2 things AI cannot do in product development
The Jobs To Be Done framework states that people ‘hire’ products to complete a ‘job’. It makes you concentrate on the outcome the user is looking for, not trying to sell them features.
People don’t want quarter-inch drill bits. They want quarter-inch holes
This framework asks you to fully understand the wants of a customer when hiring a product, these can be broken down into 3 categories:
Functional (AI ✅)
This is the most obvious, for example a car can get you from A to B, you need a suit to wear to work. AI can help design and optimise for core functions of a product.
Social (AI ❌)
This is the first that AI will not be able to help with. This is how hiring a product to do a job makes you look in society (external - how others feel). This is what driving a luxury car does, or wearing an expensive suit does. It gives off signals to society that the person hiring the product wants - signals of success.
Emotional (AI ❌)
This is the second piece of the puzzle AI will not be able to help you with. The emotional job of a product is how it makes the person using it feel, whilst they are using it (internal - how you feel). Wearing an expensive suit makes you feel confident, as does driving a luxury car.
The final two jobs that products need to deliver on are very human traits, they are not simply ‘can it do a thing’ or ‘how fast can it do a thing’ but reveal the emotions people want whilst using the product. During product research these are very difficult to discover, innovation companies usually hire anthropologists to help uncover them.