The article explores the disconnect between AI developers, who are enthusiastic about capabilities, and end users, who prioritize practical, reliable solutions that reduce daily friction. The author learns to value user yawns over applause, as they signal genuine long-term adoption.
I was at a founder meetup in California last month where a guy demoed an agent that researched a company, wrote the outreach email and scheduled the follow ups on its own and the room reacted like someone had scored in a world cup final. People were filming it on their phones, the guy next to me whispered that this changes everything and I nodded along because on most days I’m one of these people too. Some context first... I have been building products for 8 years, mostly automation for small businesses these days which means I spend half my week around the people building this technology and the other half around the people its supposedly being built for. The temperature difference between those two rooms is the strangest thing in this entire industry. 3 days later I sat with a client, a man running a trading business doing 40-50 orders a day and showed him roughly the same capability that had the California room losing its mind. He watched the whole demo politely, asked whether his staff would have to learn anything new, asked what happens when it makes a mistake and then asked if it could send the payment reminders his accountant keeps forgetting because that alone was costing him real money every month. The part I was excited about barely registered and the most boring feature in the whole build was the one that made him sit forward in his chair. Tbh my first thought was the mildly arrogant one every builder has, that this man simply doesn’t get it yet… give it a year. I held that for the whole drive home and then it curdled on me because back in early 2023 I built a chat assistant I was completely in love with, toured it to 6 or 7 clients expecting applause, got the same polite nodding and decided back then too that the clients were the problem. Two years apart, same movie, I am the only recurring character in it. What took me quite long to see is that builders get excited by capability, by what the thing CAN do because we can feel all the invisible work underneath it. A user only feels whether Tuesday got a little less annoying and no demo on earth transfers that feeling, you only get it by living with the thing for 3 weeks. When users are actually happy they just go quiet. No one stands up and applauds their washing machine but they notice it the day it stops and if your users post about your product with the same energy you do then most of them are probably other builders. These days I demo and watch for the yawn. I have learned to discount the wow, it mostly means there is another enthusiast in the room. But a yawn followed by "so it just does this by itself every day?" means someone is about to pay me, and bro that person will still be using the thing long after everyone filming demos has moved on to the next launch video.
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