A couple of weeks ago, OpenAI released its new image generation model. The internet went wild creating images that mimicked the style of Studio Ghibli, and once again, death sentences were pronounced for designers, developers, and others in the industry.

It’s a fact that the way we build products is going to change—hopefully for the better. The tools that are coming will help us spend less time cranking the handle and more time focusing on what truly matters. I’m already starting to experiment myself, getting AI to code using nothing but natural language and my own designs.

What does concern me a bit is that we’re currently focusing too much on doing the same things as always, just with more powerful tools—a perfect example of the rearview mirror effect. We’re too fixated on improving processes, gaining speed, and figuring out how to cut people out of the loop in order to move faster, without stopping to think about the new paths that might be opening up in front of us.

Gaining speed is great, but are we really thinking about what digital products will (or won’t) look like thanks to this new technology? If everything is going to be a conversation now, what’s the point of generating stunning images if no one’s going to see them? Why build a UI in seconds if no one’s going to interact with it? In this new-old scenario, what will actually matter? Where does the real value lie?

I have no idea how this is going to evolve—but what I do know is that we’re in the perfect moment to have a lot of fun.

I’m one of those people who only drinks specialty coffee. Every time I travel, I make a list to have enough cafés located so I can always enjoy good coffee.

I have several ways of making this list. The first is through an app that I think is particularly well-designed. It works very simply: you have a map and a city-filtered list with relevant information about each place (some photos, opening hours, reviews, etc.).

Recently, I received one of those surveys we like to conduct in product development to better understand how people use the app, see what features are useful, which ones aren’t, and so on. One question caught my attention in particular—they wanted to know what features I felt were missing that should be added to the product.

I know it’s a standard question and part of the industry, but to me, it made no sense. It’s a well-designed product that works perfectly and delivers exactly what it promises. The only thing they need is to keep the information up to date—that’s where they provide value.

Software allows us to make as many changes as we want to a digital product very easily, something we can’t do with physical products. The problem is that we seem to feel obligated to make our products bigger and bigger, adding new features, changing the look & feel every so often to stay “up to date.” We want to build cathedrals when all we need is a chapel.

I wish there were more small products that don’t grow unnecessarily, that do exactly what they need to do—and do it really well.

At this point, I think we all understand that we are experiencing a new industrial revolution with AI. It seems like everything is going to change, but no one knows how.

The only certainty I have is that the way we interact with computers is already different. We are moving away from interfaces where people have to figure out how to solve their tasks in a way the machine understands, to simply using natural language.

What implications does this have for interfaces? Will we still talk about visual interfaces? Will apps with specific functionalities still make sense? Will everything become a chatbot? A voice interface? Will generative UIs emerge? Will websites become nothing more than simple text and images for ChatGPT to display in its responses?

And I’m not talking about the software—there, they still pay the same meticulous attention to every detail and interaction. I’m talking about the hardware.

A few weeks ago, I bought a pair of AirPods and—don’t get me wrong—they work perfectly within the ecosystem, and the sound quality is better than I can even perceive. The problem is that every time I pick up the case or put them on, they feel like they disappear. It’s as if they’re a product that doesn’t want to be noticed, that doesn’t want to be there.

In their pursuit of creating a perfectly polished product, stripping away every accessory element, they have also removed any trace of personality. It’s a product without a soul—empty, nothing.

I felt the same way when I saw the latest Mac mini. It’s an incredible product from an engineering standpoint, and that’s it. Just a tiny aluminum cube that disappears on your desk once you plug it in. Boring, soulless.

We need a weather app that gives simple recommendations like "wear a jacket" instead of showing details like "feels like 3º" or "wind 20 km/h."

Am I the only one who doesn't understand wind speed or can't tell the difference between 15 and 20 degrees Celsius? I might build an app like this in the future.