Sarah closed her laptop after another marathon day of back-to-back meetings. She glanced at her phone and smiled, a notification from Granola had already transformed her scattered notes from six different calls into beautifully organized summaries. No awkward meeting bots had invaded her calls. No clunky interfaces demanded her attention. The AI had simply worked. Invisibly. Perfectly. This moment captures something profound happening in product design right now: the rise of invisible AI that augments rather than replaces human intelligence.
Imagine you're working in a three-person team on a challenging bridge design project. Every decision about every truss is critical in the iterative design process. You have a good idea for the next design move to optimise the strength-to-weight ratio for a given truss. You state your case, and two of your teammates disagree, so you're outvoted. Now imagine that both of those teammates were artificial intelligence (AI) agents that overruled you.
Sometimes it seems the most direct route is to automate wherever possible, and to keep iterating until we get it right. Here's why that would be a mistake: imperfect automation is not a first step toward perfect automation, anymore than jumping halfway across a canyon is a first step toward jumping the full distance. Recognizing that the rim is out of reach, we may find better alternatives to leaping-for example, building a bridge, hiking the trail, or driving around the perimeter.
Our support teams are able to focus on more complex customer questions. These are engagements that really require human judgment, creativity, empathy—all things that AI can't do.
Rather than attempting to overhaul your marketing immediately, pick one specific challenge - maybe try creating targeted ad variations or automating repetitive tasks - and test AI-driven solutions there.