In the last three months, I have received pitch decks, product updates, and press releases from: an AI-powered toothbrush, an AI-powered journal app, an AI-powered pet feeder, and an AI-powered meditation cushion. The meditation cushion uses AI to "sense your energy." I am not making this up.
We are in the "put a bird on it" phase of AI adoption. Portlandia predicted this, as Portlandia predicts all things. Brands are slapping AI onto products the way they slapped "blockchain" on everything in 2021 and "social" on everything in 2012. It's a feature in search of a problem. It's innovation theater.
Here's my filter for whether AI actually belongs in your product: does it solve a problem your customer actually has, or does it solve the problem of your investor deck looking dated?
Because there's a meaningful difference between AI that creates genuine value and AI that creates the appearance of innovation. Google adding AI to search to provide synthesized answers? That solves a real user need. An AI-powered toothbrush that "learns your brushing patterns" when the actual problem is that people just need to brush longer? That's a solution performing sophistication.
The brands rushing to add AI right now fall into three categories:
The genuinely useful. Products where AI meaningfully improves the user experience because the problem is complex, personalized, or data-intensive. These are rare and usually obvious.
The marginally helpful. Products where AI adds a nice-to-have feature but isn't the reason anyone buys. Fine. Just don't lead your marketing with it.
The desperately fashionable. Products where AI is being added because the CEO read a McKinsey report and panicked. These are the ones spending millions to solve problems nobody has, and they're going to face a reckoning when consumers realize the AI feature doesn't actually improve their life.
These are the ones spending millions to solve problems nobody has, and they're going to face a reckoning when consumers realize the AI feature doesn't actually improve their life.
The strategic risk of being in that third category isn't just wasted R&D budget. It's credibility erosion. When you market AI features that don't deliver meaningful value, you're training your customers to be skeptical of your innovation claims. You're spending trust to look current.
My advice: before you add AI to your product roadmap, answer this question honestly: if we removed the AI feature tomorrow, would customers notice? Would they complain? Would they leave?
If the answer is no, you don't have an AI product. You have a product with an AI press release. And the market is going to figure that out faster than your board will.