Darwin's Finches
A tool for every niche
What Building Products Looks Like in the Age of AI
I spend a lot of time reading about and testing different AI tools, and I’m not even close to where I want to be. To be honest, the image and video generators are a lot more fun than the product design tools. If you’re a product designer, you will find this really insightful.
In the past 12 months, I’ve experimented with different approaches and tested out more than 30 tools to help improve my research, design, and product development process. In this article, I’ll share everything I’ve tried and how AI tools can be integrated into our workflow to help you 10x your process.
And Something for UX Research
TLDR: This is the year that AI has taken over UX. In this article, I explain why and give an update on my method of using AI for UX research, focussing on how ChatGPT’s Deep Research functionality can enable a significant acceleration of qualitative research analysis.
Darwin’s Finches and the AI Tool Ecosystem
Andreesen Horowitz has an excellent report on the specialization of generative AI tool platforms.
We believe the same thing is happening now in the world of app generation, tools that help you build full apps with AI. It’s easy to get caught up in the drama — Lovable vs. Replit vs. Bolt, and so on. But the truth is, this isn’t winner-take-all. The market is massive and getting bigger, with space for multiple breakout companies, each carving out its own niche.
July 2025 Generative AI Intelligence Report
I’ve been using a lot of superlatives in the last month as I tried to describe the change in pace of new products being released. It was all happening so quickly that I never had a chance to put it all in one place. Thankfully, the Commander International Marketing Agency has compiled all the breakthroughs that happened in July.
Mastering VEO 3
True confession, I am a lazy prompter. I get a brief impulse, and I just start prompting and re-prompting until I get something cool. This is really wasteful (time and natural resources), and I should really switch over to a more methodical approach. I’ve been wanting to do a deeper dive into Google’s Veo3, but it’s expensive and I’m undisciplined. However, I just found the goldmine of prompting instructions from Miguel Ivanov that brings everything into focus. If you’re an AI filmmaker and using Google VEO, this is a long read but totally worth it.
Quick Links
Microsoft Copilot now has image to 3D. This makes me wonder, how adolescents will use it? If this becomes as ubiquitous as MS Paint, will we see a wave of creative expression? Or, will nobody bother to learn 3D now?
Minimax has a new music generator, and at first glance, the quality is excellent
Qwen is a new Large Language Model from China with superior image generation
NASA and Google are building an AI medical assistant to keep astronauts healthy
Last week I wrote about David Bauer’s ‘Priority Canvas’; some of his other projects
You can still sign up for my free class. “Vibe Coding for Designers and Project Managers”. Today at 10 AM
That’s a wrap! I hope yourMonday is off to a great start and you’re learning new things. Send me a message, ask me a question, tell a friend,
or buy me a coffee 🤎ྀིྀི ☕︎ ᝰ.ᐟ