If Your Product is Not Thinking, It is Dying

The definition of a “good product” has officially been updated. For decades, “good” meant intuitive UX, clean visuals, a clear user journey, and thoughtful performance. Build it well, make it pretty, throw in a wow moment—and you have a product. You had praise. You had users.

Then ChatGPT happened. Suddenly, everything that made software feel “well-designed” became optional. The model could solve your problem before you even finish describing it. Didn’t matter if the app was ugly. Did not matter if there were too many buttons. One prompt in a text box, and it did more than most software teams ship in six sprints.

The experience? Raw, even awkward. But the result? Ten times faster, more flexible, and personalized. This was not an improvement. It was a reset.

And now the game has changed—permanently.

The want is not a fancy UI anymore, it is capability, context. Intelligence—that is the new gold. Today, “good product” means zero-friction, high-context, self-evolving systems that do the thinking for you. Not assist you—replace you. If your app does not adapt, remember, and reason, it is disposable. If it is static, it is dead.

And no, it is not just about bolting an LLM into an old workflow and calling it innovation. That is lipstick on a corpse. We are talking about software that anticipates, reconfigures, and gets better the more it is used. Products that eliminate onboarding, documentation, and training because they simply understand what the user wants.

Microsoft Saw It First—and Let It Slip

To be fair, Microsoft was early. Copilot, GitHub’s LLM integrations, AI in Office—these were bold, foundational moves. But they buried the story in enterprise bundles and compliance decks. They built the future, but sold it like a feature.

They had the edge—and missed the narrative. They were too early, too safe. Then OpenAI broke out. The world finally saw what was possible.

Apple Got the Timing Right—and the Packaging Perfect

Now Apple is entering with Liquid Glass. Ignore the headlines—focus on what it means. Liquid Glass is not just an AR surface or a sci-fi display. It is Apple’s answer to a future where intelligence is the interface. You do not tap, click, or swipe. You speak, you glance, you intend—and the system adapts.

This is Apple doing what it always does: Not inventing, but defining.

They are late, but they are clean. They are framing the future of interaction not around screens, but around fluid cognition. A product where the line between human and system disappears into glass.

They are telling the world: The UI is no longer the product. The intelligence is.

Our Bet: Intelligence-First Products Win

This is what the industry craves now:

• Products where the core loop is adaptive reasoning, not static flows
• Interfaces that disappear when you don’t need them
• Founders who think like systems designers, not UI artists
• Teams that build with memory, context, and user evolution baked into day one

The world is done with “delightful onboarding” and “beautiful dashboards.” Those belong to a world before ChatGPT. Before Liquid Glass. Before, users expected the software to just work.

So if you are building today and still thinking like it is 2019, do yourself a favor: Rethink everything.

Because “good” just got rewritten. And if your product doesn’t feel alive, it’s already irrelevant. No flashy pitch deck will fill the gap. The demand is now for a working prototype that drips potential from day one.