AI · 8 min read
A practical framework for deciding which AI features are actually worth building.
The one-sentence test
Every roadmap review this year has at least one 'add AI to this' line item. Most of them shouldn't ship. The question that actually matters isn't 'can we add AI here' — it's 'does this feature remove real friction, or does it just look impressive in a demo.'
A useful filter: if you can't explain the AI feature's value in one sentence without using the word 'AI', it's probably not solving a real problem yet.
A simple scoring filter
function isWorthBuilding(feature) {
return (
feature.removesRealFriction &&
feature.failureModeIsGraceful &&
feature.explainableInOneSentence
);
}What actually sticks
The features that actually stick tend to be boring: auto-filling a form field correctly, summarizing a long document a user was going to skim anyway, catching an error before submission. None of that trends on social media, and all of it gets used every day.
We apply the same filter to our own delivery tooling before it ships to clients — every AI-assisted step in our process has to survive the same three-question test.
FAQ
Common questions
2 questions found
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Written by Priya Nair