← back to thoughts

the value of ambient non-chat AI experiences

June 19, 2025

As I have been deeply building with AI and observing how AI is being integrated into products, I've noticed some patterns in how this technology has become part of almost every software out there, especially the software used in the workplace:

  • The interaction model with AI in almost every single app is a chat interface — mimicking the equivalent of asking another person. Little innovative thinking has emerged on this interaction model since the first day that ChatGPT was launched
  • The main context gathering happens through a pull (or on-demand) motion, where users need to explicitly prompt the AI each time they need help, rather than the AI understanding their ongoing work context. This narrow approach misses the rich, multi-modal signals that could inform AI assistance—what users are looking at, how they're navigating, what files they're opening, their typing patterns, and more.

While these patterns have led to unprecedented adoption of AI technology and tools in the past few years, one thing I still question is whether AI tools have the needed context to successfully deliver value in sticky, long-term ways for people. These patterns are likely due to the fact that we are still in the early stages of figuring out how AI should integrate into our daily lives.

Moving forward, I think some of the most important things we can do include:

  • Bake AI into existing workflows and patterns that people are used to — most software already give users the tools to point-and-click (e.g. selecting and dragging text in a document), and there is more opportunity to tap into those interactions more deeply.
  • Make it so that AI is running in the background, always collecting context through multiple modes and channels, and giving people superpowers in more ambient ways, before people even have to ask or think about what AI can help them with

What excites me about this direction is that it feels much more natural to what humans are used to — we don't interact with the world by typing questions into a chat box. We look, we point, we gesture, we navigate through spaces, and the context from all of those lead to the output that feels the most valuable. The products that will get not just amazing adoption, but also amazing retention will probably be the ones that can deliver on these.