Ashley Striblet

@getintelo @signulll I write about consumer trends on substack , might be worth checking out if you are trying to build your product intuition open.substack.com/pub/earlyinsig…

@signulll Need your thoughts on consumer ai

there are likely ~100 ppl alive today that deeply understand all of these together: product instinct, what makes good software, design, technical depth, a real model of ai, the psychology of a single user, the shape of culture, team building, the ability to motivate, & the narrative gift to make any of this actually legible to normal peeps. in consumer, where the tam is pretty much everyone, that combinatorial scarcity is the leverage. ~100 against 8 billion. pure asymmetry.

@web3nomad @signulll That’s literally my job. open.substack.com/pub/earlyinsig…

"psychology of a single user" is the hardest one to scale. you can hire for product instinct and technical depth. you can't hire enough people who genuinely internalize how a specific segment of users actually makes decisions. that's the gap simulation is trying to fill — not replacing the 100, but letting them run more experiments.

@alexisohanian @signulll Then you should be following me on substack to stay ahead of consumer trends open.substack.com/pub/earlyinsig…

@signulll bullish on consumer

@kapilansh_twt Recent study found 70% of Americans have don’t know what Claude is

hot take Anthropic is going to be the next Google best product in the room nobody outside tech knows it exists Google had the same problem in 1999 we know how that ended

@EricNewcomer @maddierenbarger I did a deep dive on Gen Z and what I think solutions would be open.substack.com/pub/earlyinsig…

our detailed look at the polling on Americans' attitudes toward AI newcomer.co/p/us-public-op… @maddierenbarger

@JayaGup10 70% of Americans have never even heard of Claude

Spent a few days in New York catching up with folks: 1.) Few have heard of Mythos 2.) While people have heard of Claude Code, few have tried Cowork or knows what a skill is 3.) Many F500 non tech companies here aren’t getting any value out of AI because of politics 4.) Too many companies have too much AI slop esp in product roles, removing AI now 5.) Lot of “Gemini” shops since it’s bundled 6.) The same people firing people because of AI are also the same people that still want their decks sent to them as a PDF / printed on desk This technology will take a longer to diffuse than SF tech twitter thinks

@NewYorker Partly agree, but here’s what they can do about it open.substack.com/pub/earlyinsig…

A.I. companies are facing hostility and mistrust—and much of the heightened, sometimes histrionic rhetoric about the powers of the technology has come from within the industry. newyorker.com/culture/infini…

@KatiaAmeri Is it really fomo if they don’t think they have any real job prospects because of AI

Been interviewing tons of folks for Alpha and it’s striking how many are dropping out of places like Stanford, MIT and Berkeley to pursue startups instead. The fomo and the upside right now often outweigh what top schools offer

@RVAwonk Just wrote about this, and more importantly what to do about it open.substack.com/pub/earlyinsig…

Yessssss

@Sonusoniar @gregisenberg Ding ding ding. Wrote about this here open.substack.com/pub/earlyinsig…

@gregisenberg AI doesn't have a branding problem. it has a trust problem. those need completely different solutions

AI has a serious branding problem Probably worse than web3/crypto/NFTs if you ask the average person in the streets, they probably fear and hate AI

@iamideaguy @gregisenberg I think going the “ storytelling “ route is the wrong direction. We need really fixes open.substack.com/pub/earlyinsig…

@gregisenberg Agree, do you think this is why we've been seeing a boom in Storyteller role hiring recently? Especially for tech companies?

@DavidPerlov @gregisenberg I agree with this. The data is showing that a lot of GenZ aren’t seeing value in the current ai products open.substack.com/pub/earlyinsig…

The branding problem is that AI companies are selling the technology instead of the outcome. Nobody wanted "the internet" in 1995. They wanted email, search, shopping. AI needs its "killer app" moment where people stop thinking about the tool and start thinking about what it lets them do.

@gregisenberg Instead of stating the problem, I’m talking solutions here. We should start with addressing GenZ open.substack.com/pub/earlyinsig…

@garrytan Seems like it would be more helpful to understand where we got it wrong . open.substack.com/pub/earlyinsig…

Anti-AI forces are real and organized, even when we are talking about helpful and useful tools

@TheWalid I write about the consumer AI space from the user side and think you might appreciate what i cover open.substack.com/pub/earlyinsig…

every consumer app founder asks "how do i get more downloads" wrong question the apps growing fastest right now answer ONE thing before anyone clicks install "why should i care" features don't answer that but feelings do

@jgreze Amazing take 👏🏽👏🏽I’m a product researcher writing about the user side of AI, and I think what you are hitting on is one the biggest misread of the consumer market. People still just expect tech to just work. open.substack.com/pub/earlyinsig…

If someone tells you AI isn't working for them, the advice they'll get is to "learn to prompt better". I want to push back on that. When someone struggles with a tool, blaming their technique lets the product off the hook. The fact that we've built an entire industry around teaching people to phrase requests correctly means we've accepted that the burden of making AI work sits with the user, not the builder. That's a really strange place to land on when the thing is supposed to be intelligent. Something we hear over and over from Town users, in different words, is some version of: "if AI is so smart, why should I have to learn how to use it?" I didn't have a good answer because they were right. The products that figure out how to meet users where they are, instead of training users to meet the product, are going to be very hard to catch.

@andruyeung I’d also recommend not just keeping up with the capability of AI but also how people outside of the tech bubble are feeling about it and using it for open.substack.com/pub/earlyinsig…

Things in tech are moving insanely fast right now If you're just reading the news, blogs, or articles, it's impossible to keep up X is probably the best source of alpha at the moment But even better, talk to the smartest tinkerers you know and ask them what they're experimenting with.

@akothari I’m a product researcher writing about the consumer AI space and agree it’s been hard to crack. Looking forward to following along. open.substack.com/pub/earlyinsig…

AI has sparked an explosion of ideas (and disruption) in B2B, but consumer apps still feel stuck in the last decade. I’m especially excited about a new company launching tomorrow. It’s one of the most fun ideas I’ve had the chance to back. Watch this space 👀