollars from Uber according to Earnest credit card data. Over 33% of Waymo customers returned 13 quarters after their first transaction.
A new study found that 23% of US teens have used ChatGPT for schoolwork. 79% of teens have heard of ChatGPT, up from 67% in 2023.
Other product news in brief
đ§ââď¸ChatGPTâs head of product will testify in the US governmentâs case against Google.
𫡠Stripe is laying off 300 people, mostly in product, engineering and ops - but still plans to hire in 2025
đď¸ The UK has appointed a former Amazon exec as chair of its Competition Markets Authority
đA SaaS company has confirmed that it now gets one third of its inbound leads from an unlikely source: memes.
Paid subscribers get the full DoP Substack including: The Knowledge Series for sharpening their tech skills, AI tutorials for putting AI into practice at work and DoP Deep dive reports to learn from the worldâs top tech companies.
Quick update: OpenAI has since officially launched its Operator product but itâs only available for folks on the $200 a month plan. For now at least.