the most successful products don’t just solve problems. they make users feel powerful. not powerful in the abstract sense of capability or efficiency, but powerful in the immediate way that comes from having exactly the right tool for the job at exactly the right moment.
this is why consumer ai is such a minefield right now.
the complexity trap is obvious enough. but the simplicity trap is more insidious because it feels like good design. we’ve been trained to worship at the altar of minimalism, to believe that fewer buttons always equals better experience. so we build ai products that are clean, approachable, and ultimately frustrating. the tool that promised to augment their capabilities instead reminds them of their limitations.
the sweet spot isn’t about finding the perfect balance between these extremes. it’s about understanding that power isn’t a feature you add or subtract. it’s a feeling that emerges from the relationship between what users want to accomplish and what the tool lets them accomplish.
think about the products that actually make people feel powerful. excel doesn’t hide its complexity behind minimalist interfaces. it puts an enormous amount of capability right there on the surface, but it also lets you ignore 90% of it while you’re doing simple addition. the power is available when you need it and invisible when you don’t. you never feel like the tool is making decisions for you that you’d rather make yourself.
or take something like figma. it’s incredibly sophisticated under the hood, but the core interaction is intuitive: click, drag, type, repeat. the complexity lives in service of the user’s intent rather than demanding attention for its own sake. you can make a basic rectangle in thirty seconds or spend three hours perfecting a design system. the tool scales with your ambition rather than getting in its way.
the companies that figure this out first will build moats that matter. because once users feel genuinely powerful with your product, they don’t switch. they become evangelists. they expand their usage. they tolerate occasional bugs because the core relationship still serves them.
the winners will be the products that make users feel like they’re the ones doing the work, not the ai. the tool should feel like an extension of the user’s intent, not a replacement for it. it should amplify human capability rather than abstract it away.
this isn’t about making ai invisible or making ai obvious. it’s about making ai useful in a way that preserves and enhances the user’s sense of agency. the moment someone feels like they’re fighting the tool or being diminished by it, you’ve lost them.
power is personal. it’s contextual. it’s emotional. and it’s the only thing that actually matters for consumer ai adoption at scale.