What AI Changes

Key Takeaways

• AI rarely creates new problems — it exposes the ones a team already had, like no automated testing or no clear process.
• Frameworks like Scrum may fade, but the work they stand for — planning, aligning, reviewing, measuring — doesn’t go anywhere.
• Building with agents needs more coordination, not less: plans, loops, and graphs are just rituals and ceremonies by another name.
• Story-based interviewing was never about your product — it’s about the customer’s real past experiences, which AI doesn’t change.
• “Delivery is free, so skip discovery” leaves you unable to learn why something failed — it’s just spaghetti at the wall.
• AI isn’t killing SaaS. Losing focus on your core product (Airtable) and raising too much VC (Miro) are self-inflicted wounds.
• “One winner takes the whole market” is mostly a VC story — and chasing it actually lowers a company’s odds of success.
• What genuinely shifts: hyper-personalization, with providers (like Notion’s building blocks) letting customers mix and match.

Notable Moments

• 🗣️ “Maybe AI is exposing what was already broken.” — Teresa
• 🗣️ “How do you even work with other people if you’re not having a conversation about who’s doing what by when?” — Teresa
• 🗣️ “Story-based interviewing was never ‘tell me about my product.’ It’s about the customer.” — Teresa
• 🗣️ “AI didn’t kill Airtable. The Airtable team getting distracted from their core value killed Airtable.” — Teresa
• 🗣️ “Get your processes in order, get your rhythms in order, have your rituals still going.” — Petra

Resources & Links:

• Follow Teresa Torres: https://ProductTalk.org
• Follow Petra Wille: https://Petra-Wille.com

Mentioned in this episode:

• Teresa’s LinkedIn post on what AI hasn’t changed — the “screed” that sparked this episode
• Two recent episodes referenced: Defining What Good Looks Like - All Things Product Podcast with Teresa Torres & Petra Wille and Product Work Is Relationship Work - All Things Product Podcast with Teresa Torres & Petra Wille (the one on improving working relationships and efficiency)
• Arne Kittler, co-founder of Product at Heart
• Story-Based Customer Interviews Uncover Much-Needed Context by Teresa
• Teresa’s LinkedIn post arguing AI isn’t killing SaaS (the Airtable story)
• Julie Zhuo — her newsletter The Looking Glass, and its essay “How to Stop Complaining About Your Software,” on the era of digital hyperpersonalization
• Companies discussed: Airtable, Replit, Miro, and Bending Spoons — plus Coda, Smartsheet, Mural, FigJam, Jamboard, and Notion (the building-block model)
• Tools: Harvest (the invoicing tool Petra left), and the custom CRM/invoicing setup she built with Claude Code