Vidit Bhargava: Beyond Sparkles and Chat

AI is not a feature, it's one of the many technologies that empower people to fulfill their wants and needs. It doesn't always have to be the center-stage, it doesn't always have to be in your face. The focus should always be on human needs.

I like this post, and I love how Vidit is thinking cleverly about how to use AI tools in his products.

The thing I'll add is that back in 2023 when the AI chatbot wars began, there was a common argument from people like me who thought that these chat interfaces were nice, but obviously the future was traditional interfaces that were powered up by LLMs. The chat interface was seen as a modern command line…powerful for a few people, but most folks just want buttons. Well, it turns out that the chat interface is actually massively useful and massively popular. Go to the App Store right now and tell me what the most downloaded app is…it's ChatGPT, it's (basically) always ChatGPT. The most "typical" computer users I know in my life all use ChatGPT and find it useful.

This also happens to align with my personal usage. I enjoy little features like notification summaries and object removal from photos, but I also love the freedom the chat interface allows. If I can think it, ChatGPT/Claude/Gemini can probably do it, and that's a very powerful tool once you figure out how to wield it.