Portfolio · NotesWhere an assistant creates more work
Use AI where it helps people solve the task.
Some tasks are just easier with a regular interface, both for the user and for the product team. In the rush to add AI, we need to keep some common sense and use it where it actually helps.
For me, the test is fairly simple: if AI can use additional context to produce a better result in a non-deterministic scenario than we could get without it, fine—let’s build it. I recently went through scenarios across Sber’s ecosystem, working out what should go into the assistant and what we should leave alone. I ended up with 35–45% of the apps’ core scenarios at best.
That makes you realise how easily the excitement gets in the way. AI doesn’t belong in every scenario, let alone every user’s workflow. And I’m not trying to sound like a Luddite: AI is great, and it helps me a hell of a lot in my work. But the customer doesn’t care which model we used or how much power we burned to get an answer. They care whether we solved the problem they came to us with. We shouldn’t forget that.