Your product probably doesn't need AI. It needs the search bar to work.

Massive pressure right now to add AI to everything. Investors ask about your AI strategy, prospects mention it, competitors plaster "AI-powered" everywhere.

But most SaaS products I use daily have basic problems that have nothing to do with AI. Search that doesn't find anything. Onboarding that confuses new users. Exports that break formatting. Loading times that make you wonder if something crashed. These aren't exciting problems and nobody writes blog posts about fixing search, but they determine whether someone sticks around past the first week.

We spent this quarter on boring infrastructure instead of AI features. Faster loads, better search, simplified settings, smoother onboarding. Nothing marketable or press-worthy. Usage metrics went up across the board, not because we added capability but because we reduced friction on the capability already there. I think there'll be a point where AI features become essential but we're not there yet for most products. Right now the biggest opportunity is making what you already have actually work well.