When almost anyone can build anything, deciding what to build becomes even more important.
On 14 October, I moderated a panel on “The Future of Product & AI” at Data & AI Stockholm Summit, together with Jonas Björk, Head of Data at Lovable, Ekaterina Garbaruk Monnot, Studio Lead at Spotify, and Erik Nielsen, Principal Designer at Simployer.
We discussed product teams of today, the skills they need, and what changes when a prototype can be created in minutes. We also explored how product teams, domain experts and AI agents can work together, bringing more people into the process of turning an idea into something useful.
Experimenting with AI is exciting. But moving from fun AI add-ons to real business value still requires a clear goal. Understanding your customers and their needs should guide the way, even when the tools make it tempting to keep adding features. Building “better, not more” becomes an important principle.
The discussion also touched on personalization. How much freedom should users have to customize their experience? What happens when they can co-create by vibe coding alongside the product team?
And speaking of users: will they still interact directly with software in the future, or will agents increasingly do it for them? Perhaps we will spend less time navigating different apps and more time simply describing what we want to achieve.
If so, will the user interface still matter in two years’ time?
Ekaterina and Erik think yes. Jonas thinks no.
Unfortunately, 45 minutes fly by when the discussion is good. A deeper conversation about how we will interact with products in the coming years will have to wait until next time.
A big thank you to Jonas, Ekaterina and Erik for a great conversation, and to Vanessa Anna-Maria Andersson, Danel Arismendez Murillo and the whole DAIS team for an inspiring day.
I learned a lot. What more could you really ask for?
