Sunday Edition #20: Product over hype
Building what people need, the evolution of craft, and why human judgment still wins.
Leadership in AI isn’t about hiding behind vanity metrics; it’s about showing the full, unvarnished picture. This week, we are looking at why transparency beats window dressing and why the best products focus on truth over a curated success bias.
The new performance dashboard
The new Fin Performance Dashboard went live this week. And as Paul said in his post, “From a code POV, it’s not the biggest change. But from a mindset POV, it is a huge change. What we’re showing here is two things that need to be considered together when designing AI Agents in any category.”
Automation rate (on the left) shows the percentage of all customer conversations Fin resolves end-to-end without human involvement, while CX Score (on the right) reflects the quality of those customer experiences. Together, these metrics provide the best view of both Fin’s effectiveness and the quality of its performance at scale.
But why lead with Automation rate? While it’s tempting to lead with a Resolution rate (which tends to be a bit higher at the start), the Automation rate reveals your untapped potential.
Think of Resolution as the “how well” and Automation as the “how much.” Any gap between them represents pure upside: More conversations Fin can handle and more resources you can save.
Watch the latest Fin Product Update to learn more about the new Performance dashboard as well as 15 more features to improve your support agent.
Authenticity over hype
Paul also hopped on the “Brand Growth Heroes” podcast to talk about why the “old ways” of polished, brand-first marketing are dead.
He discusses how:
AI is a massive platform shift, even bigger than the internet
Taste and authenticity are the only things that matter
Marketing is moving away from faceless companies and toward real people and founders sharing the raw process
Keeping up with the constant AI updates?
While the AI news cycle cries wolf every single week with another “crazy” update (E.g. “OpenAI released the BEST feature that will probably be surpassed tomorrow!” or “Gemini just DESTROYED the AI game with THIS clickbait title!”), there’s hope.
It may feel impossible to keep up; luckily, Kieran Flanagan distilled the latest in AI and broke down why it matters to you. Yes, you!
Hype vs results
And while it feels like the AI train is moving a million miles a minute, sometimes it’s nice to take a beat and see what’s working.
Promises and hype are fine, but the proof’s in the results. As Des posted about last week, we now have over 7,000 happy customers using Fin at scale. It’s not a prototype or a vision anymore. It’s a tool delivering real outcomes right now.
Needs over noise
At our latest Fin Meetup, Archana Agrawal and Productboard’s Hubert Palan dug into the evolution of product craft. The takeaway was simple: AI supercharges your team, but it does not replace the need for human judgment. As Hubert put it,
“It’s really about building the right thing to satisfy the needs of the people in the best possible way and in a better way than competition.”
You can listen to the full Fin Meetup on Apple Music and Spotify, or watch below:
Our parting thought
AI is the most powerful engine we’ve ever seen, but it still requires human taste and the courage to look at the unvarnished data. Product craft isn’t about showcasing the shiniest metrics, it’s about owning the honest data to build a better experience.
Thanks for reading. See you all next week.